River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1) by Karina Halle
Published: January 27th 2022 by Karina Halle
Review:
Myth: 1/5
I really couldn’t get into it and found myself not even enjoying the read. It has a lot of my favorite things, dark fantasy romance, the underworld, death as a character, but this one just missed the marks for me.
I think the first half of this book is the main character’s journey to the underworld, that was a bit too long before even really getting into the story. It also started with a big emotional death, but as the story had just started, I didn’t really care about any of the characters. So the emotion was lost on me.
Finally, I’ve got to say that an author putting in a line where the character says “now I have agency,” does not, in fact, give them agency. I let a lot go for the sake of the romance story, but the power balance and captor/captured was too much for me to enjoy any romantic entanglement.
Magic: 2/5
Interesting start of a world of shaman with power to rival the gods, but even the shaman part wasn’t really fleshed out in this first story. As a series, it has room to grow into it, but it didn’t leave me wanting more, just left me a little underwhelmed by the world.
Overall: 1.5/5
Not for me, but others interested in a step by step adventure story through the underworld might enjoy it.
