Review: Wonderfully Woven Web of a tale!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 6, 2013
Readers of the Araneae Nation series won't want to miss this action-packed novella, set after A Feast of Souls, the second title in the series.  Brynmor, former leader of Cathis and father to Vaughn, is runing with the canis.  He lives with them.  They are now his family.  We also are lucky enough to meet Daraja, an independent woman looking for what is clearly going to define who she is, upon return to her village.Every story has a conflict.  That's what makes us, as readers, invested in the plot.  I struggled a little with figuring out the main conflict in A Cast of Shadows.  Once I decided to step back and read this little 100-ish page novella for the entertainment value, and for furthering my knowledge of the Araneae, all was good.  There's enough conflict in this novella that I'm hoping some will bleed into the next novel.Daraja was on a journey that many of her clanswomen before her had taken down the river.  She was looking for one of those defining moments.  The clarity of what her future would be.  I'm not going to mince words here.  I really don't like the fact that women are expected to be married or contributing to the family in order to be valued.  However, Ms. Edwards has established in her other novels that women ARE valued, and they don't necessarily need to be connected to a man.  This is probably a tribal thing, and doesn't color my love for this series.  If you're jumping in at this novella, however, keep in mind that this is **really** isolated.Brynmor seems to be searching for some sort of defining moment for himself as well.  Even though we have no idea how long he's been soul-bound (I think that crosses to a different series...) to Errol, a canis that leads the pack in the woods outside Cathis, Brynmor seems to be searching, and not completely satisfied with his 'life' as it currently stands.  Enter Daraja.  Without spoiling the story, let me just say that Brynmor starts off as the creepy stalker dude, but winds up the epic hero.I think that anyone that's a fan of Hailey Edwards' Araneae Nation series will enjoy this explanation of what happened to Vaughn's father, Brynmor.  It really does a fabulous job with filling-in that blank, without having a completely disconnected side plot in a longer novel.  I'm glad Brynmor's story has been told, and I'm excited for the release of A Time of Dying, the third novel in this series, in July 2013!***I received a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review***