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Master of Restless Shadows: Book One (The Cadeleonian Series, #5)

Ginn Hale

Start date: July 1, 2022

Finish date: July 31, 2022

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Feb 25, 2024 Grace rated it liked it

Shelves: mm-romance, mm-historical, mm-fantasy, mm-mystery, mm-rich-dudes, mm-poc-mc

I enjoyed this one, but unfortunately it's my least favorite in the series so far. This one is a slightly departure from the previous two duologies in this series in that there are really four main characters and two primary couples, which I do think is a large part of why I didn't enjoy it as much. It was too broad of a focus for me, and I vastly preferred one of the pairings/related characters more than the others, so it dragged for me whenever it was focusing on the other two. I also wonder i I enjoyed this one, but unfortunately it's my least favorite in the series so far. This one is a slightly departure from the previous two duologies in this series in that there are really four main characters and two primary couples, which I do think is a large part of why I didn't enjoy it as much. It was too broad of a focus for me, and I vastly preferred one of the pairings/related characters more than the others, so it dragged for me whenever it was focusing on the other two. I also wonder if part of the problem here is that Fedeles wasn't really much featured in the last duology, and his presence in the first was underneath a curse, so we haven't really had a chance to get to know him at all, unlike Atreau, who was a prominent side character in the last duology, setting him up nicely for us to care about his arc. I really enjoyed both him and Narsi, and though the build has been quite a bit slower than I'd prefer for the end of the first book, I still am very much enjoying.

With Fedeles, I just don't really care much about him at all--he's unrecognizable from the character we met in earlier books, and I just find him a little dull and underdeveloped. While I find Aziz a compelling character, the build between him and Fedeles felt really rushed to me -- I feel like we needed to see them more before the start of this book to not feel dumped in the middle of things without connection or context.

The tone of this one is also a bit different, with higher stakes and more political machinations. I didn't love the tone shift as much, though I think that's influenced by my lack of connection to half of the main characters in the book. I am also a bit bummed that the MCs from the previous books haven't really factored in much at all. That was my worry upon reading the summary, and it makes sense geographically, but having loved the first four books so much, the departure here in tone, set-up, and character is a bit of a detractor.

I did still enjoy it, and I remain cautiously hopeful about the conclusion, but this one didn't enthrall me as much as the first four books did. ...more

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