A Darker Shade of Magic Review

Summary

Kell is an Antari, a magician with the ability to travel between parallel worlds. He uses this skill to send messages to and from the four worlds and to provide for his side business, dealing in collections of items from the worlds. When he obtains an object that could get him into trouble, he will be led on a journey he could never imagine.

My Thoughts:

I bought this book a while ago and it has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. I chose to read it because one of my book groups picked it for our next book. I was so happy because I already had it and I wouldn’t get yelled at for spending more money on books by my husband. It took me a while to start it and when I did, I had mixed feelings about it.

I struggled to continue to read this book and when I was finished I still had mixed feelings about it. Let me start this by saying that the world that Ms. Schwab was amazing! I thought it was extremely fascinating because it combined magic and the idea of parallel universes that has been theorized by many physicists. (Yes, some physicists believe this idea could be true!) I also really enjoyed that the different universes were different colors. One of the characters enters the Red London universe and she actually sees that everything is in a shade of red. I thought that was so interesting.

However, what wasn’t interesting were the main characters. I just didn’t feel any connection with them at all and I was very disappointed. Kell was a sort of boring character and I didn’t really understand who or what he was. I sort of liked Delilah, but again her story lacked depth and it felt glazed over as well. The villains in the story; however, were intriguing to me and I felt myself wanting to know more about them and less about the main characters. I honestly feel like the author was trying to start a series and put so much focus and effort on establishing the book world that she let her characters sort of stumble on the wayside.

I also felt that the action scenes didn’t make much sense and I was left with so many questions that I don’t feel will get answered. I didn’t understand the stone itself or the black sickness. I also didn’t understand the deaths of some of the villains. I’m just left confused and disappointed that my questions weren’t answered.

The book ended with a resolution that could have been a cliffhanger or just could have ended there. I mean I don’t see how the story could continue on, but I’m willing to read the next one to find out. I also want to see if we find out more about the characters and if I will grow to connect with them.

Overall, this book was an easy read with an unique concept, but characters that lacked luster.