Review: Great worldbuilding
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 30, 2013
PRINCE OF SHADOWS has lots of potential, but for me, the execution fell flat.With Kendra's hand came the crown, and she has to choose wisely among the unmated princes the one who would be worthy of her. In truth, she is stalling for time until her cousins can come rescue her...The opening drew me right into the story, and I felt empathy for the little boy that Cale was, and I couldn't help but want to know more about what would happen next. The grown-up Cale was an attractive, all-hard body Alpha male, with controlled restraint and seething frustration beneath the surface. All he has endured, all he has sacrificed is culminating soon in the reward that he hoped would soon be his. But about a third of the way in, everything unravelled for me.First of all, I have to say Cale's characterization was great. Despite the in-fighting within their ranks, Cale taught his younger brothers how to fight, to give them a chance for survival. In their competition for Kendra's hand, he even gave one of them a tip. I thought that was big of him and spoke of his innate humanity. And the things he endured... Maybe because he was the runt of the litter, he had to do more, to train more, to be more, in order to even have a chance to win over his brothers. It spoke of an admirable tenacity not to let his "defects" be an excuse for failure. I was absolutely rooting for Cale all the way.Now, Kendra somehow became the "prize" for the unmated princes. Whoever won her would also win the crown. Fine, I accepted it at face value initially, but as I read on, I begin to wonder: What made her so special? Why give her the choice at all? It could be argued that her father was well-loved by the clan, but her father was gone and she herself didn't have any allies among their people. What can she bring to the marriage? Nothing, as far as I could see (this is not counting her connections to the MacCreedy and their alliances, which I'm sure wasn't taken into account by the king at that point anyway). So, why didn't the king just decree for her to marry one of his sons? Since he's such a tyrant, that would be more in keeping with his character.Hence, Kendra didn't make sense to me. Moreover, I don't see what Cale could've seen in her to love her that much. All he had was a childhood "love" that magically became a grown-up "love" now that they were older. People change as they grow, and considering they didn't spend time with each other for eighteen years, and they didn't really talk much now, I had a hard time believing in their "love".I'm not sure if I missed things--significant things--because I picked up this book in the middle of the series. Certainly, there were references to past events (specifically, Cale's past altercation with Kendra's cousin Silas, and Kendra's family's situation) that would've been clearer if I'd read about them.That said, the world building was great, with a shifter world fully realized and integrated into the human community. The pace of the story was just right, but the dialogue between Cale and Kendra could've been better. As this is book 8 in the series, new readers should probably not start here.Reviewed by Ashiafor TheRomanceReviews.com