Shadows in the Starlight

Shadows in the Starlight (2997) Elaine Cunningham

I enjoyed the first book Changeling book, Shadows in the Darkness, so I decided to pick up Shadows in the Starlight.

Unfortunately, for me, this book failed one of my most important tests–there was very little resolution to the story, and the book asked far more questions than they answered. Right now, that’s instant death for a series as far as I am concerned, especially if the book is not labeled as part two of four or whatever. I hate waiting for sequels enough that unless the story is exceptionally good, leaving me hanging at the end of a book causes me to lose interest in the series.

And unfortunately, this book didn’t qualify as exceptionally good. I still like the characters, although I could do with a lot less boinking, and I hated the fact that although the mystery was solved, there was almost no resolution on other story threads, and in many many threads were left unresolved.

Mind you, I like character growth and learning more about a character throughout a series, but learning in the last couple chapters that half the people in the character’s life mean her harm I found extremely annoying, since we’re left wondering whether she’s going to even survive.

That kind of ending just isn’t for me.

Additionally, I had a hard time getting into the story. It was nothing I could put my finger on, I just didn’t get sucked into the story like I did for the previous book.

But that isn’t to say the book didn’t have it’s strong points. I liked many of the characters, especially the secondary characters like Daiman. And I liked how Gwen was forced to come to terms with some of her previous co-workers.

Additionally, the mystery portion of the story was only so-so. I enjoyed the way the kidnapping portion of the mystery turned out, but the murder (one of the murders anyway) was not really resolved. We may have learned the who, but we did not learn the why, and instead were left hanging as to the true resolution.

So although there were many things to recommend this, overall I found it disappointing. If I pick up the next book in the series, it’ll either be used, or I’ll wait until several more books in the series have come out.
Rating: 5/10

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