Shadows Review from Talking Supe!

I really appreciate the time Cimmaron and Braine spent on the review. Their website is awesome, professional, and their kindness toward an indie author has blown me away. Here’s the review of Shadows:

Maybe it’s just me and my limited art expertise but looking at the original cover (the one on the giveaway teaser announcement), I didn’t really think much about about the story behind it. I thought it was one of those wannabe novels, jumping on some bandwagon or something.
And again, much to my chagrin, I get another hard lesson on not judging a book by its cover.

Because Shadows was BRILLIANT!

Shadows is a YA science fiction novel about the Luminos and Nathos, their cast-off relations, the Duskies and the savage Sathens. Like most epic stories, the story starts in the cusp of a big change and an impending war.

And that’s when we are introduced to Nexa. A Duskie living in the Firen Caves, her face is divided into light and dark like two halves of Luminos and Nathos put together, with magnificent swirls twirling her skin. Duskies are treated like second-class citizens and have proved to be untrustworthy because they haven’t pledge alliance by the two races that cast them off. Nexa was a captive in the Caves until the valiant Luminos Prince Axon rescued her. The attraction was immediate and even if I’m no longer a teen, there is a quiet passion that runs between these two that made me giddy with excitement.

Nexa, you are beautiful, and different and amazing. Never, ever be ashamed of how you look, and never let anyone tell you that you are inferior.
If you were Nexa, wouldn’t you feel like you’re the most beautiful in the world after a PRINCE tells you that?! And this is just the beginning, their courtship is every teen’s dream and will be approved by any parent. It’s chaste, enduring and they are devoted to each other plus there’s that hint of a forbidden love. Although I was hoping, and I told Cheree about this, that there was more drama on this part, a Prince falling in love with a Duskie, the politics, implications and the like. I would’ve loved to see Prince Axon fight for Nexa.

But then again, Nexa proved herself worthy of Axon’s love as apparently she’s the one prophesied long ago

that a Duskie with royal blood will lead the races to defeat the Sathen, and that [s]he’ll be stronger than both the Nathos and the Luminos at their full strength
Don’t you just love old and wizened people making predictions of epic proportions?

Like Galdoni, Nexa’s story is about learning self-worth and self-love. Going up against the caste system and asserting one’s worth. Embracing their uniqueness and turning it into their greatest strength instead of a paralyzing weakness.

Shadows is a fantastic fairy tale and I guarantee that this is NOT a bandwagon tale.