ARC Review - A Cast of Shadows by Hailey Edwards

PREMISE

The strongest net is no match for destiny.

Daraja has grown up watching her brothers journey down the river on the traditional Deinopidae rite of passage. Each returned with riches from their travels, and lovers with whom to share their lives.

Now she has reached the age where she would strike out on her own to seek her fortune—if she were male. Instead, she is expected to sit patiently, weave her nets and wait for the river to bring a husband to her.

Patience, however, has never been her strong suit.

Brynmor haunts the forest surrounding the city of Cathis, his disembodied spirit inextricably bound to the wild canis roaming his lands. Until the day he stumbles across a brazen trespasser in his woods.

Compelled to step in when the canis suspect her of poaching one of their own, Brynmor fears he has lost a piece of his ragged soul to the feisty, adventure-seeking female. And when the canis confront the real poachers, he is forced to choose which life to sacrifice. Hers…or his own.

Warning: This book contains one heroine with a knack for weaving nets and one hero who relishes getting caught. Expect singing, some howling, ghostly shenanigans, and the start of a love that transcends death.

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This was a pretty good book. It was long enough that it didn't feel like a novella, but short enough that you could read it one sitting. It didn't drag and was full of interesting characters.

It starts off when Daraja, a young Deinopidae woman,  sets off on a quest to find herself a husband. She wanders around following a river, until she meets the ghostly ex-king Brynmore. He haunts the local forest and hangs out with a pack of canis. However, Daraja becomes a burst of colour in his dreary existence and BOOM! - we have a story. 


 If you've read the previous books (particularly A Feast of Souls) then you will already know Brynmore. Well, this book is about him getting his long-awaited happy ending. Hailey Edwards has done a really good job of turning him from a side character into a super-hot hero with a backstory that will make you love him.

While this was a good book overall, I still feel it was lacking something. I think we could have gotten a bit more world building.  I know it's a novella and all, but I would have liked to have known a little more about the Deinopidae people. Just a little, because from what I've read of the previous books, all the clans are vastly different from each other - especially belief and culture-wise.

Also, a lot of things went unexplained throughout the book. Like how Brynmore came to be with the pack, how he has a tendency to just disappear at random times and how when his host gets injured, he's in mortal peril of vanishing into the incorporeal ether (in a kind of "my health affects your health" thing) but the next day he's fine, even though his host is still injured.

I did like it though. I love the fantasy world that Hailey Edwards has created and was excited to see Brynmore get his own book. Taking everything into account, I give it three and a half hats out of five. I cut a hat in half because I couldn't decide if it was magical or enchanting! It's somewhere between the two, I think.