Restless Shadows

Searching for Shades

Date of Review: 26, February, 2008
Dark Romance: Ebook, Softcover (coming soon)

Just as you never forget the feel of heat from a fire that burns you, it is impossible to forget the touch of death once you experience it as Anna Carswell did at the age of sixteen. She attempted suicide after feeling unloved and unwanted, something many teenagers feel, but her parents saved her just as death had become fascinated with her and she was comfortable with death.

Synopsis:

After recovering from her near death experience she was left with a gift that she did not want and tried to rid herself of in various ways. Her gift was the ability to see those who were marked with death and at times, she witnessed their actual moment of death. Shades, her nickname for death, had taken away her ability to see anything beautiful in the world because everywhere she looked and everywhere she went she saw death all around her.

Later, in college, she met Nick and for a while were merely acquaintances. When they both signed up for a research trip to Europe under the guidance of Professor Archel, romance began to blossom and they shared everything that lovers share, that is, everything except the real reason they each wanted to visit Europe. Nick had also been touched by death during his childhood when his sister was murdered after being kidnapped and raped. Death continued to haunt him, often whispering secrets in his ear, secrets he did not want to know. Both Anna and Nick hoped to chase death down, both believing that he was somewhere in Europe.

Meanwhile, Professor Archel had a motive of his own for taking Anna along on his research trip. He hoped to make her a conquest and at one point, while drinking, tried to force himself upon her sexually. She was able to stop the attack by stabbing him in the neck with a pair of small tweezing scissors and so, Professor Archel was also touched by death. Anna agreed not to bring charges against him so that the research trip could go on as planned. The professor then decided that killing Nick was the only way he would be able to win Anna's affections.

Impression:

The ending is unexpected and I am going to leave it to you to find out what happens to Anna and Nick. Restless Shadows is a dark romance that captured my own fascinations with death and used it to hold my attention all through the book. It is a unique viewpoint on death that personifies it in a way that few writers of the paranormal have been able to express. I found it to be fast paced, fresh and full of imagination, all requirements for any reading material that I finish from beginning to end.

This trip down fantasy lane does use some faucets of reality to complete the journey. Anna and Nick have to look into their own hearts and learn to trust each other in order to survive this battle with Shades. Each obstacle, each bump in the road and each twist and turn served to keep things interesting to me and made it worth my time to read this book. It is one I will remember for a long time to come.

If you enjoy reading the works of Anne Rice or Sherrilyn Kenyon, you will not want to put Restless Shadows down until you have read the very last page. I highly suggest this book to anyone eager to leave reality behind for a voyage through unheard of possibilities.

RATING: 9 Campfires

Citations:

Author / editors / anthologists:

Jennifer Cloud

Title & length:

Restless Shadows
207 Pages

Publishing House & date:

Drollerie Press
South Euclid, OH
( www.DrolleriePress.com )

ISBN & LCCC :

ISBN: 978-0-9798081-2-8

Comparable publications:

Restless Shadows ( Soft Cover print edition 2008)
A Husband's Lies June 2008 through Blu Phier
Her Eyes December 2007 through Amira Press

Targeted readership:

This book should appeal to both old and new readers of romantic paranormal fantasies, over the age of 17.

4 Flames for sexual content.

Not over smutty but definitely gets the point across

Author's credentials:

http://www.JenniferCloud.com

Jennifer Cloud was born in Asheville, North Carolina where she met her husband who encouraged her to write after finding a partial manuscript.

She now resides in Florida with her husband and two daughters. She writes suspense, and paranormal stories.

Reviewer & reviewer credentials:

http://DiannaPetry.tripod.com

Dianna Doles Petry is a freelance writer residing in West Virginia, USA. Her work has been included in Kudzu Monthly Magazine, Woman's World Weekly, Gambit, Blue Mountain Thunder and Storytime Tapestry as well as various web sites. She is the author of "Memories, Stories of real life in the mountains." Her writing affiliations include the West Virginia Writers and the West Virginia Poetry Society.

Sage Fire Reviews