Rating – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Release date – 6 February 2018

I’m not okay. This book is ridiculous…I don’t even know how to put into words how this book made me feel.

Initially I was incredibly excited.

Then I was pretty disappointed.

Then I was entranced. Gripped.

And then I was crying.

The end.

Shadowsong is going to be a hit-or-miss book for people. I personally thought it was going to be a miss for me, but then that gorgeously heartbreaking ending just made the entire book worthwhile. I couldn’t decide on whether to give this a 3 or 4 star rating because of how good the ending is, so I’ll go in the middle and give it 3.5 for now.

Because this book is slow. Up until the last 40%, I was bored. I had no idea where the book was going, and not in a good way; if it wasn’t for the fact that I loved Wintersong so much, I would have seriously considered leaving it and coming back to it at a later date.

As it is, I’m still going to buy Shadowsong when it comes out, because I do think it’s one of those books that you appreciate much more the second time around.

Wintersong focused on the relationship, the push and pull between Liesl and the Goblin King; Shadowsong is about Liesl, entire. Liesl and her grief, how her secrets and her guilt and her wishes affect her relationships in the ‘real world’. We see her struggle with her love for a brother who is increasingly distant, while also fighting her own rising mania and a longing for a world that is not her own.

With the exception of the last 10% of the book, Shadowsong is set above ground. We get snippets from Josef’s POV, and also snippets from the Goblin King’s past, and that’s where I feel like I would benefit from a reread as a lot of it sort of went over my head.

But the ending… the ending made my heart hurt and also soar. Because it’s so bittersweet; I’m not going to say a great deal about it because the book isn’t even out yet and I don’t want to spoil it, but what I will say is that the ending reminded me a bit of Clockwork Princess.

Yeah, good luck.

*thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced copy*