A fast and engaging read, I would recommend A Touch of Shadows for anyone wanting to venture into the NA Fantasy genre. 

Focusing on Wren, our FMC who is a witch, living with her mother in a forest and supporting a small community with healing. Wren’s life is turned on its head, when unexpectedly a knight becomes magically bound to her. 

The magic system is simple (light vs dark) yet this makes it easy to follow with no complicated explanations or concepts to understand. This makes the story also easy to follow, yet the world building was immediately pulling me in. 

Unfortunately, the book lacked a little bit of finesse. It could have been fantastic if the characters had been fleshed out better, and more time spent on each of them in turn. There were multiple POVs which I felt gave plenty of opportunity for this, but sadly this wasn’t utilised enough. This is particularly disappointing around Wren and Finn’s relationship. I’m normally not a fan of ‘insta love’ in fantasy, but the premise of ‘magically bound’ really intrigued me. This could have been SO good if the two main characters had some more time dedicated to their feelings around this bond and how it was affecting them. 

Overall, A Touch of Shadows has peaked my interest enough to see how the story plays out and I’m looking forward to book 2! 

I want to thank NetGalley, Second Sky and Jessica Thorne for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. The review is my own opinion and I have given this freely.