✨ jami ✨'s Reviews > Cloaked in Shadow

"Our only enemy is within and once you conquer it ... you can overcome anything.

I have had this book in my kindle library pretty much since it released, because I was really highly anticipating it. When I used to watch a lot of Booktube Ben was one I watched a lot and I was really interested to see what his debut novel would be like. Also, the premise of this was so interesting to me. It's a high fantasy featuring elves and a central m/m relationship, which is ownvoices representation.

This book follows Zacriah, who is transported along with all the other elves who are eighteen to the capital to meet the king, though no one knows for what purpose. Zac is forced to join the kings new army of shapeshifters - but Zac cannot shape shift. He has another magic entirely, that he doesn't understand, but must keep a secret. But a war between the three elven continents is brewing, and Zacriah finds himself unwittingly thrown into the middle of it. Cloaked in Shadow is, to me, a mix of Throne of Glass, The Lord of the Rings and Avatar: The Last Airbender

I have many mixed feelings on this so lets break it down

+ positives

🌱 romance & representation For me the highlight of this book is definitely the romance. This book nailed angsty, slowburn romance. I was really rooting for the main romance and the build up was so good. This is also ownvoices gay representation which is something I always love and support in fantasy. It was nice to see a normalised m/m relationship and I just overall thought the gay rep was really great in this book.

🌱 plot the plot was super fast moving and a lot was happening. The first two thirds flew by (more on the last third later) and the book mixed drama with intrigue and politics really well. The mystery elements were compelling, and I really appreciated how fast moving this book was.

🌱 characters I thought the characters were overall a positive. Though I don't feel super strongly about them, they were well written and had logical character arcs. Zacriah had some character elements that reminded me of Aang from A:TLA which I loved because Aang is one of my favourite characters. I also LOVED Hadrian.

- negatives

🌱 the writing I ... really didn't love the writing in this one. Ben is a good writer but this really, really could have benefitted from some more editing. Some of the metaphors and phrases used were confusing, pointless or didn't actually say anything. The dialogue blended fantasy and modern speech in a way that didn't make sense and pulled me out of the story because it disrupted the narrative flow. Also, there were spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the book and pretty frequently. I am not such a *huge* stickler for grammar/spelling and usually let it pass, but it was A LOT here and the thoughtless editing was distracting from the story.

🌱 the last third The end of this story needlessly DRAGGED. The conflict climaxed and then .... the story kept going? The new story thrown in came out of nowhere and didn't have the necessary build up to keep me interested. I skimmed the entire last 20% of this book and nothing really happened, which was unfortunate since the rest of the book was well paced.

🌱 plot inconsistencies Some parts of the plot didn't add up. Conflicts were set up that weren't resolved, or which had confusing endings. Basically, it felt like the entire middle section didn't necessarily line up correctly with the beginning and endings. Again, I think this is an editing issue and it's a shame because it could have easily been resolved with more beta reading.

🌱 side characters This is not a strong negative but .. I didn't love the side characters? Most felt one dimensional and the portrayal of a lot of the female characters was .. sketchy. Not necessarily problematic or bad, but not great either? Like I said this isn't a super negative it just didn't sit right all the time.

Overall I do recommend this book it's a fun and fast paced fantasy with a well written m/m romance that really got me with the slowburn angst. I do plan on continuing this series, and I hope the next books are just edited a little bit better, to really tighten up the elements that let this book fall down.

This was my first read for UnsolvedAThon (read a book featuring mythical creatures) and Magical Readathon (Herbology - read a book with plants on the cover)