Review: Chaos

Book three of the Guards of the Shadowlands trilogy
By Sarah Fine
Available now from
Review copy
Read more at my Sarah Fine tag

I really enjoyed FRACTURED and SANCTUM, the first two books in the Guards of the Shadowlands trilogy.  I picked up CHAOS eagerly, wanting to know how the Mazikin would be defeated forever and Malachai and Lela would find a way to be together again.  (Plus, there was that whole cliffhanger ending to SANCTUM.)  CHAOS satisfied those questions, although it took a bit longer to do so than I would've liked.

The main problem with CHAOS is that the meat of the plot ends about halfway through the book, and multiple twists are required to sustain the rest.  Plus, as wonderful as Malachai and Lela are, I got tired of them sacrificing themselves to save each other.  At some point heroic death comes cheap.  By the third time, it's definitely cheap.

I absolutely love the series as a whole.  Sarah Fine is a great writer, and the Guards of the Shadowland series is filled with both dynamic action and convincing romance.  There's also an exploration of different kinds of love; mother-daughter relationships are particularly important in CHAOS.  The afterworld Fine invented is clever, compelling, and unlike most anything else I've read.

In fact, I think I'm only complaining about CHAOS because the first two books in this series were so strong.  It had a tough act to follow.  I think it would've made it with one or two less extraneous subplots.  At the same time, it's much better than many books I've read lately.

If you're looking for a series with a fierce and determined Latin-American heroine, a romance that spans life and death (several times), a desperate fight against body snatchers, and battles against impossible odds, give Guards of the Shadowlands a try.  It's terrific fun.

Review: Fractured

Book Two of the Guards of the Shadowlands
By Sarah Fine
Available now from Skyscape (Amazon Publishing)
Review copy

When tons of bloggers I trust, like Wendy Darling, were going crazy over SANCTUM last year, I knew I had to read it.  I agreed that it was one to love.  The writing was excellent and the plot a roller coaster.  Lela Santos was a fantastic heroine, devoted to her best friend and willing to go to great lengths to achieve her goals.  And the world was fantastic, an utterly believable afterlife.  FRACTURED takes the action back to our world, where the villainous Mazikin have started to recruit.

Lela's now in charge and trying to get used to setting the strategy.  She and her beau Malachi are joined by two new guards who were in a different afterlife.  All three of the boys are having trouble adjusting.  Malachi, for instance, has a great deal of fighting Mazikin, but not in the real world.  He's never had to worry about cops or killing people who weren't already dead.  Meanwhile Lela has to get back into the swing of being a regular high school student.  Due to the events of SANCTUM, she's a bit more popular now and unused to interacting that much with other people.  At the same time she's making friends - friends who can be used against her.

I thought I knew what to expect when I picked up FRACTURED, but I was wrong.  Sarah Fine takes the sequel in several unexpected directions.  Of course, the characters don't anticipate what's going to happen to them either, and it's terrific.  There was one twist I really didn't like that thankfully resolved before the novel was over.  Unfortunately, I think Fine was buttering me up for the shocking ending.  Lela's journey definitely isn't over.

I absolutely cannot wait for the third book.  I have no idea how Fine is going to resolve the mess her characters are in, but I have no doubt she's going to do it with flair.  I just adore her characters, and I really hope Lela and Malachi somehow manage to live happily ever after.  SANCTUM and FRACTURED are true underrated gems.  I know most bookstores don't carry Amazon Publishing books, but this is one worth asking to get special ordered.