Shadow Fire is the 7th Shadow Riders urban fantasy series novel by Christine Feehan. Released 26th April 2022 by Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 416 pages and is available in mass market paperback, audio, and ebook formats. Large print library edition due out in July.
This is .entirely. character driven and has a huge cast of continuing characters. This isn't (necessarily) a bad thing, but it is a definite feature. It's a series novel in a series whose purpose is chiefly continuing character development and mapping out their relationships and interactions. Readers will be frustrated and lost if they try to jump into the series with this book and I would strongly recommend picking up at least a few of the earlier books to get a feel for the world building and background scaffolding as well as helping keep the characters straight.
The writing is competent, if overwrought in places. For fans of paranormal romance erotica, this book will likely tick a lot of boxes. There's kink and exhibitionism, consensual BDSM, and explicit sexual content. There are also some potentially problematic/triggering contents including child abuse and human trafficking (on the part of the bad guys who are blissfully free of any redeeming qualities). I tend to roll my eyes whenever authors write the word "mate" with a straight face regarding human interactions, and that style of writing is prevalent here.
Four stars. I would recommend this one to fans of paranormal erotica who want more than a blind nod to plotting and story arcs; it really is well written (as the author's extensive sales attribute). It's not Anaïs Nin, but it's not bad - just not as a standalone, unless the reader only wants to flip through to find the NSFW bits. It could be problematic for school library acquisition, especially given the censorship problems in much of the world today, but shouldn't be an issue for most public libraries. For firm fans of the series/author, this is more of the same primarily featuring the character of bad boy (jerk) Elie Archambault.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment