Review: A short story about Shade, the shadow demon
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2013
This fascinating short story provides fans of the Demon Underground series with a chance to enter the point of view of Shade, the beautiful, sad shadow demon who has been the romantic interest of the series' heroine, Val, for three of the four books so far.Shade is 16 at the time of this story, four years before the events of the first four books, in which Val is 18 and Shade is 20.At the time of this story, Shade is known by his birth name, Shawn. He is living with his father and his twin sister Sharra. His father's nickname for Shawn is "Shadow Boy," and Sharra is his "Sunshine Girl," so called because of Shawn/Shade's melancholic nature and Sharra's sanguine disposition.Their father is one-fourth shadow demon and the siblings are one-fourth shadow demon. A distinguishing trait of the shadow demon's appearance is swirling energy clouds obscures that their face. It only becomes visible if a non-shadow demon touches them, and ever since their mother ran off a while back, none of them have been able to see each other's faces.Shade/Shawn and his family have always lived an isolated life because of their inability to blend in with regular humans, but since their mother left, life has been horribly lonely. Shade/Shawn is depressed and angry, and finally one day he can't take it anymore. He confronts his father, and their argument releasea his and his father's powers in a way that brings down disaster on their family.Shade is one of my favorite characters in this exciting YA, urban-fantasy series, and Parker Blue has offered in this story a terrific opportunity to get to know him more deeply. His is a very tragic family history, and this story deepens even further my interest in Shade and his further adventures in this wonderful series.These are the books so far in this series, with Forget You listed first because it is a prequel:Forget You (Demon Underground Series, prequel)Bite Me (Demon Underground, #1)Try Me (Demon Underground, #2)Fang Me (Demon Underground, #3)Make Me (Demon Underground, #4)I rate this story as follows:Hero: 5 starsSubcharacters: 5 starsUrban Fantasy Plot: 5 starsFantasy World-Building: 5 starsWriting: 5 starsOverall: 5 stars