Dianna Hardy

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#1 rel="nofollow" target="_top">Blood Shadow - ★★★



Blood Shadow (Blood Never Lies #1) is a companion novel for An Eye of The Storm Series.

Blood Shadow can be read without reading the previous books. At the beginning, the author has included a recap of everything you need to know about the main character, before you start reading this book.

Blood Shadow was an interesting read, that is for certain. At the beginning I felt a bit lost in time and it took me awhile to understand what is going on, despite the recap that was provided by the author.

A woman wakes up in a hospital and can't remember anything. Some anonymous person saved her life and gives her the name Jennifer, alongside with a whole new life.

She knows her real name is Selena. She also knows she was a werewolf but is not anymore. It seems she is human now, because her wounds are not healing as they usually would. Selena/Jennifer also remembers all the sexual abuse she went through before. Being tortured and raped and even persuaded to kill her brother. It feels like that was a lifetime ago.

And now, five years after her new life begun, she lives quietly and has a normal job and a boyfriend. The only thing that reminds her of her werewolf days are the sweaty nightmares. And now Jennifer has received a new note - on of those that her anonymous friend leaves for her now and then, advising her when she is in danger. But this time, the note says something different: a Supermoon is coming, and with that, a total lunar eclipse.

This is the moment when things start to get confusing for me. There is an anonymous person, he sends her notes that have saved her life, he is always watching her, and now they need to meet, because she is in big danger and he has a secret to tell her. But he also doesn't want to reveal his true identity yet.

[SPOILER ALERT]

Long story short, he is one of the people that were there during her sexual abuse period. And he didn't do anything to help save her. Also, it turns out that she is also a mermaid, which is why she is able to do some things, but also doesn't have full powers.

And things keep being more and more confusing. From a werewolf story, we jump onto mermaids. The title also made me think that vampires bight be involved, which isn't the case. And we also might see dragons in the next book. I am not against having all these fantasy creatures into one place, but I felt that it needed to be explained better.

I felt for the girl - it must be extremely hard to live with such past and then to also have to constantly be hiding and never be truly happy. She tried to live a normal life as well, but just ended up hurting the people around her.

I am not sure that I connected enough with this book. The ending wasn't a conclusive one - it seemed as if it only was an opening for yet another book of the many. It didn't feel like any of the characters grew or learned from their past actions, which was slightly disappointing.

It is a nice chill book to read in your spare time, if you like these types of books. But it is nothing out of the ordinary. I don't believe I will remember how it ended or what it was about in a few months.

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I am bummed. This was a free ebook (limited time offer ends in November) that caught my eye. I even came here to GoodReads to check reviews and found it had an average 4.5 stars. I should know better than to trust a high review rating, since they've burned me in the past. The book cover should have been a tip off too, but I was blinded by the price and hope. My mistake.

I was really in the mood for a witch story with magic and mystery. What I got was a hodgepodge of paranormal cliches framed around a big-ol'
Elena is supposed to be a twenty five year old, but the only proof we have of her age is from her stating it in the narrative. Her behavior and even the tone of the story reads like a teenager (or younger). Many of her actions do not make sense and are not explained. For example, in the throw away first scene of the book, where she attends a meeting of Wiccians and internally makes fun of them because she's a 'real witch.' While I did find the scene funny it seemed to served no other purpose other than to establish Elena was so much cooler than the other witches, which quickly started me on the path to not liking her.

Then there's her idiotic choice to pick up and use a mysterious pen that just happens to find right at the exact moment she needs something to write. When she discovers that anything she writes about with the pen comes true does she research it or ask for help from her witch mother to find out why it does this? Nope. She just keeps on using it for petty, self serving purposes. *facepalm*

Then we meet Karl (who feels a lot like Xander Harris from Buffy) her love interest who appears to have no other purpose or occupation in life other than that. This poor characters only distinguishing characteristics seem to be his eyes, hair and that he is utterly dedicated to a girl who gives him nothing in return. He has been Elena's best friend for years and obviously loves her, but they can have a real relationship because (drum roll for huge plot device) whoever Elena has sex with will gain her powers.

At first this twist seemed interesting and cool, but as I read through the story and became increasingly bored I began to wonder. Was it only intercourse that cause her to lose her power. What about oral sex or a hand job? Why does no sex mean that Elena can't have a fulfilling emotional relationship with a man? Does it only apply to men? Could she have save non-magic transferring sex with other women?

If I were Karl I'd been frustrated as hell by being stalled in the friend zone for TEN YEARS. Not to mention, I would have been asking a lot of those questions and not just accepting the no-sex, let's be co-dependent best friends forever offer. This is not the only aspect of the story that didn't make sense or was poorly explained. You can read my status updates to see a list of them.

Let's move on to the mysterious demon who begins to posses Elena's dreams. Whoa baby. There's a good way to do this and a bad one, we landed on the clumsy as fuck side of that line.

First, the demon is described as having green eyes and stone-like skin. *blinks* I'll give points for the stone skin appearing to be cracked and feeling leathery to the touch, but still one cannot help but draw a direct line to Twilight. Especially when this creeper demon watches Elena sleep. *sigh*

Second, Elena is supposed to be the most powerful witch the world and the only option her mother gives her to help ward off her demon molester is "try to fight him I guess." That's it? Really?

I mean, I know that the demon continuing to violate I mean seduce her in her dreams is a huge part of the story and it has to keep going on for the plot to progress, but it makes NO SENSE that nothing can be done. But all options are cut off in the most non-sensical scene between Karl, Elena and her mother who seems to serve no purpose other to be the cause of everything that is wrong in Elena's issues.

Mommy issues, table of one!

I think this was the hardest part of the story for me to deal with and pushed me to flounce. It is deeply troubling to create a fictional situation that is a kind of symbolic rape and give your extremely powerful female protagonist no other option other than to close her eyes and take it, while hoping it will eventually get better.

Now, I don't believe that was the intended message, but it's what is happening to Elena and it made me sick to my stomach.

This story might be entertaining to someone who can look past the gramatical errors (of which there are many) and the...excessive...use...of...ellipses, but it was a glaring indication to me that the author either didn't use an editor or didn't use a very good one.

The story exists in a vacuum, with little to no explanation of the world and magic that is the foundation of the story. Given, I only made it 21% into the story, but I expect to at least know some basic details about the world by that point. What we learned were snatches of details that are not explained and often didn't fit with what we'd already been shown.

Add in the two dimensional characters who make illogical choices to simply drive the plot forward and you've got a recipe for frustration.
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