The Shadow Crosser

The Storm Runner #3

by J.C. Cervantes

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents J.C. Cervantes' epic finale to the Storm Runner trilogy, a tale of mystery, magic, and mayhem featuring gods from both Maya and Aztec mythology.

Zane Obispo has been looking forward to his training at the Shaman Institute for Higher Order Magic, and not only because it means he'll be reunited with his best friend, Brooks. Anything would be better than how he has spent the last three months: searching for the remaining godborns with a nasty demon who can sniff them out (literally). But when Zane tracks down the last kid on his list, he's in for a surprise: the ""one"" is actually a pair of twins, and they're trying to prevent a mysterious object from falling into the wrong hands.

After a shocking betrayal, Zane finds himself at SHIHOM sooner than expected. Even more shocking is the news that the Maya gods have gone missing. The bat god, Camazotz, and Ixkik' (aka Blood Moon) have taken them out of commission . . . and the godborns are their next target. The only thing the villains need now? The object that the twins possess.

Zane knows the godborns aren't strong enough yet to stand up to Zotz, Ixkik', and their army. There might be a way to save the gods, but it involves locating a magical calendar that can see across time and space . . . not to mention traveling more than thirty years into the past.

In The Shadow Crosser, Zane and his friends embark on their most treacherous mission yet--a mission that, with one blunder, could change history as we know it, and worse, destroy the universe.

Genres: Fantasy, Mythology, Middle Grade, Adventure, Fiction, Young Adult, Magic

432 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

J.C. is a New York Times best-selling author. Her books have been published in more than twelve countries and have appeared on national lists, including the American Booksellers Association New Voices, Barnes and Noble’s Best Young Reader Books, and Amazon’s Best Books of the Month. She has earned multiple awards and recognitions, including the New Mexico Book Award and the Zia Book Award.

She currently resides in the Land of Enchantment with her family and spoiled pups, but keeps part of her heart in Southern California, where she was born and raised. When she isn’t writing, she is haunting bookstores and searching for magic in all corners of the world.


Author also writes under Jennifer Cervantes

Reviews

[Book Reviews by Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ta książka to czyste złoto! Nie mogłam się od niej oderwać. Jeszcze bardziej pokochałam majańskich bogów (zwłaszcza Ixtab). Byłam pod wrażeniem różnych zwrotów akcji. Bawiłam się wyśmienicie od samego początku do samego końca i teraz płaczę, bo to już koniec przygód Zane’a i innych bogurodzonych 😭 Mojego bólu nie ukoi nawet czekolada bogini Ixkakaw. Potrzebuję kolejnych książek tej autorki! J.C. Cervantes ❤️ ps. mam wrażenie, że trylogia Posłańca Burzy to jedna z najbardziej niedocenianych u nas serii. Szkoda. Czytajcie, bo naprawdę warto!

[megs_bookrack]

Look at this cover!!! Excuse me...



Original:

More adventures with Zane and the crew in 2020!?



The world is a wonderful place!!!

[Captain123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

OH. MY. GAWD. SUCH A GOOD BOOK! I love how Zane and brooks finally got together, and how Ren was a big part. i love ren, she's one of my fav character. I like how-actually, not like- love how J.C. Cervantes is willing to kill some of the gods. In most books, they usually find a way to live and it's unbelievable. In this series J.C. Cervantes isn't afraid to kill off characters. I love the plot, and it's so sad that {at least i think} it's the last book in the series. I like how Rosie is a dog again and as much as i love Rick Riordan's book, the books rival my love for it. Once i held this book i couldn't put it down. I loved the back in time vibe, and how it explained why Zane's bond for Brooks was so strong.
Overall, this book was way above my expectations.

[Agnieszka Małecka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na pewno ta seria jest świetna, ja zaś chyba troszkę za stara. Mnóstwo zwrotów akcji, mimo to, ciężko było mi się wciągnąć do końca i dać porwać opowieści.

[Dr. Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shadow Crosser is the final book of The Storm Runner trilogy. This time we follow Zane and co as he finishes finding all the other godborns. But when training them is about to commence, all of the Maya gods disappear. In order to save the gods, Zane and his friends must find a magical calendar and travel through time.

I really enjoyed this series. It got better with each progressive book, and this one was definitely my favorite. I loved the way the characters grew over the series and I am so hyped for Ren's spin off series. I have high hopes for that series.

The action in this novel was a lot of fun. I love puzzles and time travel and this one had elements of both. We also get to see more of the different gods and how their personalities differ which I enjoyed. Brooks still feels more like an idea of a girl rather than a whole person so I don't feel super connected to her or Zane and her relationship.

Overall, this series was very enjoyable and I'm glad Zane's disability was never cured throughout it.

Rep: Latine/Mayan cast, Disabled cishet male MC with a shorter leg and uses a cane, chronically ill (epilepsy) Latina cis female side character, various disabled side characters though their specific disability was not mentioned.

CWs: Kidnapping, violence, fire/fire injury, injury/injury detail, blood. Moderate: ableism, abandonment, chronic illness, death.

[Demeter Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es hatte sehr gute Ansätze aber ich fiebere leider nicht so mit den Helden mit.

Als es mal spannend wurde, wird das ziemlich schnell gelöst und dann plätschert das Ende einfach da hin.

Aber im ganzen war diese Reihe sehr unterhaltsam.

[Sadie.loves.books · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS WAS AWESOME! I love this book, the ending was GREAT. I love ALL the characters. And I'm sad that this journey has ended 😢. I will probably reread it a couple of times... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ All I'm saying is YOU need to read this series!!! You will be happy that you did! 👍😃👏

[Marcos “MSMDragon” · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was a lot of fun! I especially liked Itzamna! But that could just be because I love dragons.

[Ulises Estrada · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.
I wanted so badly to know how Zane's story would end, for this?

It's not that the story isn't good, but from the beginning of the book they promise you an unexpected ending, and although all the time things are happening that you don't expect, many things also happen that you can't even see, you just know they happened because they mention them, especially at the end of the book.

And even though I liked the big bad, I'm disappointed that the characters, both the bad and the good, were wasted.
They had a lot of potential and yet it felt like they were there just to fulfill a purpose, even though they were all so well created and you could see their essence and personalities.
They were like secondary characters, even though they had everything to be protagonists.
What bothered me most about this book was the open ending.
I hate this kind of endings in sagas or trilogies, because you want to know how everything ends, and although I know that there are good open endings for me this one was not.
En conclusion a la trilogia :
Los personajes - 5 Estrellas.
Trama - 4 Estrellas
Desarrollo - 3 Estrellas.
Final - 3 Estrellas.

[little_bookysoul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ojejuu!❤️😩 jakie to było CU-DOW-NE! Wspaniałe wykreowany świat, baaardzo wciągająca akcja, od której trudno się oderwać, niesamowicie wykreowani bohaterowie, których pokochałam (już we wcześniejszych tomach) całym sercem! Zane, Brooks, Ren, Ah-Puch, Hondo, mama Zane’a i wiele, wiele innych.(Ale ku mojej wielkiej radości pojawili się też nowi bohaterowie). Wątek romantyczny w tej książce był przecudowny! Tak uroczy i rozczulający, że 🥺❤️
Z jednej strony bardzo się cieszę, że przeczytałam tę książkę, ale z drugiej jest mi smutno, bo to już koniec moich przygód z Zanem, jego przyjaciółmi i majańskimi bogami :((
Niesamowicie Wam polecam całą serię!! Jak dla mnie ten tom był najlepszy, choć wszystkie są super! Ta seria jest chyba jedną z bardziej niedocenianych w Polsce, także koniecznie czytajcie❤️☁️

[Wendelle]

This was a very entertaining epic/quest fantasy for children, it's so sad that this is the final book in the series, as the characters are endearing and the settings are grand, hopefully a spinoff awaits

[Adalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as first two books.

[Hannah Galler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a great series! I loved learning about the Maya and Aztec mythology, which definitely feels like something that is never written into fiction. I am sad that it's over now though! About halfway through this book, I had no idea how they were going to wrap it up and I had to check to see if this was the last one! Everything wrapped up neatly though, (except that one thing at the end, which makes me wonder if another book could appear with Zane, Brooks, and company later on?) and the finale didn't feel rushed. I really felt that with this series, you can see the characters grow through all this. I felt like Zane went from having no clue what was happening or what he was doing, to being the obvious leader of the godborns. Same with Hondo; very defined growth through the series and I loved it! Even though he didn't have god blood in him, he still embraced that world and everything that came with it, for Zane.

This series is for sure on my recommend list at the library, especially for kids who loved Percy Jackson and enjoy a good adventure or a book based on a cultures mythology!

[P.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zane Obispo and the crew are back to save the Mayan gods once and for all. The task involves godborns we've met in previous books along with the twins Zane discovers at the beginning of this book. As mentioned previously, anything recommended by Rick Riordan immediately gets my attention. This book is a winner especially with the heroics of Hondo the Horrendous and Zane's mom. The series seems finished but we can always hope it is not.

[Jason Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A satisfying conclusion to the Storm Runner series.

Zane: amazing character and enjoy reading his story.
Romantic subplot: satisfying conclusion to many romantic subplot that occurs throughout the series

Favorite old character: Hondo!!!!
New characters are amazing Marco, the twins and Louie


Favorite new character: the Twin!

[Eric Nhem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of disappointed with this, especially with it being the last book of the trilogy. It took half the book for their quest to start. I wanted to see more of the godborns fighting in the final battle. It sounds like there might be a spin off story that felt a bit forced to me. All that aside, I enjoyed learning about the Maya gods and mythology through this series.

[Hunter McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far my favorite book of the trio I could not put this thing down highly highly recommend

[Mona Strobel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please the end melted my heart beyond repair, too sweet.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breakneck pace, lots of exciting encounters, more cool interpretations of Mayan mythology, and a funny, likeable narrator. This whole series, at its best, reminded me of the original Percy Jackson - such a breath of fresh air over what Rick Riordan's checkbox, politically correct, diversity-at-its-most-shallow writing has become.

There's one thing holding me back from a 5-star rating, though, and it's that the book felt a little... inconsequential? It's probably partly because I had a 4 year gap in between reading the 2nd and 3rd books, though this conclusion does a great job reminding the readers of important previous events. Although there were definitely high stakes and I appreciated most of the characters, particularly Zane, Rosie, Hondo, Ren, and Itzamna, I feel like it was missing a bit of heart. I didn't feel afraid or heartsick at all, and I think that's because the characters, though likeable, are a little on the shallow side (other than Zane - he's a great protagonist). To compare to Percy Jackson again, one thing that made the first series so impactful was the underlying sense of tragedy and injustice that had caused most of the conflict - one of the major villains being a beloved friend, whose motivations you could fully sympathize with, was heart-wrenching from start to finish. Even many of the characters who stayed on the heroes' side went through deep, serious trauma, and the vanquishing of their foes didn't fix all their problems. I wish there had been more of that in the Storm Runner series: a real exploration of the characters' pain. It's not like they lack for it, with parental abandonment, impairing abilities, and difficult upbringings, but it was rarely explored. A solid case in point: though Adrik and Alana reveal many hints of a painful past, they're almost entirely out of focus except when their abilities are needed. Marco and Louie, too, could have been much more impactful characters if they'd been explored a bit more. Without much of a foothold to empathize with these characters and find out how they tick, I didn't find the series as compelling as I might have, which is a real shame, because it does almost everything else right!

One other minor complaint: the lack of physical descriptions was a little jarring for me. Shame on me for not remembering returning characters, but there was so little detail about the new characters!

On a note unrelated to the actual story... the edition I received was sooo poorly made. The back cover was askew, complete with a crooked white line where the image ran out. There was a chunk of about 20 pages in the middle that were shorter than the rest of the pages (fortunately still containing all the text). Worst of all, a sizeable chunk of the book just repeated! As in, I turned from page 234 to page 207. Once I found page 235, things were fine for a little while... and then it happened again! Thankfully, all of the pages were there. But this is totally inexcusable from a big company like Disney Hyperion. Shameful!

Despite my problems with the lack of character depth and development, I would still recommend this series to people looking to scratch that original Percy Jackson itch. It's a ton of fun and very creative, and the best Maya-based story since I played Secret of the Scarlet Hand as a child!

[Yara Abbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

**4 stars**

Really really liked this conclusion!

-Stakes were RAISED
-I said this about the last two books but I love how much time is taken to developing the world. I think the success in world-building has a lot to do with how the stakes are raised because things are set up gradually throughout the story so you understand the impact of something going wrong.
-There was a magical aspect I wasn't expecting here having to do with time and I liked it! Time is a tricky thing to include in magic systems because there are so many implications for it but I liked how the mythology was tied into it.
-This book really introduced the new godborns and their abilities, which I was so excited to see. However, I wish we were able to spend more time with them. What we got about them was very surface level which was mainly to do with the fact that this was a trilogy, but I just found all their abilities and backstories so interesting that I wanted more.
-In general, while I praise the plot and world-building a lot with this series, sometimes I wished more time would have been spent on developing the characters. We got a lot from Zane's voice, but I came out of this series without a real strong sense of who Brooks was. And I mentioned before how the godborns didn't have all that much. The exception to this was Hondo (reminded me a lot of Sokka), and Ixtab and Ah-Puch--they were such great characters to follow.

[Luana ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aventure.
Magie.
Mythologie.

Ce dernier tome fut vraiment le meilleur de la saga.
J’ai retrouvé la magie, l’humour, la passion et le suspens.
La plume de l’autrice est encore une fois une petite merveille, elle a su allier, comme Rick Riordan, humour, amour, slow burn, et aventure tout en nous tenant en haleine jusqu’au bout.
Vraiment tous les retournement de situation était impensable et très bien tournés. Je n’ai pas vu venir la plus part des situation et clairement c’était incroyable.
J’ai été transporté par l’histoire, par les personnages.

En parlant de personnages, je dois dire que j’ai été très touché par leur histoire, par leur force mais en même temps leur humanité ! Ils étaient vrai, drôle sans se montrer supérieurs.
J’ai retrouvé deux de mes trop favoris, la found family et le slow burn.
Ce que j’ai en plus aimé, adoré, surkiffer c’est la place que Rosie (le chien) avait dans l’histoire. L’autrice lui a donner une vrai importance, et j’ai vraiment eu un amour inconditionnelle pour cette chienne.

Vraiment ce livre ma fait passer par toute les émotions possible. Du rire aux larmes, de la joie à la tristesse, de l’amour à la haine…

Vraiment si vous êtes fan de Percy Jackson ou des livres de Rick Riordan, lisez ce livre.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, and I thought it was a great ending to the trilogy. It wrapped up everything really well, but it also introduced a possibility of a spin-off which would be fun to read.
This was an action-packed magical adventure with twists and turns that were exciting. The story moved at a good pace, and I flew through this book. I enjoyed the found family aspect and the dynamics of the group. The characters were all great, and I loved Zane and Rosie’s relationship in this one. A boy’s love for his dog is unmatched, and I thought it was sweet how much he cared about Rosie and how much of a role she ended up playing.
If you’re looking for a fun middle grade read with action, excitement, friendship, loyalty, found family, and Maya mythology, I’d one hundred percent recommend this trilogy.

[Bookm0l · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a strong 8.8/10☆.

There's a lot of twists and turns. The plot was kinda surprising. Sometimes I knew what would come next sometimes I wouldn't.
A must read for those who love reading about different mythologies. This book in particular had a very Percy Jackson feeling to it. But out of three books of this series the best one was the second. This was pretty solid too. But at times I felt like I'm too old to read it because there were scenes that felt too obvious what the answer is and I was angry at the characters because they didn't get it. I think it might be because I'm older than the anticipated and intended audience. But there were moments when I couldn't for the life of me figure out what will happen. So I'm not very far off in the age category myself I guess.

[Amita · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of the trilogy and a fitting end to this series! There are so many great characters, especially in the supporting cast, and that's what I really love most about these books.

Ren has my whole heart I can't wait for her spinoff series!!!

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4 stars in my insane rating system.
I’m not sure how much of the time travel was under explanation, and how much was me not understanding, but I have developed my own for a book I am writing, so I think it may be the former.

[Barb Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was funnier than the other two. Villains the same and some predictability but great fun.

[Verena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Iuliae · Rating 5 out of 5]

CZEMU TO JUŻ KONIEC?!😪

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

easy read entertaining could have been less predictable and characters could have had more dimension but maybe im just old or something

[Jannika · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐