Review: Shadow Fallen by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Shadow Fallen by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I am a long time fan of Sherrilyn's, and I like many of her fans am extremely excited to see her writing again.  This is her first book in several years back in the Darkhuner/Dreamhunter world, and it centers on new characters that we haven't see before.  As the story progresses, old characters that long time fans are familiar with are introduced and play a part in the storyline.  As with all of the books in the Dreamhunter and Darkhunter, you can read this one as a standalone, but as many of the books and characters are so interconnected, I feel like I would have been a bit lost had I not read the previous books in the series.  This one does stand pretty well on it's own giving the reader enough information about who people are and enough background to figure out what is happening.  Ariel and Valteri's story ties nicely into the already established storyline that many of us have been reading for a very long time and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

This started out a bit slow for my taste, but as things developed and more characters were introduced things started to pick up around the half way mark.  I do feel that that narrator of the audiobook also contributed to the slower feeling.  While not a bad narrator, I feel like he was a tad monotone throughout the book and that led to the book feeling a bit slower than I prefer.

This particular installment in the series feels a bit more like historical fiction, whereas many of the other books in the series have a more urban fiction feel.  This book felt more like one of her Kinley MacGregor medieval romances, but I expect that has to do with it being more of an origin story for Ariel and Valteri and that we will see them again in future installments.  There is also quite the religious overtone present, as Valteri is constantly accused of being demon-spawn.  Ariel is an Arel, basically a type of angel, and she isn't the first Arel we've seen between The Chronicles of Nick, The Darkhunters, and the Dreamhunter books.  The war between good and evil has been brewing for quite sometime among the interconnected series and I expect our two main characters to resurface as it comes to pass as we get more books.

The worldbuilding wasn't overly complex as this was set in the real world with a few fantasy elements.  The "magic" system isn't overly complex in the series to begin with and this particular installment doesn't have the same mythological backing as some of the other books it is more centered around Christianity and the Norman-Saxon conflict.  

Overall, I think this is a good comeback for the author.  This book gave us valuable information about characters we've wanted to know about for years, and sets the stage for future books.  I'm excited that she's back and can't wait for future installments.

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