I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

The Land of Shadows by Seth Lowen was...fine? I didn't love it but I also didn't hate it. The writing is solid but the overall plot feels a little too generic for my tastes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for permitting this book to be a Read Now to help members develop their Feedback Ratio in exchange for an honest review.

Review Summary:
This is a fantasy novel following two brothers who are suddenly thrown in the midst of a war between a dark malevolent force against their kingdom. The older brother has been under the tutelage of a renowned swordsman and has then been sharing his teachings with his younger brother. Both show such great promise that their tutor pulls some strings and gets them into the Shadowbane Academy, a school that teaches promising youths how to become fierce warriors. These warriors can utilise a unique sorcery that allows them to become even more lethal. Together with their Shadowbane tutors and peers they must quickly learn to be strong enough to face the terrible villain who is bringing death and peril to their kingdom.
Positives are that the author has clearly put a lot of thought into the world building of the novel. The overarching main storyline of the series is intriguing.
Negatives are unfortunately more prominent. I had issues with the pacing, the characterisation, the subplots and the prose - especially the dialogue.

2.5 stars. While influence from other books and universes is natural this novel felt too reliant on tropes from other works. The characters felt one dimensional and the dialogue was exposition-heavy. The pacing was incredibly rushed and it felt like there was a lot of wasted potential. The installment-specific storylines were frustrating and many of them were unnecessary.

FULL REVIEW BELOW. AVAILABLE WITH THE ADDITION OF HIDDEN SPOILERS ON GOODREADS.

World-building:
While this was the most enjoyable aspect of the book it is, generally, a melting pot of already published ideas. I’m talking Lord of the Rings, Name of the Wind, Harry Potter and The Witcher. The idea of an ancient language and culture that still needs uncovering, or is largely lost forever, was interesting. The powers the Shadowbane warriors can wield were fun but again, similar to other things. I really wished Shadowbane had been developed more because magical schools/universities/academies can be whimsical and enjoyable, but it felt too rushed for me. The two brothers become friends with the first people they meet and instantly join their clan. It would have been more interesting for them to have met multiple people from different clans, maybe the two brothers could have been in different clans for some more fun rivalry. Maybe they could have had difficulty choosing which one to join because they all had their own unique beneficial qualities. I wish they’d done more exploring of the school instead of just the first tour they had, spent some time alone as characters discovering what they enjoyed to do and focus on. It would have helped develop the younger brother as an individual some more. Just things like this would have made me feel more immersed and invested in their time at Shadowbane. Outside of Shadowbane the flora and fauna, magical creatures and such, in the kingdom were more imaginative. The concept of nomadic tribes and cultures made the kingdom feel more layered too.

Characterisation:
Frustrating. Any characters outside of the two brothers just don’t seem to have a distinguishable personality whatsoever. The dialogue across the board felt incredibly unnatural and every conversation is essentially an exposition dump. Attempts at developing the characters are consistently crammed into the first few sentences of the character being introduced. We’d get a repetitive overview of their physical appearance - eyes, hair, stature - and then vague often nonsensical summaries of their personalities based on something as small as their voice. You cannot know that a character is wise, kind, fiercely loyal or wicked intelligent from the timbre of their speech or from the look in their eyes. Relationships between the characters were hit and miss. The friendship depicted between the four famous names in Shadowbane had glimpses of feeling genuine and organic, with a sense of kinship and brotherhood. The two lead characters had potential there too, especially involving their family unit. There was one scene that stood out for me where there was a genuinely more natural conversation between the two brothers with banter or comments that didn’t feel so forced. But this was already in the last third or quarter of the book. The older brother also has a friend, the archetypical ‘BFG’ character, who he shares some nice moments with but I’d wished there had been more. There is a hint of a romance plot in the middle of the novel but again this hasn’t been developed at all, possibly being left for sequels. The relationships between the two brothers and their classmates at Shadowbane were the most hollow to me, as explained before as I felt this was due to the rushing of the Shadowbane chapters. There is a minor villain in Shadowbane that the older brother gets into several scuffles with. His motive felt unclear and he felt a bit like a token bully.

Story:
The main plot of the series is a villain, who was presumed to be no more, coming back to the kingdom and wreaking havoc. Their motive hasn’t been established and they only speak a couple of sentences in the whole book. Tragedy strikes for the two brothers, and they have to deal with their losses while travelling to Shadowbane. Before even reaching the school they face more peril and heartache. The two brothers have endless plot armour, which makes for a boring read. They survive the realistically unsurvivable on their travels, then once there they are both the best Shadowbane has ever seen, they both break records on their first try and they pick everything up faster than anybody else with no real effort. A large chunk of the novel is the brothers passing initiation tests, a school-wide tournament and a best-of-the-best battle in Shadowbane. Not only did it feel frustrating that the brothers were even involved in these things considering they had only been at the school mere weeks, but the scenes did nothing really to contribute to the story. Had there been
lots of character or relationship development it may have felt more justified, but as it stands it makes a good half of the novel somewhat pointless. We are then left with a cliffhanger as the characters finally come to meet the villain.

Prose:
Issues with dialogue already discussed, I noticed there were occasionally some contradictions in the writing. Early on in the book it is mentioned that the brother’s tutor can’t really see. Later on it is then mentioned to the brothers that he is blind, to which the brothers are shocked and said they didn’t know. That was a little confusing, because I’d assumed they did know. If my memory serves correctly it is even mentioned that he had ‘milky’ eyes. In the same vein a character’s parting words are said to another, ‘which the boys did not hear’. The dialogue seems to be written so we, the readers, know what was said but not the brothers. But then in the next sentence the brothers ask, word-for-word about what the character meant by what they said. I don’t know if it was just worded poorly and what was said aloud for us was not what was then said in confidence, but as it stands it sounds like they did, in fact, hear. During the school tournament I found some of the descriptions of the environment a little hard to follow so I couldn’t visualise and place myself in the scene. Other than this no glaring issues but the pacing was distractedly off for me, which I don’t think needed to happen if a series is being planned.

Maran knows little of the outside world, Something is stirring in his peaceful kingdom and darkness is waking up.

This book followed all the basic conventions of the genre without really adding much originality. I ended up DNF-ing this book as it was just so one dimensional with the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hidden Shelf

I finished this book mainly because I was feeling stubborn. The Land of Shadows follows Maran, who has been training under a legendary swordsman and has just been chosen to attend a special school to finish training. However, before that can happen, the village is attacked. The mentor and his mother both die, but he's still going to school, but now he gets to take his brother too.
The good: Lowen can write a decent fight and the relationship between the brothers was pretty fun.
The bad: It was so bland. The characters were...like action figures. Despite the beginning, they never grieve. They make snarky remarks at each other, but have little personality otherwise. They were magically good at everything and never had to try very hard. They just did what needed done and it went perfectly, save once or twice. The greater plot was also bland. The great and terrible evil that was banished a thousand years ago isn't actually dead and is coming back for more and can only be defeated by the magical chosen one. Nothing too special in the slightest, and Lowen did not add enough to make it special from every other book with that exact plot.

Thanks to @hidden_shelf for making the ARC of 'The Land of Shadows' by Seth Lowen available for review on @netgalley.

I'm very much of two minds about this book.

On the one hand, it has a very classical, high fantasy vibe to it, and you can tell that a lot of thought has gone into creating the world in which the story is situated. Across the span of this one book, you get a very clear idea of the players involved, and where on the board they're situated, which is no small feat given the amount of detail the book gives you.

On the other hand, while there are moments where the two lead characters - brothers Maran and Jerathim - are given little flashes of individual personalities, the characters are all otherwise rather flat, particularly when it comes to dialogue. And this is an extremely dialogue-heavy book, with multiple scenes of characters walking around, working in tandem with the narration to deliver a lot of expository detail. It's a lot to take in.

The pacing of the story feels off. A good chunk of the story happens over the span of a week, when it would have made more sense for it to happen over several weeks, if not months. Not only would this have allowed for some more character development, but it would have provided Lowen an opportunity to give his characters some flaws to overcome. As it stands, however, they're essentially the overpowered protagonists of 99% of modern animes, losing just enough to give them the facade of having imperfections, without ever really being in danger of not coming out on top regardless of the challenge.

I didn't hate this book by any means, but I did struggle with it; and that's disappointing, because I actually think that it has a solid foundation upon which to build a much more compelling story. I hope that the sequel will be able to do that foundation more justice.

Rating: 3/5

'The Land of Shadows' will be available from the 24th of October 2024.

I liked it. It was a cute, fun book. Maran and Jerethim are good kids, so they're easy to like a s root for. The setting and plot were fine. It uses standard fantasy conventions, but not in a derivative way. It made the story feel almost cozy.

I really wanted to like this one, it started so promising. However, I sadly had to DNF at 44%.

This is a very classic adventurous coming-of-age story that many still might find enjoyable. It's good old-school high fantasy with a clear cut villain, clear cut heroes, a beautiful princess, monsters and a lot of stories told as loredrops.

Here are my reasons for DNFing:

1. It's too polished, too clear cut. The heroes are knights in shining armour, true paladins. The protagonist is a tropey naive boy that worships those heroes and in combat situations believes he can be the hero and save everyone - and probably does at the end of the book. There was no edge to anyone, no one stuck out and was likeable enough for me to want to follow them. On top of that, the protagonist has a brother who is basically the same as him?? Why is the brother even there, what purpose does he have for the plot?

2. I did not enjoy how characters were written. They're all polished and shiny and perfect. And then they all speak perfect prose - no person would speak that stiffly and formally when telling a story. But most of all the main characters' reactions to what happens to and around them is absolutely unrealistic and ridiculous. Pretty bad things happen to them and they bounce back without any emotional trauma or other consequences. Present them with a shiny lollipop in form of a pretty princess and they've forgotten everything.

BRAVO SETH!

Great coming of age adventure story, that takes us on a well constructed journey from training to fight to hero.

With nice world building, likable characters, and an interesting fighting magic system. This book will keep you up nights trying to find out the next twist.

Thanks to Seth and Netgalley