ARC Review: To Kill a Shadow (Mistlands #1) by Katherine Quinn

 

Jude Maddox knows nothing of love or even light. He knows only his grim duty as the Hand of Death, to lead the Knights of the Eternal Star into a land filled with nightmares and certain demise. It’s only when he sees her ―a young woman with wild, amber eyes who’s as fierce, defiant, and swift as the shadow beasts themselves―that he feels the warmth of life in his blood…

The other Knights may fear their lethal commander, with his hard, merciless demeanor. Outcast Kiara Frey sees only a leader, a man who knows how to survive. Someone like her . But wanting him is as treacherous as the shadows themselves…and just as seductive.

With a kingdom on the verge of collapse, the Knights must now venture into the darkest heart of the land and uncover the secrets of the misted shadows, where evil will prey upon their minds and feast on their flesh.

It will betray their senses.
It will surpass their nightmares.
Most of them will die.

But they have no other choice. Because the only way to fight the darkness… is to become it.

Title: To Kill a Shadow (Mistlands #1)

Author: Katherine Quinn

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Expected Publication Date: 11/28/23

Review:

I would like to thank Entangled Teen and NetGalley for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

The Hand of Death? Knights? Shadows? Monsters? Sign me up!

I was drawn to this book because of the cover. Can we just talk about how beautifully gorgeous it is? Did I initially want to judge this book by it's cover? I sure did. But then I read the blurb and it sounded like it would be totally interesting. I was ready for a broody knight who would be worn down by a girl whose power he could not even imagine. 

Quinn is a new author to me so I'll start by talking about the writing. My only way to describe it is mediocre. It wasn't horrible, but it was honed. I noticed a lot of repetitive words, even in sentences strung together immediately. It frustrated me a bit. But I pushed on because I wanted to read the story and see where it went.

I'd say the pacing for this book is medium to slow. I wanted to action to really pop and move me through the book, but it just didn't do that. I actually found myself putting the book down. I even read a few other books in between as that sometimes helps me refocus. But it didn't speed the pace for me at all. The plot seemed to be all over the place. I could see there was some big secret that would be revealed at some point right away when the MFC has a moment in a cave, but then  this theme was dropped for a long time before the author circled back to it. If you're going to introduce a theme and want it to be a great reveal at the end, you really need to be consistent with incorporating that into the book throughout.  

World building, I cannot for the life of me tell you anything about this world other than there's a kingdom, they are fighting to get the light back into their world, and there's a realm where there are monsters. The world is dark and it seems it was meant to be a bit terrifying. At the beginning of each chapter there is a quote related to the lore or a missive meant to give us background. I know these quotes are there to help the world building but there was so much mystery to them, I really didn't see it happening. Plus, I feel like this particular writing technique has been used recently in other fantasy stories (particularly by this publisher) with much better results.

Let's talk about those characters. I didn't really connect with any of them. Especially the FMC, Kiara, and MMC, Jude, who were narrating the book. I usually enjoy dual POV, though I feel like third person works much better for fantasy. But if done right, you can certainly see the characters grow and develop and watch their arc. I didn't get that here. I did enjoy a few of the side characters. I would have liked to see more background earlier on. Things are kept so mysterious until the end it was really hard to have any empathy for the characters.. The MMC's partial background we get shows him as a tragic figure marred by what he has experienced. I feel like what is in his past would make him less likely to trust people or have him putting walls up. I do see it a bit but not enough to truly be part of his arc. I was happy the author attempted to build a strong FMC. One who also has tragedy in her past but chose to become strong and resilient despite her past. The insta-attraction/love really bothered me. The pair were essentially the enemies to lovers trope, but they never truly went through the enemy phase.. Once they were in each others presence consistently very close to the beginning of the book, it was obvious they were attracted to each other and would be together. But the tension and the building of the relationship just was not there.

The ending is not a cliff hanger, per se, but is does build onto at least a sequel if not more books for this series. I'm not sure if I will pick up the next book or not but I might be willing to give it a try if I knew there was some growth in the author's writing within the pages.

Overall the story was good but not great. I just felt way too much was lacking in how the world was built, the importance of the lore we learn at the beginning of the chapters, and what it all meant. 

Author:

Katherine Quinn is a fantasy romance author and poet. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in psychology. She resides in Houston, Texas with her husband and three children.

Her love for writing began after she read her first fantasy series, Song of the Lioness, by Tamora Pierce. After that, she wanted nothing more than to be a dagger-wielding heroine. Unfortunately, it’s frowned upon to give a child a dagger, so she settled on writing about daring adventures instead.

Coffee is her true love, and she believes anything can be fixed with Starbucks and dark humor.