I’ve heard so much about Mask of Shadows and while I’m not usually into fantasy, I really liked this one. I’m not typically into fantasy because world-building is not something I particularly look for when I read books but the characters and fast-paced plot kept me engaged enough to enjoy this.

Sal is a thief, one who’s good at what they do. When they come across a flyer with auditions for The Left Hand, the Queen’s personal assassins, Sal decides to take a chance and try to change their future. Mask of Shadows is a fast-paced fantasy with a great main character.

At the centre of Mask of Shadows is a high-stakes competition that kept me entertained and had me rooting for more than one character. The side characters felt really fleshed out for me and I really cared about a lot of them. I also really liked the romance and thought it was just cute.

If you’re looking for a new YA fantasy with court intrigue, compelling characters and fast-paced action, I highly recommend this one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I can’t wait for the sequel.

The gender fluidity seemed to be thrown in just to create noise. Sal was not a likeable main character and I found my eyes rolling through most of the book.

The action was exciting and I can see why you would compare this book to Sarah J Maas due to the subject matter but the writing style and pacing is very different.

Sal is one of the best characters I've read in a while.

As a thief on the streets they rob the stagecoach of an aristocratic woman who works for the Queen. They notice a flyer announcing auditions for a chance to be Opal, one of the Queen's assassains. Sal decides to go to get on the inside to exact revenge on those that ordered and perpetrated the annilization of their country. Once settled into the auditions, they begin to be tutored to read by Elise. Here they are reintroduced to the lady whose stagecoach they robbed. The ensuing romance and competition is interwoven so well, you can't help but root for Sal.

Can't wait for the sequel.

I just couldn't get through this one. I was bored, even though I desperately wanted to love it. It just isn't my cup of tea, I guess. The characters are stilted, the plot plodding, and I could predict each "plot twist" a mile away. I think there will be some who enjoy this one, but it was too slow to excite me.

This book drops you right into the middle of this world, with little context upfront. With mysteries throughout, following the protagonist (she when dressed as such, he when dressed as such, they when neither) into a dangerous trial to become a part of the Left Hand of the Queen is a delight. The author does a great job of keeping the reader as uncertain and passionate as the protagonist, and I hope there are more books to come from this author and in these lands. Many plot twists seem set for the long game, so we can hope so. I adored the character of Elise and her relationship with Sal - may we all see and speak with each other as honestly & openly as those two do!

I enjoyed this book. The main character is genderfluid. It has exciting story and moved very fast, it was full of action and is a fast read. Overall the book is an enjoyable read

What an amazing, forward thinking, and inclusive fantasy to blow all others out of the water! I could not put this book down, Sal is a thief, and they absolutely steal your heart. The world is rich, the characters unforgettable, this is a novel that cannot be missed. There are so few novels that are fantasy with a non-binary sis gender protagonist, and most of my book club is queer and identify themselves on a wide spectrum of genders. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect read! Cannot wait for my kids to read it.

I went into Mask of Shadows very weary because I heard as much good about it as I’ve heard bad, people seem to either really love it or really hate it, so I expected to fall in one or the other but… No. I fall in the middle. As much as I loved some aspects of it, some others needed a lot more work and substance. Overall, this was a pretty decent, fast read, that I’d recommend if you’re just starting out with high fantasy or if you’re looking for some uncomplicated books in that genre.

The writing is simple and yet gorgeous, witty and well tailored to the world’s vibe, Lindsey Miller’s writing style flows easily and feels effortless, the descriptions are clear and make it very easy to imagine the world. Sal’s voice was also very distinct in the narrative, their personnality shone through and I really loved when I’m able to know the MC’s personnality through the writing because that way I’m able to focus on other aspects of the story without worrying about who the main character is.

The worldbuilding at its core is good, the nations, customs, magic systems, etc… well defined, none of it leaves any place for confusion or wondering. There’s one thing that bothered me about it though, it’s the fact that politics wise, it was very lacking, when the whole conflict seems to be based on politics. I would’ve loved if the politics aspect got more attention because I had questions. Like, why Erland and Alona go to war? I know that at the end, there’s a time line with all historical events but those were still pretty hazy to me, and raised more questions in my opinion.

Now the plot is what I really loved, it’s nothing we’ve never seen in YA fantasy, in fact, it’s a lot of the same tropes, but it was still refreshing in a way. The tournament was so well fleshed out and every step of it was given the time and care it needed. What I liked about it is that we discover it at the same time as Sal who knows nothing about it which means that as they try to grasp every detail of it, we also get all those details. That being said, that is a double edged sword because it made for quite the number of info dumps.

Here again I had a problem, not with the plot itself but with how easily Sal got out of the trickiest situations. I never felt any sense of danger or urgency because they got out of evey situation very easily so I was never on the edge of my seat, worried for their safety. Like I said, they knew nothing about the tournament and yet had no real difficulty to get through it which made things pretty predictable. There was a surprise or two but none actually related to Sal themself.

I liked the characters overall. All of them go either by number from one to twenty three (the competitors) or by code name (the left hand assassins) and I was impressed by how easily distinguishable the characters were without having actual names, each one of them has a specific trait of character that sets them apart from the rest and makes them easily recognizable even before their number is given.

Sal is one heck or a character, I loved them so so much. They’re genderfluid and use “he”, “she” or “they” pronouns depending on how they’re dressed. They’re smart, resourceful, sarcastic and driven. They’d do anything to get to their goals and what was good about it is that they did not feel remorse about their kills which made them really interesting to read about because they’d kill and move on, never dwell on anything, since it’s a kill or be killed kind of situation. Aside from that they show kindness and compassion and an amazing sense of justice.

Sal strikes to types of relationships with two different girls. The first is with Elise, his love interest, she is either bisexual or pansexual (unprecised) and really witty, other than that I felt like her character was severly under-developped and their romance too rushed for me to care for it. The second is their friendship with Maud, they tease each other a lot and fall into easy banter rather quickly. They’re not into the touchey-feeley stuff but the reader never doubts that they care about each other. They show it in other ways. I loved Maud’s personality, she is so caring and quite the down to earth cynic, and that’s the kind of characters I love.

Seeing how this book ended, I am excited about what happens next and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series. I have really high hopes for it.

I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Well….I finished the book and I’m still not really sure why I bothered. Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller was what I hoped would be a fantastic new YA fantasy series, but it fell prey to so many tropes that I’ve seen too many times. It’s like The Hunger Games and Throne of Glass had a baby…Mask of Shadows would be the product. Y’all it didn’t completely suck, but it wasn’t a great read, at least not for me.

Sallot Leon, oh Sal. Sal is the gender-fluid main character. I stress the gender-fluid part because it the character beats it death during the course of the book. I’m not even sure how to refer to the character. There is a quote from the book that says if the character is dressed as a girl or boy to refer to the character as such. If he/she is not, to refer to the character as they…..Ummmm….I’m not savvy on the LGBTQ+ lingo here but “they” refers to a plural noun. If I started referring to myself as We or They I’d go to a psych ward and the doctors would be trying to diagnosis a multiple personality disorder….but hey, to each their own.

So back to Sal….Sal is an easy to like character. Sal is a thief who wants revenge on the kingdom who wiped out his people. Pretty simple right? I think witnessing their (see I can use the plural pronoun because Sal said too) family murdered is why Sal is the way they is….are….I’m confusing myself. I’m just going to refer to Sal as he because that is how he identifies most of the book. Anyways….back to Sal….again. Sal does not trust easy and during a carriage robbery early in the book, he learns that Opal, one of the Queen’s Left Hand (her assassins) has died and a new audition is about to begin.

Here’s where the book lost me. From the moment Sal enters the palace for the audition, all of the characters are referred to as their entry number. It makes it hard to follow the book. It’s an audition to the death. Sal and the others must kill one another without being caught. They are auditioning to be assassins after all. This is where the book seems a lot like The Hunger Games and Throne of Glass. The numbered characters are also confusing. They run together. It was hard to decide who was who as they began to kill off one another and who was good at what.

The book’s saving grace for me was the world-building. I liked the detailed history. It fleshed out the world and a few of the characters that Sal looks up too. However it also was it’s downfall. The history came at times as info dumps and in the most random of places. Here Sal is fighting a battle, let’s dump into about the war that killed his parents. Ummm…not how it should be done. Just no. While I found the info interesting, it detracted from the plot and slowed it down. I mean it too. The plot was so slow-moving til the last quarter of the book that it took me almost 2 weeks to read it. (Y’all I just finished an entire series, 1200 pages in three days….just an FYI reference)

Overall, this book was just okay for me. I wasn’t crazy about Sal. The author seemed to stress Sal’s gender-fluidness and the society’s acceptance of it, but in the same breath reinforced gender stereotypes by Sal’s declaration that “you will know what I am by how I dress.” Really, because I’m a girl, I identify as one, and I loath dresses….just saying. Also I didn’t buy the love interest at all. It felt flat and forced. If you enjoy action and don’t mind the overuse of tropes, I say go for it. You may enjoy it more than I did.

There was a lot to like about this book, based on the blurb. Non-cishet, non-binary main character? Sweet. Crazy assassin battles? Check. Tale of revenge against heartless political monsters? Got it.

Now look at that blurb again. “But gender fluid Sal…” Neither preceded nor followed by any possible related information. And that’s exactly how the gender-fluidity was played in the book. Had basically zero effect on the story or how the character was treated. There were a couple cliche scenes noting that Sal was gender-fluid, and some prejudice. But it was marginal and flattened early. Despite the sparse world-building and Sal’s own comments suggesting that their gender role or lack thereof was not common. There’s a sop made to the idea that perhaps Sal’s old country was a bit more gender-balanced because of their naming conventions. But on the whole there’s only gender politics when it could score the author cheap points with the reader, and it is not well-done. If you click on the Perpetual Pages review, there’s something of an own voices criticism of the gender rep in the book, which was mirrored by my own primarily cis-het opinion, and which also squares with my experience of the way gender-fluidity is treated in our world.

And the presentation of gender fluidity in the book was very odd. “I dress how I feel” but it only really works if we bring in all our context for gender-presentation from our world. There was no real look or even hint of if and how gender presentation in Sal’s world compares with ours.

So already we’ve lost one of the main selling points for the book, which appears to be just that: a selling point and not a particularly good-faith attempt to create representation in the YA MC community. I’m not saying the author didn’t have good intentions. But the outcome was less than stellar.

Sal’s character in general suffers from skin-deep syndrome. Though there are references to her minority heritage, they are almost entirely related to the politics between the nations’ nobility. And the regular citizens never comment at all on issues of race or class or ethnicity. It could be argued this is a good thing. But in the book, it just seemed like lack of characterization and world-building. We hear a lot about political conflict, but it’s all rare air plots between royals. The citizen on the ground never really gets a view of it, and if weren’t for Sal’s convenient placement at the side of the great powers, you might never have noticed. The world-building manages to be both info-dumpy and distressingly minimalist. We don’t learn a lot about the history or culture of Sal’s world, but when it comes up, it drops like the dreaded wall of text in an internet forum argument. We get only the highest-level hints of the world. And it’s boring.

Which leads us to the plot. Which is nothing you haven’t seen before and exactly what it says on the tin. It’s very predictable, and the universe seems to be conspiring to makes Sal’s life as easy as possible. There are lots of, “I know it was you, but I can’t prove it in court” moments, and a lot of the tension was from convenient misunderstandings. We get a huge training montage, but it manages to be simultaneously tedious and shallow. Also, everyone is waaaaaaaay too okay with this whole, murder each other to death and then we give the last one standing a high-paid government job shtick. There were so many ways to keep the same level of tension while not making every single character except the Designated Love Interest both unlikable and reprehensible. And, just imagine Gandolf or Ben Kenobi overseeing this murder-fest, and that’s how the Left Hand characters are played. Half-mentor, half executioner. You could certainly be a government assassin and a nice person or even admirable person. But nobody in this book is, except Sal by authorial fiat.

And speaking of the designated love interest! The idea seems to be that she is bisexual or pansexual, although she mostly just comes across as Sal-sexual. She’s way too perfect. Their meet-cute is far too coincidental. And her role i the climax is honestly one of the most teeth-grinding tension through stupidity moves I’ve ever seen. Why can no fantasy protag ever do the obvious safe thing? Because guess what! Doing the dumb thing has never, and will never, save the stain on your soul. Make the damn tough choice and live with it. You got here through the deaths of dozens of people. But this last deal is just conveniently too emotionally tough for you? No. Despite all the ways this book could have taken to save itself, the climax put fifty-two nails in the coffin on it being either believable or enjoyable. Literally the only reason I can think of to be curious about the sequel is that this book cliff-hangers you soooooo hard. And not even a “we’ve solved the immediate problem, and can take a break” cliffhanger. It’s a fuck-you-too-bad-its-forever-til-the-next-book cliffhanger ending that provides zero resolution. Bad author! Bad!

So yeah, was not a fan of this book. Any book decent enough to get through and agent and an editorial acquisitions board basically ends up with a 50/100 by default. If that tells you anything about what it means that I could only scrounge up five further points for this book. It disappointed me on every single one of the promises in the blurb.

And it’s got a GR rating to support my feelings on this. But enough people gave it good ratings to stay about 2 stars, so there’s an off chance that some readers may really enjoy it. I wish them well.

This is a YA Fantasy novel that follows our main character named Sal (Sallot), and it is worth noting that Sal is gender fluid. While this isn't something that is forefront of the story, it is something that is touched on occasionally as and when it fits appropriately into the story. The plot follows Sal learning of an audition/competition to join The Left Hand, which is a prestigious position working along side the queen as an assassin. The competition turns out to be a dangerous fight to the death that has several stages which is suspenseful and tense reading at times.

I picked this book up because the idea of the competition had me excited, and this was lucky for me as I'd say that the competition was the main focus of a lot of the plot, and that it was exactly what I was looking for. I was hooked, the action was gripping and had me page turning until the early hours of the morning. This is the sort of book where, if time had allowed, I would have flown through in one sitting, as putting this down was really hard.

I did have a few struggles initially getting into the book, as I'd say the first quarter was quite slow, dull and info dumpy. Once I got past that though and to the competition I was totally hooked. The writing flowed fantastically, and I found myself routing for Sal from very early on.

The other competitors in the competition all become known to us by numbers. I read that some people struggled with this in other reviews, and I also expected this to cause me some problems too. I was pleasantly surprised to realise that it didn't, and I quite enjoyed referring to characters as numbers. I found that key numbers would stand out, and I'd remember them, and the nothing numbers who don't really contribute to the story easily fall to the side without me really noticing.

I found the concept behind the competition exciting and imaginative, and I'm really glad I decided to give this fantasy book a go. I do struggle with fantasy sometimes, but this was an easy and gripping read. I'd describe this book as being a cross between The Selection and something like The Hunger Games, all with an assassin feel. I can't wait to see what happens in the second book, and I highly recommend giving this book a read.

Interesting premise, poor execution. I wanted to like this book more, but sadly it was lacking in a few areas. To start with what I enjoyed, the Protagonist. Sal is a very interesting character with a lot of grief and revenge. This was only the second time I've read about a non-binary character, and the first time it was the main character. As the character's self-identity was not clearly stated in the beginning, I assumed they were female as most of the YA I read tend to have women as the protagonist. (I did not clearly read the summary before starting the book.)

Something I count against this novel is that the premise wasn't very unique. I saw a lot of similarities between this book and Throne of Glass. The competition, the monarchy's assassin as the position, fight to the death, etc. While the whole "left hand" aspect made it unique in a sense, that wasn't enough for me.

Another aspect I had trouble with was the world building. With the lack of a map to accompany the book, yet a plethora of locations named, I had trouble visualizing the world within this novel.

And while I know this is going to be a duology, I was not impressed enough, so I probably won't be continuing on with the series.

When I first read the description of this book, it immediately reminded me of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Since the second book hasn't been released yet, I decided to use this book as a substitute!

This was really not at all like Nevernight and I must admit that I was quite disappointed with what I read. I really appreciated the author having a gender fluid protagonist; it was a great way to introduce diversity to the literary character world while also giving a new perspective to the story. However, it was not enough to redeem the story in my eyes. This book, while full of action, was quite boring. I have no idea how the author managed to accomplish this but it was probably due to the ridiculous amount of description and the plethora of training scenes that really did nothing to move the story forward. The plot is also very similar to a bunch of assassin YA novels that are currently out there and there really wasn't anything unique about this one. The characters were also not very fleshed out and I had an especially hard time connecting with Sal; the personality changes were so swift that it was hard to establish anything solid about Sal that I could rely upon. Overall, this novel failed in its plot and execution, and I would give this a 1.5/5 stars.

I find it easy to write about books that I either really really liked, or absolutely hated. I can go on and on forever about what I hated about a certain book if it truly offended me in some way, and I can gush inarticulately for hours about books that I adore (see: much of this blog). I find it difficult, however, to write a thoughtful review of a book that I just can't bring myself to care about. A book that I neither love nor loathe. Books that are just...meh.

Linsey Miller's Mask of Shadows is one of those books that didn't inspire me either way. I didn't love it, and it wasn't so godawful that I refused to finish reading it. It just...was. I never felt as though I could focus on the story - I kept getting distracted away by other books (in the time it took me to read Mask of Shadows, a book that is barely 300 pages, I read two other 300+ page books).

Perhaps this just wasn't the book that I needed in my life right now. Last week the book I desperately needed in my life right then was a romantic adventure where true love wins in the end (see: Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue). Then I binge read my way through a book called Dark Matter. No, not Blake Crouch's rejected screenplay, I read that last year I think, but a spooky historical fiction novel by Michelle Paver. It was very similar to another of Paver's books that I'd read and enjoyed called Thin Air. Suddenly I am in the mood for historical fictional ghost stories and Victorian Gothics and damn it, what do you mean the library doesn't have the complete works of Susan Hill??

Going from "Historical Gothic Horror" to "Fantasy Assassins" is not exactly a natural transition, but I told myself I'd start getting the point of an "advanced review" and actually read and review a book before it came out. Yeah, I didn't exactly achieve that, though...eh. Perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me to read this book. Perhaps this book just isn't for me, which is OK. The writing wasn’t much to write home about but I’m going to give Linsey Miller a pass for this, as a) this is her debut novel, and cranking out that first novel is hard (says the writer who has never been published and never will be) and b) Miller is making her YA debut after spending much of her career in the sciences. Going from science writing to YA writing isn’t the easiest transition to make. Also, science writing = somehow drier than the Atacama desert.

One of the things they teach you in library school (yes, library school is a thing, you have to go to there in order to learn to shush patrons properly) is reader's advisory, and the main thing about reader's advisory is finding the right book for the right person at that particular moment. You can't just tell people to read the books that you like because hey, not everyone likes stories about 19th century British dudes on boats or steampunk airship fantasies, me. So when you're recommending books to people, don't let your opinion of a book - be it "I loved it!" or "Euch, no" or "meh" - prevent you from recommending it to someone. Just because a book wasn't right for me doesn't mean it's not right for someone. So who is Mask of Shadows right for? Well, anyone in need for a YA assassin book, definitely. Also anyone looking for a book gender fluid protagonist where the book isn't 100% about their gender fluidity. So if you want an inclusive fantasy with assassins, then Mask of Shadows is the right book for you.

Okay, so the premise had me at "genderfluid assassin" and it turned out to be every bit as amazing as I hoped it would be, with awesome characters, a swoony-worthy romance, political intrigue, and a cutthroat competition that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I am dying for the sequel.

DNF @ 41%. Eek. I feel bad, you guys. There were definitely things I loved with this story, but even 2/5s of the way into the book, I still feel so disconnected from the story. I actually love Sal and that we have a genderfluid character in fantasy!! Sal is one of the highlights in this book, and their characterization is done well, I think.

My issues are with the plot and pacing. The plot is (yet another) game-type competition. It feels like I would care more about the competitors if they all had names or something that brought them to life a little more? Instead, all the competitors are just referring to as numbers and I can't tell who's who. So, do I care when anyone is killed off? Not really. The Queen's...hand, or special guard, are all types of jewels and even then, they seem to lack a personality to differentiate who's who. Characters I did like are Maud, Sal's assistant during the competition, and Elise, Sal'a tutor.

The world-building up to this point is still vague. I'm not sure if the final version of the book comes with a map, but from the e-ARC, I don't have a full understanding of the counties and the politics behind it all. The pacing is exciting at points with thievery and killing (or plotting to kill anyways), but then has some really long stretches of downtime that bored me.

So, in a it's not you, it's me sort of situation, I'm setting this book aside.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did but I really struggled to get through the first half or so of the book. Once I got about 2/3rds of the way in, I was fine and the reading no longer seemed like a chore, but rather something enjoyable again. I did like that the main character was gender-fluid. This is something I had not yet seen in a novel as I generally stick to more mainstream reading instead of things in the LGBTQIA+ realm. If you can get through that first half though, the rest is easy but I honestly couldn't pinpoint what it was that made it so difficult to read. If I had to try, I would say that, despite being action packed with romance and intrigue, it just wasn't interesting.

While the premise and main character are refreshing, the story and delivery feel a bit hollow.

Reminiscent of Hunger Games and Divergent, Miller gives us a revenge plot full of suspense, action, and of course monsters in various forms. In trying to avenge a people's murders, Sal auditions for a position with the queen that will allow for revenge to be carried out. Throughout competitions and challenges, Sal makes a few friends, learns new skills and strives to survive to become Opal.
Interesting piece to this plot and character- Sal's gender identity and expression. I'm pretty sure Sal is male, yet dresses as either gender, refers to his/herself according to the clothing worn, and asks others to as well. The majority of the story, Sal is wearing a mask, so facial features don't come into play as a clue, but it lends to the intrigue of the plot.
A great dystopian, strategical and action packed kick ass adventure!