Shadow-Stained (Stones of Power #1) by Rachel Hobbs
We received an advanced reader copy of this book.
Published: April 14th 2020
Review:
Myth: 2/5
A dark fantasy steeped in demons and world ending takeovers. Shadow-Stained brings together a powerful demon and plucky female human in a twisting, deceitful adventure. Drayvex is a demon, and exhibits all the demonic traits, impulsive, selfish, murderous, destructive, I’m not sure if it’s just the genre, but he didn’t have any seemingly redeemable qualities, so I had a hard time understanding why he cared.
Ruby wasn’t my favorite heroine. At times she has the sunshine and hope to counter Drayvex’s death and destruction, but I didn’t get any romantic tension between them so I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to play.
Magic: 2/5
This is the first book in a series, so it might just be that we didn’t get as much information because it will be given later in the series, but the magic was a little hard to follow. The demon setup on Drayvex’s world was pretty clear, but the other races/worlds introduced didn’t quite tie together in this book.
Overall: 2/5
This book just wasn’t for me. The dark fantasy aspect made for some pretty unforgivable plot points and I didn’t feel like the characters had much to actually draw them together. They seemed to dislike each other a majority of the time (but not in a sexual tension kind of way) and I really couldn’t figure out their motivations.
