Reviews

Shadow Throne by LJ Swallow

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beccamc02's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Book 4 was disappointing...

Feel like if they took the baby plot out and added about 200 pages of content onto each book and fleshed the story out it would have been much better. Had so much potential.

Also Rohan was always the better choice and I will die on that hill.

I mean, it opens on the premise of 'mates', which was only introduced in the last 10 pages of the third book. I feel like if 'mates' were going to be a thing in this series, then it should have been subtly dropped in throughout the series, not right at the end of the third book changing the concept of the fourth book.

Rohan was upset about the 'mates' situation with Calla and Luin and rightly so, in my opinion. Rohan is clearly the best option for Calla, confessing his love and affection for her, to her and in his POVs.

So Rohan, the one good option got kidnapped, and everyone couldn't decide what to do. The 4 first-born Dragons were dicks most of the time.

There was 100 pages left of the book and Devin double? Triple? Quadruple crossed everyone. Leander and Galen were still AWOL with Calla trapped in the Ebon court with the Queen. The last 100 pages were just ✨confusing✨. Devin's character was quite cool though. The necklace playing such an important role in the last pages was a bit mental. Like I just feel like this book series could have been spectacular with longer books, more description and much more world building.

Whilst it tied the loose ends up, I didn't enjoy this book as much as the other three. Also the baby plot was absolutely fucking hideous. I still don't know who the baby daddy is .......

madamtae's review against another edition

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4.0

I would say we got a nice ending to the series in this book. We get to see just how the dragons are in this book after only a little taste of them from the previous book. Calla has to face some challenges with both her men and how she will handle the Ebon Queen. Definitely some ups and downs with a few surprises thrown in the mix for Calla and her men. I feel though that everything comes to a nice conclusion overall to wrap up this series.

cassiecollins's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Welp. That was disappointing. A lot of the chemistry between Calla and the guys was missing here, despite the frequent unnecessary sex scenes. As for the narrative, I've been waiting for the entire series for Calla to let loose with her powers. And, what do we get? Nothing! And a reveal that is honestly kinda silly and just turns Calla into a human mason jar for as many souls and magicks and other random shit stuffed inside her. There's also a ton of loose ends that are left unraveled and a goofy ass ending. (Seriously, how does the group expect

to hide a whole ass baby from the super powerful First-Born

???)

Content Warnings

biblio_tash's review against another edition

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l didn't care enough about the characters to keep reading when other books i wanted to read as well.

kayreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Honestly, after finally finishing the series idk what to say.

I stand by that the first book was absolutely great and I think that it the rest of the books held the same quality then this would have been a great series but books 2 and 3 just really brought it down. I didn’t mind this last one as much- I honestly don’t know how I feel about the ending, I liked it but at the same time I kinda didn’t so I’m super conflicted but overall I think I’m leaning more towards liking it?

I think this series should have been reworked to be 3 books. There was no need to make this into a 4 book series and I think the pacing of 2 and 3 would have been much better if this had been a 3 book series.

Overall I have to admit I am sad to be leaving them all behind. I feel like there are also so many unanswered questions. Like did Calla just stop caring about her family? Like she didn’t even visit them after everything.

I really wish we got more of Luin-Calla interactions. I feel like the author made some questionable choices in choosing which man to have sex scenes with in the last book. Like we have had Galen, Leander, and Rohan for 4 books now but only Luin and Calla for the last bit of the 3 book and the fourth. Yet we got nothing for Luin in the last book instead we got yet another scene with the OG trio. And Devin got nothing! I feel robbed.