Thank you, NetGalley and Harlequin, for this ARC.

The book opens with a young girl named Raven who goes looking for her friend Robin, who's disappeared. She discovers him at Academia, a sentient academy of learning, where students are being killed and no one knows why.

From there, we meet humans and non-humans, spider-people, and other things not identified. I think they figured out who was doing it and why, but don't ask me because I was so confused by the end.

To be fair, this is a spin-off of another series, Chronicles of Elantra, which I have not read. Given that, I would expect not to recognize, but I would expect context to help, and there was none. There was a lot of rambling, (internal dialog was the worst) and so much repetition (yes, we know Raven hides). I did understand enough of the world that I may track down some of the Chronicles.

**Warning:** Not a standalone book. Heavy background missing. World-building that kept me raising an eyebrow and trying to play catch-up. The premise and storyline are interesting, with characters that have heart and interest. It’s a mash-up of Alice in Wonderland, University magic, dragons, and mystery.

Sometimes, though, the unbelievability of the simple things like a girl with no memory surviving on the streets alone. It grates on my inner dialogue of whether that is possible. This was way too much work to jump into without more context.

2.5/5 stars

I really liked this one. Obviously the author is an experienced writer, and there is a ton of backstory for this world/some of the characters, but as someone who's new to the world, it wasn't too hard for me to join in the middle of the flow. The characters are well fleshed out, and feel like real people with real motivations. At times, there was a bit too much exposition. Also, considering it's theoretically a dark academia story, I wish it would have gotten into Raven and Robin actually learning magic a bit faster! However, these are minor quibbles, and I still recommend the book.

I saw another review that said you ought to read all the other books in this world first because it’s a spin off and you won’t know what the world is like but I disagree. I think anyone who regularly reads fantasy will pick up on the world is odd and fragmented. There’s a bunch of different species and humans seem to be the fragile under powered ones. There’s a pair of young adults who don’t know terribly much about the world thrust into an academy together and they need to figure out what’s behind some murders. One’s a bit odd and the other just happy to have escaped the slums, You see the world with them. I have only read a scattering of her books but I think I really ought to read the rest as I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read so far.

Michelle Sagara develops the story of the Academia in Shards of Glass; Robin and his protector Raven come to the school as a safe place of learning, but three members are dead and the sentient building Killianis that houses the school is under attack. High fantasy of the best tales. Robin has to find out who he is and what secrets Raven hides. Read and enjoy.

This review was made possible via an ARC through NetGalley

Shards of Glass by Michelle Sagara stars two teens, Robin and Raven, who grew up in the warrens, a poverty-stricken area, and go to the Academia. Robin was taken there first and Raven later follows but is the one who most take a fascination with.

The book has fascinating concepts such as sentient buildings and dragons in human form, but the Barrani are not completely explained. Apparently this book is connected to another series by Sagara but I was not aware of that going in. Enough is explained where I’m not scratching my head and I don’t feel lost.

Shards of Glass is ultimately a mystery that takes its time to build up the ideas and explore the nuances of the concepts of language and what is seen and unseen. Raven’s own arc is heavily tied to language as we think of it and the ways in which she prefers to communicate. Robin’s knowledge of her idiosyncrasies and how she communicates provide a lot of information about their characters and relationship.

I would recommend this to fans of books that take their time and slowly build up to the reveals at the end. I would not recommend this to readers who require faster pacing.

Elantra once again entrances!

Raven lived in the Warrens. She collected glass no-one could see. She had a companion Robin but he’d disappeared. He had been recruited to the Academia, a place of learning that had been asleep but now returned and is governed by the Dragon chancellor, Lord Tiamaris. Tiamaris sees Academia as his horde. Never get between a dragon and his horde!
Raven couldn’t remember her past, her name, names of objects, anything, she was a blank slate. Robin had named her. The two had survived in the Warrens, looking out for each other from an early age. Robin vaguely, fleetingly remembers another life. Robin wants Raven to come to Academia, but when she arrives those in charge are alarmed by her.
Death is stalking the halls of Academia.
Who or what is Raven? Who is Robin? Who is the old woman Giselle?
This is an independent title that has seemingly grown out of Cast in Wisdom. I love the way Raven interacts with the giant spider Starrante, a Wevaran, and one of the three librarians of Academia.
Some of the lost Barrani cohort who now live with Kylin Neya are present, particularly Terrano who most people can’t see but Raven and Giselle can.
Sagara has an underlying current running through this novel that explores questions around waking thoughts and what dreams might be. The reality of fears, anxieties and wishes as they pertain to dreams. Fascinating!
Another stunning novel of Elantra that pulled me into the mystery of Raven and Robin, and more broadly into the lost cohort of Baranni’s.

A Harlequin Trade ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Through NetGalley, I received a free copy of SHARDS OF GLASS (Acacdemia Companion Novel to the Elantra fantasy series) by Michelle Sagara in exchange for an honest review. The Academia is coming back online with the help of its students. One such student is Robin, who was featured in the Elantra book wherein the Academia was rediscovered. As it turns out, Robin has a friend, Raven, whom he left behind in the Warrens when he was kidnapped to the Academia. Raven becomes worried and goes looking for Robin. She’s worried that Robin isn’t as safe as he thinks he is. Students are being murdered at the Academia. Soon, Robin eagerly and Raven reluctantly help investigate the murders. Some familiar characters are there to “help.”

The Chronicles of Elantra is one of my favorite series, so I was eager to read this book. I enjoyed it and recommend it to other fans of the series. Be aware the POV shifts between Raven and Robin, sometimes without notice. The book begins as if Raven is the main character, but finishes with Robin taking over the role.

#ShardsofGlass #NetGalley

Title: Shards of Glass
Author: Michelle Sagara
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5

The Academia, once an elite proving ground for the rulers of the world, has been frozen for centuries. Now its strange slumber has ended, and a new Chancellor, an orange-eyed dragon, has reopened its lecture halls and readied its dorms. In order to thrive once more, however, the Academia needs fresh blood—new students with a passion and talent for learning.

One such student, Robin, has the perfect recruit in his friend Raven, an orphan who lives in the dangerous Warrens. Robin grew up in the Warrens, and he wouldn't have made it if not for Raven. He knows she’ll be safe at the Academia, where her unusual gifts can be appreciated.

But when students start turning up dead, the campus threatens to collapse completely. Raven and Robin will not let that happen to their new home…if they can survive long enough to figure out who—or what—is trying to kill them.

This is another excellent read in the Chronicles of Elantra series. I do love Kaylin and the other main characters, but I really enjoyed this read as well. This world is so well-done and vibrant, it’s fascinating to read about. I highly recommend this! I binged it in two days.

Michelle Sagara lives in Toronto. Shards of Glass is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

I loved the character development in this book and some of the storytelling. Most of the book was well-paced but it did seem to drag towards the end. The writing could have been crisper; the book frequently rehashed the relationship between the two main protagonists. I also felt that I was missing a lot of background and found out later that this book was part of an already-established universe. A lot of the epilogue felt like it was playing catch-up and explaining things that perhaps should have been addressed earlier. Overall, despite the criticism, the book is worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and MIRA for the advance reader copy.

I'm thought about this author before but haven't had the chance to read her yet. I have been missing out. The world building and Character building is top notch. Our main character or one of our main characters is Raven. A child born of the warrens who helps another boy Robin who gives her her name. The dynamic between these two is the main plot of this book. Raven seeking her missing friend journeys to the Academia to find him. This place of refuge and learning is hiding many secrets but then all the characters in this book are hiding secrets as well. and most of it revolves around shards of broken glass that the somewhat neurodivergent Raven collects like treasure and which through some magical means only she can find and collect them. This is a world of many races, sentient buildings and fights against great evils of the supernatural world as well as the one of the human heart. It is brilliant and kept me riveted throughout the whole book. I lost a lot of sleep over this one. amazing work. I thank netgalley and the author and publisher for letting me read it.

Another great book in one of my favorite series! This one is a side story from the main storyline and features different main characters. Although I thought I would miss Kaylin and her friends, I was happy to see many of them here and I enjoyed the new set of characters just as much.

The story is about Raven, a homeless kid from the warrens. She misses her friend, Robin, who has disappeared. Robin, having found a home in the Academia, wants to bring Raven to be a student there. It’s possible this book could be read as a standalone, but I think it would be much more enjoyable within the context of the series. There’s a ton of detailed, intricate world building in the previous books and Robin’s story begins in an earlier book in the series. Sagara's characters are always fully realized, flawed and heroic and the unfolding of who and what Raven and Robin are is a delight in this book.

I really enjoyed the Academia setting. I always enjoy sentient buildings in stories and Killianus, the avatar of the building, has a large role. The mystery here is also really interesting and, as is usual in this series, there’s a fascinating mystical component as well.

Although it's technically a stand alone, it's more of a side story within a larger story so it would be hard to understand without having the prior knowledge of the world. So definitely read the previous books in the Chronicles of Elantra series before picking this one up! I love the plot intricacies in Shards of Glass, that's probably the part I had the most fun with. Which is saying something because I don't always love all the world building, I find it slow. In this case, I enjoyed the pacing, even though the events of the book covered only a week.

I have not read the Elantra books but have read the author's Sun Sword and House War series (written under the pen name Michelle West). Surprisingly, with this book I was not lost and could follow the plot easily (though I imagine I did not get the subtleties of the side characters or backstories, of course). Without having read the Elantra books, I still found this an engrossing and enjoyable read.

Story: Robin has lived in the hardscrabble Warrens since he was little. He has one friend, Raven, a mysterious girl his age who has saved his life many times with her ability to sense danger and find hiding places. Raven is difficult to talk to but Robin has found a way to communicate with the waif. When he disappears, Raven knows she needs to go find him - leading her to the Academia. There, the two will have to face both a terrifying future and a devastating past as students suddenly show up murdered in what should be the safest place in the city.

This has all of the Sagara/West trademarks: depth, nuance, rich world building, and quirky characters. The interactions between Robin and Raven (we get a POV from both) are incredibly interesting but never pandering - there are several mysteries in the world and from our characters that are explored throughout the novel.

The pacing is excellent and the magic here quite interesting. Despite being in a well written world, the focus here is very narrow on the two street urchins. Both are more than they seem and will play a large part in what is happening. Other reviewers have given where this fits in the Elantra series but really the big picture isn't needed to follow this side story.

In all, another excellent Sagara/West book - one I hated to see end. It was a great glimpse into the Elantra series and one I am sure to pick up now. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

SHARDS OF GLASS is set in the same world as the Chronicles of Elantra series and has some of the same characters. This story takes place at the recently rediscovered Academia which was once a center of learning for the world but was shifted out of its timeline in the battle to defeat Shadow which was set to consume the world.

Young Robin was kidnapped from the Warrens when it was discovered that Academia needed students to complete its recovery. After the defeat of the people who wanted to use Academia to build their own powers and a new Chancellor was chosen, the quest for new students began.

Robin proposed the friend who kept him alive in the Warrens when he was a child. Raven was a strange person who knew how to survive and chose to help Robin survive too. Robin is the one who named this child Raven and who acted as her interpreter to the world since she was almost completely nonverbal when they first paired up.

Robin hoped that bringing Raven to Academia would provide the safety, food, and shelter that were so scarce in the Warrens. He wasn't expecting to drop her in the middle of a campus where random students were being murdered.

Robin has been making new friends among the students including three of the Cohort of Barrani who were rescued from captivity in an earlier book of the Chronicles of Elantra. Serralyn loved the Academia especially its endless library staffed by Arbiters from three ancient, immortal races. And Terrano was another friend who was most changed by their captivity and now has very non-Barrani abilities. Robin is even friends with Starrante who is one of the librarians and a Wevaran who looks like a giant spider.

As Robin and Raven work together to solve the murders and preserve this new home they learn more about each other and more about the pasts that are impacting their presents.

This was an excellent, complex fantasy filled with magic and magical beings. Robin seems to be an ordinary human but one with a potential magical ability. Raven is anything but human which comes as a surprise to Robin. The Chancellor of the Academia is a dragon. The Arbiters are a Wevaran, an Ancient, and a Barrani. There are sentient buildings and human mages.

But beyond the fantastical elements, this is a story of friendship and love and finding a home. I really enjoyed it and would be eager for more stories in this world.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This one was just okay to me because it has some real pros but also some unfortunate cons.

I loved the worldbuilding it was really excellent and kept me engaged despite the stylistic issues. But I just hated the exposition style of the writing and couldn’t get past that to really enjoy the book.

When I first picked this up, I didn't realize it was part of a extended series. I could follow the plot easily enough without the background, but the story had very low to no stakes because of that. The entire story takes place over less than a week, which with 500 pages you'd think would have to be a ton of action. It is not. The story is almost entirely exposition. I swear characters would walk out of a room, do research, and then walk back in and report what they learned off page. It was a lot of talking, off page research, and then reporting back to the main characters, who primarily listened to others over the course of the book. I stuck through the whole thing because the world building was fascinating, and I thought conclusion would be as epic as the massive build-up. It was not. The big conclusion also happened off page and was then explained to the main characters.

I am a fan of Michelle Sagara's world building and storytelling. Though jumping into this novel which is part of a larger, established series can be tricky. Her magical settings, student-teacher relationships, the murder mystery at the heart of the book, make this an enjoyable read. It will lead you to seek out her previous books in this series. But perhaps greater enjoyment will be had if those books are explored first.

I saw the synopsis of this book on NetGalley and I couldn't say no. Do I have an ever growing TBR pile to get through? Yes. Do I need another book? No. Did I drop everything I was reading to read the newest in a series by the same author who wrote Cast in Shadow? You betcha! This was fun and fantastic, but I will say that it might be hard if you haven't had previous experience with the Chronicles of Elantra series. But don't let that deter you. It is ALL well worth it!

Loved it! I was really glad to read more about the Academia (and Starrante, Killianas, Terrano, et al, and Laragannos). Robin, Raven, and the Grey Crow are interesting people.