"Raven's Shadow" by Patricia Briggs

Patricia Briggs is pretty well known for her Mercedes Thompson Urban Fantasy Series. I picked up one of her older books to see how she did in the more traditional fantasy setting. I was not disappointed.

I had picked up Raven's Shadow a while ago, and it's been siting in my "To-be-read" pile. Feeling bad for my TBR pile, since I keep adding to it, and not really making much progress on it's size, I picked this particular book up as it had been sitting in the pile for a long time. I wasn't sure I could read a traditional fantasy story - I mean, looking back, I've read dark fantasy, comedic fantasy, and urban fantasy - all very contemporary explorations of the genre. I tend to "like" a specific sub genre for a while, sort of get addicted to it. So after my "high" of Hounded (see previous entry), I wasn't sure  could read the "traditional" fantasy and not "get bored." (Nothing to the actual book, you see, most of the books I put down are very good books, I'm just not in the right mind frame to read them at that point in time.)

I am very glad, however, that I picked up Raven's Shadow! It was a fast read, which is always nice in a genre that tends to be dominated by epic tomes and the Mega!Series. It is by no means a stand alone book, and I raced to the ending even though I had "peeked ahead" (more on this in a different blog). The book was well written, the story was pretty fast paced, the characters were flawed: the heroes are good, the villains are evil, but with their own traits that makes them more than just caricatures. The magic is presented in a fashion that, if not unique, was definitely organic to the world Ms. Briggs created.

While I did enjoy the book, there were certainly parts where I wished we had more. A few things that happen get thrown an "oh, here's an explanation" and while the explanations make sense in the worldview, they are a bit convenient and not foreshadowed at all (or at least not well, because I didn't pick up on them at all), which is a bit of a let down.

What I liked most about the book however, were the characters. I enjoyed reading about them, and I'm excited to see more of them, so I will be purchasing the sequel, Raven's Strike, once there is some more money in my book buying fund. (Which is woefully low for a good long while as I sort of went on a shopping spree last weekend....don't judge!)