It's been a while since I last visited the Shadow War Saga. Now, it's finally time to get to book four. After this one, there's just one left! Spoilers ahead.
Now that the dragons are back in Allentria, Keriya hopes that they'll improve their chances of winning the war against Necrovar and his shadow forces. There's one problem, however: the dragons simply refuse to engage in any conflict. Now without their biggest trump card, they must somehow find a way to triumph against Necrovar's forces before it's too late.
This was definitely the most frustrating out of the Shadow War books I've read so far, and not in a good way. I wanted to enjoy it, I really did, but somehow it just kind of fell flat to me.
I think this is because a lot of this book is spent at the battlefield and just constant fighting. We do get some breather moments, but it's honestly too little. Even those breather moments are usually diplomatic missions to gather more forces for in the war. I know I complained in the last book about not liking the setting Keriya ended up in for a bit of the book, but I feel kind of the same about Allentria here. I just don't like reading these constant battles. It's a war story, I get that, but when you're constantly going from battlefield to battlefield it just becomes exhausting. I like these characters, I like reading about them, but it becomes so tiring when all they do is fight on the battlefield constantly. It feels repetative.
There's also the romance between Keriya and Viran: yeah, I don't buy it. I don't know what it is, but I feel no chemistry between these two. They do say they love one another and stuff like that, but I honestly feel they are more together because the plot/author demands it than because of any bond they have. There is a relationship I am totally behind, that of Fletcher and Danisan, but they're often shoved to the sidelines for more Keriya and Viran shipping.
Then there's the dragons, arguably the most frustrating part of the book. I could maybe get behind the constant battles if at least there was more variation. You'd expect that, after Keriya summoned them in book three, the dragons would be participating. But instead these dragons, these mighty creatures we're supposed to be in awe of, sit on their lazy asses and do nothing. In a book series where dragons are the main selling point, it kind of sucks when your dragons (sans specific individuals like Thorion, Valerion and Khyvette) are just honestly quite lame. It was very frustrating to read about how this war could practically be won in an instant, but these dragons do jack shit all book. Yes, I know there's a reason behind it, but if it makes the reader feel frustrated with your book, that's honestly not a good thing. Heck, maybe if only a few more dragons did participate due to not being controlled, rather than just one or two individuals, it could've made the battles more interesting, but as it is it just made me constantly groan about how much I dislike the way the dragons were handled here. Granted, Khyvette and Valerion are cool, but they're just two individuals when there's who knows how many dragons in Allentria now.
I know I've been mostly negative so far, and, I promise, I don't hate this book. It had its redeeming qualities. Mugdan's writing voice is still one I enjoy reading and very strong, and I do still like quite a few of our main/major characters (Keriya, Fletcher, Roxanne, Kyvette, Valerion), but the points I mentioned above just make it a rather frustrating read to sit through. I usually finish my books in three days of reading, but I had to put this one down quite often just because I didn't feel like progressing more.
So, yeah, ultimately, this is a bit of a disappointment, which sucks as I gave books one and two a perfect 5/5 score and even book three got a 4/5. With only one book left, things may obviously still improve, but this one was a bit of a dud to me.
Rating: 3/5
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