Melissa Marr: Radiant Shadows

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; Reprint edition (February 22, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-0061659249

Hunger for nourishment. Hunger for touch. Hunger to belong.
Half-human and half-faery, Ani is driven by her hungers. Those same cravings also attract powerful enemies and uncertain allies - including Devlin, the assassin who is brother to the faeries' High Queen. Ani and Devlin are drawn together, but as they grow closer, a larger threat imperils the whole of Faerie. Will saving the Faery realm mean losing each other?
 Alluring romance, heart-stopping danger, and sinister intrigue combine in the penultimate volume of Melissa Marr's New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.

AH THIS TITLE MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW. It's really the only one, other than Ink Exchange, but yeah. Side note of excitement for sudden and blinding comprehension.
 With this installment, Melissa Marr draws one step closer to the final novel in her faery series. She keeps building on her world, which is nice, but on the other hand, I sometimes lose track of who's who. There are just so many characters running around, and shifting of allegiances, that I find myself having to go back every once in a while and refresh on what happened previously. That gets a little annoying, but I'll make the sacrifice for such a good series.
 So, in Radiant Shadows, Sorcha's losing her damn mind, the Summer Court and the Winter Court barely make appearances other than to say that hey, nothing's changed, and the Dark Court is still confusing as hell. Mostly, Irial and Niall confuse me. I have no idea why Niall angsting so hard, but he is, and Irial is still largely awesome, so there are, effectively two Dark Kings. Ish.
 The focus of this novel, one of the so-called "in between" novels, is the halfling Ani, who was introduced in the first novel, I believe. She's part Hound and is incredibly antsy to be accepted. Except that's difficult because she's...special. Enter Devlin, the High Queen's Bloody Hand, re: assassin, who was supposed to kill Ani once upon a time, but clearly didn't. Chaos ensues. Doesn't it always? This time, though, I mean literally: Bananach, War and Disorder embodied, is on the warpath and trying to stir up trouble.
 Marr is building on what she's already created, so there's not a lot of character development going on. It's kind of just getting to know already semi-familiar characters. Unless she throws in a new player, which she does (cough RAE cough DREAMWALKER WHO THE HELL ARE YOU WHAT IS GOING ON cough). Further, the plot is interesting and sufficiently twisty, although she could stand with a little less mystery and a little more exposition. For example, can we have a more clear statement regarding where Ani's wolves come from? What's up with Seth? And also are we just dropping the subject of her supposedly precious blood? (I'm sure that will be answered in the last novel, though.)
 Overall: B+
 It was not my favorite of her novels, and I'm getting a little tired of being denied knowledge gratification until the last few chapters of the novel. But it was still good and it definitely built up the suspense for the next, and last, installment.

Brent Weeks: Beyond the Shadows

• Mass Market Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Orbit (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-0316033664

 Logan Gyre is king of Cenaria, a country under siege, with a threadbare army and little hope. He has one chance - a desperate gamble, and one that could destroy his kingdom.
 In the north, the new Godking has a plan. If it comes to fruition, no one will have the power to stop him.
 Kylar Stern has no choice. To save his friends - and perhaps his enemies - he must accomplish the impossible: assassinate a goddess.

 And the finale. The wrap up. The fin.
 This book falls in the same classification of those recently published "epic" fantasy novels. They're published at the rate of about one novel a month, and they're pretty thick, but that is in large part due to the large print on the pages. So, what is meant to be an "epic" is actually a pale reproduction of Tolkien, Terry Brook-esque caliber. However. That doesn't mean that they aren't bad. Just that they aren't AMAZING.
 Brent Weeks started off his saga fairly well. Those are obviously words for another time and another review. This novel - the final in the trilogy - had its moments. My overriding issue, an issue I had with the series at large, was Weeks' attempt to tackle way too many characters and way too many plotlines. And, as I said before, his books have the thickness of those huge epics, but the print whittles down the story to realistically half the size of the book itself. Therefore, he's fitting in essentially the story of five or so countries vying for power in a book and a half. That is simply not enough time.
 In this novel, we have defeated the Khalidorans (who conquered Cenaria and then were expelled all within the space of the last book), but the country is still not at peace. I appreciated this as, realistically speaking, a country's story doesn't end with victory. That is just the beginning of a long climb to rebuilding and recovery. While Kylar thinks his job is done, he actually has to put the rest of the world back together. But wait, he has help. From everyone. The problem being that none of these characters are very good at communication, so we have them all coming at the issue and trying to solve it in their own way and stepping all over each others toes in the process. This makes for a complex story that, honestly, I at times felt I did not quite have the grasp of. There were moments when I felt like I was missing some major points of explanation. A character makes a decision or reveals information based on the movements of other characters that I don't recall. And I don't think that's entirely due to the space of time between novels. The point is motivations are lost in translation.
 Another problem with the space restriction of the novel and having way too many characters walking around at once is that we miss out on a lot of characterization, another factor that detracts from our understanding of motivations. One might argue that we've had three books to get to know these people, but it just didn't feel like enough. If it doesn't feel like enough, it probably isn't.
 Despite it's weaknesses in structure and narrative organization, there were some genuinely beautiful moments. The final few chapters were well written and moving. If I say too much, I'll spoil it. I just felt that - after enjoying the novel while still struggling with the elements above mentioned - it was a great way to wrap everything up. Everything has its place, several mysteries are solved, and the reader feels hope that that world has a bright future.
 Overall: B-
 The elementary space and time issues kind of toyed with my enjoyment of the novel, and I feel like he would have benefited from more time spent in constructing the novel and fewer restrictions. However, for all that, it was an enjoyable story with some great elements and some interesting and definitely worthwhile messages. Also, some major cool concepts.