Richelle Mead
Series: Bloodlines #5
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Hardback: 416 Pages
Publication: July 29, 2013
by Razorbill
Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets – and human lives.
In The Fiery Heart, Sydney risked everything to follow her gut, walking a dangerous line to keep her feelings hidden from the Alchemists.
Now in the aftermath of an event that ripped their world apart, Sydney and Adrian struggle to pick up the pieces and find their way back to each other. But first, they have to survive.
For Sydney, trapped and surrounded by adversaries, life becomes a daily struggle to hold on to her identity and the memories of those she loves. Meanwhile, Adrian clings to hope in the face of those who tell him Sydney is a lost cause, but the battle proves daunting as old demons and new temptations begin to seize hold of him. . . .
I enjoyed Silver Shadows quite a bit more than the past several books in this series. As much as I feel for Sydney’s plight, with Sydney and Adrian being apart, Silver Shadows has more plot development outside of the romance than the last several installments in the series. Nevertheless, my feelings from The Fiery Heart still remain (read my review here). The Bloodlines series has become just another YA paranormal romance series. There are way too many plotlines in this series for any of them to be resolved satisfactorily except perhaps Sydney and Adrian’s romance, and that’s because the romance plot has dominated most of the pages. To name a few, the witch plot, Marcus Finch, and Jill’s circumstances have long since fallen off the radar.
It feels like each book has been introducing a new plot while leaving past plots behind. The result is that, with each book, I’m reading an episodic plot on the timeline of Sydney and Adrian’s romance. This is really disappointing, as Bloodlines had promise to it. I love Sydney and Adrian’s characters, and I love the friends they make. Richelle Mead has a talent for creating likable characters that snuggle their way into readers’ hearts. I just wish that there was more consistency to the plot and that it didn’t feel like characters are coming in and out as is convenient for what Mead wants to write. The recurring characters outside of Sydney and Adrian have lost the luster that they used to have in the first couple of novels in the series.
That said, I do like how we get to learn more about the Alchemists in Silver Shadows. I would write more on this, but I’m writing this review quite a while after I read this book, so my mind is hazy on the details. So I’m going to jump to the end and say that what Adrian does for Sydney following their reunion is so very cute and romantic, if impulsive. Well, if they know that it is definitely what they wanted in the long run, there’s not much harm done, is there?
Given that there is only one more book in the series and I really want to find out what happens in the end, I’ll be reading The Ruby Circle. To those who haven’t read this series but love Vampire Academy, the first book in this series is the only one I would really recommend. For the rest, I’d recommend skimming or reading summaries.
Rating: 3 stars
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Author: Crystal
A story girl at heart, Crystal is a bibliophile who can easily spend the day immersed in a good read. She writes under the name Kristy Wang. You can follow her writing adventures on X and Instagram @_kristywang.
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