Review: First Light by Elizabeth Hunter

“‘Keep looking at me that way’–his voice rumbled like soft thunder–’and I’ll forget all my strict rules about patience.’” (p.332)

★★★★☆
🌶🌶

Series: Shadowlands, Book 1

Review:

First, I would like to thank the author and Valentine PR for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dragons and unicorns and forbidden love? I’m hooked!

Refusing to believe her boyfriend of four months simply ghosted her, leaving behind his car and other belongings, Carys travels to Scotland from California to speak to Lachlan’s twin brother Duncan. Duncan is reluctant to tell her the truth, but when he does, he escorts her into an alternate dimension–the Shadowlands, a world of magic parallel to her own where Lachlan is a prince. All Brightkin–those living in the known world–have a “twin” Shadowkin in the Shadowlands. While she contends with the shocking reasons why Lachlan entered her realm and abruptly disappeared, she must also battle with her conflicting feelings for the twin brothers while seeking information that will reveal the person who murdered her own Shadowkin.

First Light immediately grips the reader, plunging straight into the mystery of Lachlan’s disappearance and the magical yet treacherous world of the Shadowlands. More fantasy than romance, this story was a welcome break from all of the romance novels I have been reading lately. Elizabeth Hunter’s world-building is fully immersive and atmospheric. I always love a well-written love triangle, and the dilemma of Lachlan betraying Carys’s trust on top of Duncan and Lachlan being identical yet complete opposites of each other in personality is immensely captivating. The book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, revealing shocking information…meaning I need to get my hands on the next book in the series as soon as it’s available!

Audience: adult
Trigger warnings: death, murder, grief, depression, loss of a parent, loss of a spouse, violence, abandonment
Recommended for fans of: fantasy, romance, alternate dimension, parallel world, portal magic, Scottish folklore, mythical creatures, dragon shifters, love triangle, widow MMC, hidden identity, forbidden love, revenge

Publisher's Synopsis:

In the Shadowlands, strangers wear familiar faces, myths are reality, and lies hide behind the most beautiful stories.

Lachlan Murray disappeared without a trace. As his girlfriend, twenty-nine-year-old Carys Morgan refuses to accept the police’s explanation—that he simply left her. She travels to Scotland to seek help from Lachlan’s twin brother Duncan, and learns she was right—Lachlan didn’t leave her, he left her world to return to his own.

The Shadowlands are a mirror of the world Carys knows. Every human in her world also exists in this one with one key difference—magic.

Humans aren’t supposed to be able to wield the magic of the Shadowlands, but when Carys learns she can talk to dragons, she’s drawn deeper into a complicated world that would as soon kill her as keep her. And if magic and murder weren’t enough to overcome, she must navigate complicated feelings for two identical men from vastly different worlds.

Source:

Valentine PR

©Recurve Press, LLC: October 29, 2024
Edition: Digital ARC
432 pages


Start reading the Shadowlands series on Kindle Unlimited, or purchase your copies today!
1. First Light: https://amzn.to/3NZdj2a
2. Pre-order The Shadow Path: https://amzn.to/3OieXfD
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