Review: Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

Title: Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows #1)
Author: Sophie Jordan
Publisher: Harper Teen
Release date: Harper Teen
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best.

Reign of Shadows is an interesting YA fantasy book with romance, it tells the story of Luna, a 17-year-old girl that has lived her entire life in a tower in a forest that is said to be cursed and with the only human contact of her caregivers Perla and Sivo, whom had been dedicated to protecting her from the murderer of her parents and the outside world. For the last 17 years the kingdom had lived almost in eternal darkness due to an eclipse, with only one hour a day of light, so that the world around it has changed and is not safe, because there creatures called "dwellers", which are a zombie like that eat humans, also due to the lack of sunlight is difficult to grow plants, so food is scarce. And despite all this Luna wants to explore the world.

So when she stumbles and saves the life of Fowler, a young man whose main goal is to survive in the strange world in which he had to live and what he least want is a fellow traveler, due to some unexpected circumstances he reluctantly accept Luna to tag along in his search of a safe place. So most of the plot is about their journey and the obstacles they encountered along the way, besides the romance that develops between them.

The book is told from the point of view of Luna and Fowler, so we get to know both of them and we learn a little about Fowler´s background and this give us some understanding of why he´s so harsh with Luna and so disconnected from his humanity.

Because Reign of Shadows is a book of fiction, I read it with understanding that everything is possible, so I did not stop to analyze what is feasible and what´s not, and that due to the total eclipse for almost 17 years (there is only one hour of mid light), it is difficult to grow food and some animals have mutated, besides some of Luna´s skills may not be believable (in a normal world), but I decided to accept them as they come. The story feels more post-apocalyptic than fantasy sometimes, but it is very entertaining and I really enjoyed it, And it has an cliffhanger ending that hook me to read the next book in the series.