I truly wanted to love this book, it has a gorgeous cover and a unique premise but I found it lack luster and tedious unfortunately. The idea of a gender fluid character drew me in initially but in the end I turned out not to enjoy the main character at all, and the descriptions got on my nerves more than anything. The idea that fans of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo hyped this story up to much for me which I believe made it fall flat in the end. It was not my cup of tea, the idea of a competition was a great idea but did not deliver for me personally. I do hope others enjoy it where I could not.

After being induced in a fairy tale retelling, I was hesitant to start this book but boy am I glad I did! There was no boring page on this book and definitely will give you one helluva action pack ride!

I don't think I could be more disappointed with this book if I tried. When a book is introduced as "prefect for fantasy fans of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo" you have high hopes, especially since it was compared to one of my all time favourite authors. Sadly this book doesn't compare in any way, shape or form. I struggled to get into this book and kept waiting for it to get better, and it didn't. Whoever compared this book to two such amazing authors needs to go back and read all three authors and then get a reality check - there is no comparison.

Well sweet holy hell, that was a wild ride! This is the first ARC I've ever given 5 stars too and I can honestly say every single one is well-deserved. Mask of Shadows is an action-packed thrill ride with good twists and a unique and richly-imagined world.

Of course there are some flaws, but what novel doesn't have at least one. I could have used some more detail in the world-building and maybe a little more of Sal's inner thoughts about gender identity, but all-in-all I had a fabulous time reading this one!

Sal is now in my archive of favorite MCs and will remain with me for a long time. Reading through other reviews I can totally understand why people would want more on Sal's gender fluidity and are confused that it is barely addressed in the book, but to be honest I think that's the point. Sal's gender fluidity is basically a non-issue in the world of Mask of Shadows, and the point is that it should be a non-issue. We don't bat an eye if an MC is male or female and ask for more from them on what it's like to be one or the other. Yes, gender fluidity is still a new concept to many but historically it has always existed, both in the human and animal world. The story is about Sal and their trial to become Opal, and gender identity doesn't factor into it, so we shouldn't really care. There will be other books with gender fluid characters that will go into depth about their struggles and journeys of self-discovery, but Mask of Shadows is showing that regardless of gender identity, a person is a person and deserves their own ass-kicking adventure!

The history of the world in Mask of Shadows is rich and complex and I can't wait read more about it the future books in this series. Miller is an author to watch and has certainly proved she can spin a tense tail and is not afraid to kill off important characters. I'm devastated that I now have to wait a lifetime for the next in the series to come out!
Now to crawl into a corner and definitely not cry over the events of the last few chapters.

I really wanted to like this, but it just didn't grab me. One of the selling points was the gender fluid main character, but Sal didn't really do it for me. They weren't much of a character to begin with, and their gender was almost never brought up. If I didn't know they were gender fluid before starting the book, I might not have even picked up on it. Other than that, I found this book too long for the kind of story it told, and uninteresting.

This book was a little hit and miss for me. I am not personally enamoured with heavy revenge plot lines, especially when that can sometimes drown out deeper logic. It got a little repetitive. One thing that is not necessarily good or bad was the heavy violence. It did not shy away from gore. This isn't for everyone.
There were some really creative aspects to this book. I really enjoyed the genderfluid representation and the way the majority of the supporting characters accepted it. Some of the world history was really interesting - hopefully there will be more on that in the next book. And Maud as a character was amazing.
I will definitely be recommending this book when my store gets it in!

(I was given an advanced reading copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.) I so wanted to like this book. I mean, come on… Sal, the main character, is a genderfluid assassin-in-training! That’s completely up my alley! Alas, I did not enjoy Mask of Shadows as much as I’d hoped. I’m all for jumping right into the action, but Sal’s romantic interest was forced on us from the first chapter and totally insta-love. While I’m at it, the whole wanting to be an assassin thing came out of nowhere, too, and didn’t make much sense. I know Sal’s reasoning behind it, but it was completely out of the blue and honestly a little far-fetched considering her as a character. Speaking of Sal as a character, the only thing I truly enjoyed about her is that she identifies as gnederfluid. Aside from what I suspect is PTSD, there weren’t many distinctive qualities to here personality.

Okay, but Mask of Shadows wasn’t all bad. I enjoyed the clever one-liners at the end of each chapter, the author’s use of imagery, and the fact that Sal wasn’t a stone cold robot when she chopped that one dude’s hand off. Details like Sal upchucking right afterward and the scene where that poor contestant was flayed in a tree made me want to keep reading until about halfway through, where I stopped and decided to call it quits. Who knows, maybe I’ll finish this book one day, but unfortunately that day is not today.

I received an arc of this book via Netgalley and publisher, SOURCEBOOKS Fire, in exchange for an honest review.
I just… the description had me. The cover had me. Everything else in this looked great. Seriously, awareness via gender fluid characters, what’s not to like? I genuinely thought I would like this but I didn’t.
I thought this would be different but it’s just a mishmash of plots that sticks too close to Hunger Games. The other issue that I had, that I read in another review that was also commented upon, was that instead of giving the participants actual character they were reduced to being a number on a page (with exception to a few).
I was just so disappointed. The characters (the ones that were developed) were there. The setting was there. And development and detail just wasn’t.

I don’t read a lot of fantasy. I am picky. A fantasy novel has to suck me in pretty quickly. I need to want to know more about the characters and the world almost instantly. That said, I loved Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller.

I was instantly drawn in by the main character, Sal. I loved her attitude in those opening pages and I was intrigued by her intrigue with the young lady she was robbing. A romance? I wanted to know if that was in the cards for her and, if so, how. I loved the semi-western meets Robin Hood feel of the opening scenes and the concept of the Left Hand.

I’m afraid to share much more about the plot, because picking apart the threads that lead you into the center of it all was fun. I’d hate to deprive you of that joy.

I will tell you I had a little crush on Ruby and Sal. Yes, both of them. Don’t you judge me. I think Sal would approve.

image*I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.*

I'm excited to share with you a new young adult book I just had the pleasure to read. I probably could have finished this in one setting if I'd had the time. I love this book. The characters seem very real and it's easy to get swept away into this world.

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller is the first in a new duology, coming out this fall. What's unique about this book is that it features a gender fluid main character. What this means is that Sal Leon wants to be addressed based on how he dresses. When he wears men's clothes he wants to be called "he", and when he wears women's clothes he wants to be called "she". This may seem confusing, but it really doesn't make the book hard to read or understand. For those who might be turned off by a gender fluid character, in my opinion it is not a huge aspect of the story.

This is at heart a fantasy story with some mystery added in. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the fast pace of the story. Linsey Miller wastes no time in getting the action going from the start, and it continues to the very end.

The story focuses on Sal Leon, a thief, as he auditions for the Left Hand. The Left Hand are the Queen's assassins, and are named for the rings she wears. After finding a poster for auditions for the new Opal, Sal leaves the life of a thief behind. He knows if he becomes Opal he will have access to the people who destroyed his homeland, and will be closer to getting revenge.

This book is perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo, and The Hunger Games. Mask of Shadows has an expected release date of September 5th 2017 wherever books are sold. You can preorder it now at Amazon.com or other booksellers.

Sal is selected as one of twenty-three competitors for a place as an assassin for the Queen. Though many of the other competitors are high-born and well-trained, Sal is a commoner and a highway robber, and has been ever since their home country of Nacea was devastated by war and magic. Now Sal has an opportunity to repay the kind, just Queen who ended the war, and perhaps bring a more vicious sort of repayment to those who caused Nacea's destruction.

The plot of Mask of Shadows owes a great deal to books like Throne of Glass and even The Hunger Games, all of which feature young people fighting each other to the death. But what raises Mask of Shadows out of the pack is the protagonist, Sal. Sal is genderfluid, matching their clothing to the day's preferred pronoun. Genre books with genderfluid characters are surpassingly rare, and Linsey Miller does an excellent job of crafting Sal's identity, including but not limited to their fluidity. Sal faces trials that might end their life, but they also find friendship, comfort--and romance, as well. The book's climactic final scene is full of revelations and heartbreak, and it will leave readers anxious for a sequel.

I have mixed emotions about this book.

It's probably more of a 3.5 stars for me.
I hovered over 4 stars for a while, but ultimately it was lacking a certain something that would have pushed it higher.

It was interesting and gripping at times, yet also quite dull and confusing at others.

These are our characters:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23.

And:

Ruby, Emerald and Amethyst.

Confused?
I was!

Characters 1 through 23 also wear masks over their faces, so we are given no recognisable physical features either. (Except for 23, who is our main character)
Throw in some background characters with long, similar names and my brain just gave up.
I mostly skimmed over who was who, and who was doing what until I got further through the book and we had less characters to deal with.
A tournament to the death will do that thankfully!

The plot was interesting though.

The story focuses on an audition for the job of 'Opal' - one of the queens skilled, deadly protectors and assassins.
23 people are trying to win this job and to do so they must attend lessons on fighting, poisons, healing, archery and such, all while trying to kill each other off and not get caught doing it.
The rules kept being changed and new tasks were thrown into the mix constantly. This kept the story interesting and tense.

The main character, 23, was also quite interesting.
I enjoyed how the book dealt with and explained the characters gender fluidity:
"Most everyone else wanted me to pick one, make addressing me easier on them my denying myself. I was already dressing so they could get it right. The least they could do was try. I didn't see why I had to choose."
"Address me however I look." I was both. I was neither. I was everything, but that wasn't exactly a friendly conversation between strangers trying to kill each other."
I haven't come across this in a book before and it was refreshing and nicely done.
(at least in my opinion, but I have no real-life experience of this so please correct me if I'm wrong)
Yet, I felt like it didn't really add anything at all to the story. It didn't effect anything or anyone in any way.
It was simply mentioned a few times and then forgotten about.

23 also came across as quite big-headed and arrogant to me. This may have been totally intended, but I didn't like this aspect of the character so much.
"Emerald and Amethyst would fail. But I was more... I was a thief and a killer, trained by a childhood of fear and violence."
Yes... because you're obviously going to be more skilled and deadly than the two characters who have shown throughout the whole book that they are better at everything than you.
The characters that have been training you.
23 needs a reality check!

I didn't feel like there was much character growth for the main character throughout the book, which I would have liked to see.
23 goes into the audition arrogant and overly sure of themselves, and they come out of it exactly the same way.
And I would have liked the chance to get to know some of the other auditioners a bit better.
I wanted to know who they were, why they were there, what their motivations were.
I understand this is probably hard when everyone is dying with masks on, but it would have been nice.

I am kind of excited to see what will happen in the next book though, so I'll definitely be checking that out in the future.
And hopefully it won't be full of numbered characters with sacks on their heads.
*fingers crossed*

Really interesting story, I love that there was a gender-fluid main character, but I felt the characterization was a bit weak,

This is one of my favorite non-romances right now like oh my goodnessss! It's like the Hunger Games (and I oh so love competition stories) but medieval with a frightening world that has (or used to have) shadows that would stalk the very near extinct race of people who were sadly slaughtered without mercy. It's a new world for people like Sal, a new ruler and a new working order. The queen's Left Hand are short one and auditions are being held to replace Opal. Sal is set to be that new replacement.
And they will not be stopped.

I absolutely loved this. I enjoyed the writing style, the tone and suspense. Sal's character was so unique to me and I loved that she didn't affiliate with one single gender to identify with. I loved that she was so mysterious and awesome but at the same time had her faults that kept her humble and human. She was rough around the edges but genuine in a lot of the things she did, and I think that showed, whether she wanted it to or not. The plot was fairly simple but the little things added hinted at a much bigger picture, and that kept things exciting. The ending was unexpected, just as the story had been throughout, and I cannot wait for the second book.

This is the best Fantasy book I've read this year! Edge of your seat the whole way! I was hooked, can't wait for more books from this author or this series.

The summary was what caught my attention about the book. The plot was very interesting and I liked the way the characters interacted with each other. the only thing I found confusing was knowing whether the main character was a boy or girl. There was references to both and that Sallot went by both depending on how he/she dressed. The story itself was okay being based on trying to be the next assassin. There are four Queen's personal assassin's: Ruby, Emerald, Amethyst, and Opal. It mostly focuses on the test of becoming the next Opal. I liked the different ways that the participants tried to kill each other. The details that Miller gives sets the book great depth to make the plot run along smoothly and I could picture everything clearly. The idea of assassins is clever and gives a different perspective on how assassins do what they do.

I requested this book on cover alone. Many of my teens do this when browsing for books, so I do so every once in a while to see the results. From the cover, I saw fantasy, sci-fi, and action in my future. After reading, I wasn’t sure exactly what I got, but it wasn’t what I had expected.
This story started with a strong opener. It was a thrilling robbery that introduced the main character and gave him a witty attitude that I was sure would set the pace of the novel. I enjoyed his interactions and dialogue with the lady he was robbing and looked forward to seeing her in the future (it was an easy premise to see). Unfortunately, after that scene, everything went downhill.
Our main character, Sal, was presented as a tough ruffian with a good humor and ambition to make something of himself. Throughout the book, all that remains is his ambition. There is simply too much going on with this character to understand him fully. He is cutthroat, yet doesn’t want to kill. The idea of him being gender fluid is fine, but it is only brought up two or three times when he dresses in a dress and is asked about how he wants to be addressed. I assumed initially that he was wearing the dress to conceal who he was and became confused with the conversations initially. This preference is only touched upon briefly and does not affect the story in any way which makes it seem like an afterthought, thrown in to make the book edgy and current. Most other characters are attempted to be given a personality, but fall flat. Without clear distinction between characters, names that are only brought up here and there are unclear and create confusion for the reader.
The writing was very muddled, making scenes and plotlines unclear. Sal’s thoughts are all over the place, thinking of Nacea, wanting revenge, wanting to win, planning to defy the queen, and feelings for his tutor. He is never very focused or detailed with his thoughts and actions. As for plotlines, they were very thin and often lacked a strong foundation, which led to disinterest. There was a gap when Four accused Sal, lying to get him kicked out. It starts a large part of the book that is supposed to be a huge turning point, but his words are missing. Sal accuses Four of lying, but it was very unclear as to what the lie was.
For this story to work, there needs to be more detail and backstory added to allow readers to accept Sal for who he is and what he stands for. There is a brief description of what happened to Nacea and him, yet it is not enough to sympathize with his taste for revenge. The writing needs to be focused and thought out. There needs to be clear transitions and proper set ups. If the idea of a gender fluid character is to stay, it needs to be clear and hold meaning in the book.

(This review will not be published until 30 days before the release of the novel)

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The book started out decently. It begins with a robbery as we are introduced to our gender fluid main character Sal, and the competition that would change their life. Notice I used ‘their’ instead of he or she, for Sal chooses to be addressed as whatever they dress. If he dresses as a man, he will be addressed as such. If she dresses as a woman, the same applies. This was interesting as I never read from such a POV.

Everything else went pretty downhill from there.

If I could use one word to describe how I felt about this book it would be this: DISAPPOINTED.

The Goodreads synopsis for this book says, “Perfect for fantasy fans of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo”. And you know what? They technically weren’t wrong. If you like assassins and shadow monsters that kill everyone, this is the book for you. Seriously, if Throne of Glass and Shadow and Bone got together and had a child, it might be Mask of Shadows. Just remove the compelling characters, fluid writing, and vivid world building.

This book is about Sal, one of the last few survivors of Nacea, a land that was ravished by wars and monsters made of shadow and magic. Sal has decided to get revenge on those who abandoned Nacea to die, and to do so, Sal joins a competition to be the Queen’s next Opal. The Opal, along with Ruby, Emerald, and Amethyst, are all part of the Queen’s Left Hand, a group of assassins ready to do the Queen’s dirty deeds in secret. And if this doesn’t sound a bit like Throne of Glass, or Hunger Games, or any of the hundreds of YA with similar plots, I don’t know what does.

Anyway, this competition has very few rules. The objective is to kill all the other contestants without harming civilians and without getting caught. Simple enough, right? Wrong, not where there are twenty-three other people also ready to kill for the title.

And so, it begins. There are ‘plot-twists’, dangerous politics, court intrigue, and of course, murder. The problem was that I didn’t care about any of it. I couldn’t care less if Sal, or any of the other characters, all got blown up or shot in the face. They did not bring forth any emotion from me. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we got no physical descriptions whatsoever, or that everyone was called either by a number, Sal being Twenty-Three, or the gem they represented (ex. Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald). Also, the supporting cast was a cluster of clichés, including the strong headed, determined handmaiden/servant, and the generically evil competitor who has it out for the main character and also wants revenge for something or the other. I honestly feel like Miller thought that she was giving these characters personality and depth, and I appreciate her effort, it just didn’t translate to me as I think she would have hoped.

As for the gender fluidity of the character, while interesting, seemed unnecessary. Now, before you get mad, let me explain. Sal’s sexual orientation is a major selling point. And that is it. It doesn’t factor into the story, whatsoever. Is this a world where being gender fluid is acceptable? I don’t think it is. If so, why does Sal get emotional when people accept this as a part of them? How does it affect Sal as a person? The other competitors? The story as a whole? What do we learn from this? Nothing, that is what. It was there to be one of few hints of originality in the story.

So, why 3 stars? Because I am a nice person. Also, because I was entertained, and that is really what I want in a book. To be entertained for a couple of hours of my life. Also, it left me interested enough that I might actually read the sequel.

This book had a mixture of throne of glass and hunger games. I would like to know more about where she came from.Sal's character is a little off and takes time to like. Overall an alright book