5 Star Book Review: Shadow's Edge (Night Angel, #2)

Author: Brent Weeks

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Edition: Paperback

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Related Reviews: Way of Shadows

Rating: 5 Stars

This review will be spoiler free (for this novel at least; there are SPOILERS for book one, so read at your own risk).  If you're interested in a more in-depth review where I talk about spoiler stuff, let me know in the comments!

Shadow's Edge picks up nearly exactly where Way of Shadows left off.  Kylar, Elene, and Uly are leaving their country to try and carve a new life for themselves.  Kylar has sworn to give up killing.  Of course, peace can't last in this war-torn world.

Here are the three most important things you need to know going into this book:

1) Kick-ass ladies.  I think, almost subconsciously, the fact that there were very few women in the first book was killing me.  There wasn't very much room for me to connect with anyone, and the male dominance was boring.  This one throws several old characters into a new light and also introduces new ones that I love.  I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed some of these characters, and several that I started off disliking had such incredible character growth that by the end I adored them.

2) Magic takes center-stage.  In the first book magic is a bit confusing and not really super prevalent.  There are a lot of different orders and the rules of magic don't make sense.  That's quickly rectified by this novel.  All the different orders aren't too different, and now that Kylar can use magic it's easier for the reader to see how it all works.  I actually really enjoyed the way the magic works in this series, now that I can understand it.  It's not as defined as something Brandon Sanderson might create, but it's also structured to be a bit undefinable.  Looking forward to seeing how magic progresses in the final book in this series.

3) War.  I've read several books about wars, whether real or fantasy.  Of the the fantasy ones, this one takes the cake.  Never before have I felt so transported into a war, a real war with real consequences and political maneuverings and good generals and bad generals and spies and everything else, that didn't actually exist.  The plot was constantly moving, carrying the characters down their (unexpected) paths.  There were several moments when reading that I had to remind myself this wasn't actually real.

In a nutshell, this is a fantastic read.  If you picked up the first book and weren't completely thrilled with it, neither was I.  But this changes everything and is worth a go.