The Light of Burning Shadows by Chris Evans (The Iron Elves: Book 2)

8/10

This is the second book in ‘The Iron Elves’ trilogy. It is meant to be read in the right order so if you’ve missed ‘A Darkness forged in Fire’, check out our review, it’s certainly worth your time!

The first story began slowly and at first you almost got the impression that the book was just all fun. The lack of some of the extreme grit and gore you get with some other stories in this genre, made it at first a pretty easy ride. Slowly it became clear that one of the main courses of this story is the mental condition of the main characters. In a few words; ‘How are they holding up’, while stuff got pretty serious around them.

So the ending of book one was slightly darker than the start. Book two starts were book one left off. Pretty dark. The ‘Elves’ are fighting again and I am not going to spoil it, but the action is great.

The best thing was the depth in which the characters are developed. Evans slowly enfolds a world in which it’s clear how soldiers think and live. Things like depression, nervousness and other battle inflicted mental instability get a real clear definition. Well, those obvious states of mind coupled with uncertainty and terror because of their unwilling bond with the dark side.

The plot brings us in another , sandy, environment, which I liked. The new environment however brought some new politics with it. So while the Iron Elves still try to fight the ‘Shadow Monarch’, the fight gets muddied up by some external factions.

Next to that there’s the humour. Luckily it’s not only dark, but this book kept some of the typical fun it had in book one. I liked that a lot because it smoothed stuff out a bit.

The only thing that I disliked is the size of the story. It goes pretty fast. I would have really liked to see the relation between Konowa and Visyna develop. However, that rises expectations for the third and final book in this trilogy.

So all in all, certainly worth your time. If you’ve enjoyed ‘A Darkness forged in Fire’, you’re certainly going to enjoy ‘The Light of Burning Shadows’!