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Review: Shadow’s Edge by J.T. Geissinger (Night Prowler #1)

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Shadow's Edge by J.T. Geissinger // VBC reviewShadow’s Edge (Night Prowler #1)
J.T. Geissinger
Published: June 12, 2012 (Montlake Romance)
Purchase at: Book Depository or Amazon

Reviewed by: Jo

Rating (out of 5): 2 stars

“If they every find you… Run.” These are the words Jenna has lived her entire life by. With “gifts” that make her different she has hidden herself in the human population, running from an unknown danger her parents were terrified of.

When a group of strangers invade her life, Jenna’s first instinct is to bolt but then they offer the one thing she wants most: The truth about what she really is.

There are a few series now using Egyptian mythology as their basis, and Shadow’s Edge has possible one of my favorite concepts. The idea of a shifter race (the Ikati) stemming from a society that worshiped cats makes a lot of sense. However, other than the prologue, it doesn’t feature that heavily. Instead the book focuses more on the modern-day Ikati and how they function in our world. It’s a densely built world, with a hierarchy centered around individuals having various ‘gifts’ as well as the ability to shift. While I enjoyed the world building, there were several inconsistencies that kept jolting me out of the novel, making it difficult to totally lose myself in the plot.

The writing style paints a vivid picture, particularly when it came to opulence of the English Estate. At times though, this attention to detail slowed the pacing down so much that I found myself skimming long paragraphs, looking for next bit of dialogue to move the story along.

The Law the Ikati live by is ironclad, brutal and enforced to the letter. Since Jenna has been living as a human her entire life, she constantly questions this and I enjoyed watching her stand up to some of the more misogynistic Alphas. She has clear ideas of what is acceptable and is willing to put herself in danger to defend those.

The relationship between Jenna and Leander gets off to a great start with a fantastically funny clash in the restaurant Jenna works in. There is good chemistry between these two, and the romantic scenes later on in the book are very well written. However, once Jenna agrees to go back to England with him their dynamic changed, blowing hot and cold constantly. They would withhold important information from one another, sometimes to the point of ruining their relationship, or even putting them in considerable danger, for reasons I just couldn’t understand. There was so much miscommunication between them that I was just as lost as they were, as to what was really going on.

I really liked some of the secondary characters, particularly Morgan, the only female member of the council. At the beginning she comes across as smart, resilient and rebellious, three things I love in a female character. She makes some pretty shockingly bad decisions toward the latter half of the book though, and I wish we could have had more page time with her so I fully understood why.

Shadow’s Edge starts off strong with a set of interesting rules to the world and character chemistry, but it lost its way in the middle for me, working up to a climax that felt rushed. I wasn’t sure about picking up the next in the series, Edge of Oblivion, but having discovered it continues from Morgan’s point of view, I think I might.

Sexual content: Sex

2 Responses to “Review: Shadow’s Edge by J.T. Geissinger (Night Prowler #1)”

  1. Kristin says:

    Jo, very nicely done! You provided quite a lot of backup as to why this didn’t work for you, and also made some nice points in the other direction. Much appreciated!

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