A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess: I can predict everything apparently

A Shadow Bright and Burning 

by 

Jessica Cluess

              London is besieged by monstrous demons. They were brought to this world by a rouge witch and Magician almost ten years ago. Because of their actions, witches and magicians are forbidden from practicing magic. The punishment for using their magic is death. Henrietta Howel is sure she is a witch. She can burst into flames with a thought and seems incapable of being burned. As such, she lives in fear of Her Majesty’s sorcerers who sweep the land watching for illegal magic users. But when she’s caught using her magic to save a friend Henrietta isn’t sent to her death. Instead she’s hailed as the first female sorcerer in decades. Sent to London to train with the rest of the sorcerers Henrietta enters a dangerous world full of magic, demons and power struggles.

Characters

Henrietta: all in all she wasn’t bad. At least, when her actions had nothing to do with her various romantic entanglements. Basically, as long as there wasn’t a love interest involved she responded with well thought-out, intelligent sass. So, 80% of the time she was awesome. It’s just that, the other 20% was a special kind of annoying. Is there some sort YA rule about main characters losing all their sense an attractive person so much as breathes in their direction? I think there is and dear goodness! Did it drive me up the wall. Especially since it seemed so out of character for her to make such stupid decisions when it came to boys. Still, I can’t complain too much. After all most of the time she was fine.  

The three boys who are inexplicably in love with her 

(I mean she was cool an all but jeez guys chill out)

Rook: I guess I liked him the best since he’s the childhood best friend. But honestly, he had very little ‘screen time’. A problem that became very obvious when SPOILERS Henrietta chose him and I was just kinda like ‘meh, at least it wasn’t one of the other two’.  Now I’m no expert, but I’m guessing that ‘meh’ is not the emotion writers want to induce in their readers. Particularly when two characters hook up.

Magnus: I’m really disappointed in this guy okay.  I thought that somebody had finally gotten the ‘incorrigible flirt’ archetype right! Or at the very least less gross and insulting. But alas, it was not to be. In the beginning Magnus was really great. Yeah, he flirted a lot but it was mostly classy flirting. (you know what I mean) Heck, it was even revealed that he was raised by his mother after his father died and she raised him to be respectful and awesome. Then all that characterization was thrown out the window and he acted like a world class jerk. Mostly so that Henrietta had a reason to choose, well, not him.

Blackwood: Honestly, I almost didn’t add him because Henrietta didn’t show interest in him at all. But he seemed to express interest in her so I’m adding him anyway. Still, he’s just kind of boring. He’s the cliché fella who starts out jerk-y then turns out to be all nice on the inside. Still bored.

Likes

The world could have been interesting: I mean, It didn’t really go anywhere. But it was still cool. It was England with awesome magic

 (which I’m well known to love) 

but also demons. And they were fairies as well! I mean, they didn’t go into much detail in that. Like, how do they feel about these scary demons running amok. How do they feel about sorcerers etc. but whatever? It was still cool.

I really liked the idea of different kind of magical people fighting: it was almost reminiscent of religious sects or even old family grudges like Romeo and Juliet. I also loved how their favor fluctuated depending on which Kind or Queen happens to be in power. The power struggle felt very real and gave a lot of gravitas to the more political/social plot points. I would have loved to see it developed more.

Dislikes

All the romances were terrible: I think I’ve made this pretty clear but it bears repeating. They were just, really, really stupid. Because what’s better than a love triangle! A love triangle with three different people! No. no it’s not. In fact it makes it three times as annoying. Especially since it made Henrietta seem mean and indecisive. Plus, it was kind of obvious who would she choose. All in all, I wish the entirety of the romances just . . . didn’t exist. That would fix half of my complaints about this book.

I honestly predicted every plot twist: I kid you not, every. Single. One. Look, that might just be me reading too much but this book was completely predictable. With no spoilers, here’s kind of how my read through went. ‘Oh gee, I wonder who this strange mentor character is, surely it’s not the only other figure with similar abilities. Oh look, it is.’, ‘Oh wow, I wonder who this strange female character is. Surely, it’s not the only female character that’s not accounted for. Oh look, it is.’, 

you get where I’m coming from. It was just, so, so predictable. Like, painfully predictable. Sometimes I don’t mind it too much. But this book just crossed a line.

Complaints aside, A Shadow Bright and Burning wasn’t a bad book. Heck! I might even pick up the second one simply to find out what happened. But, it’s nothing to write home about. At least if you read a good bit of fantasy books like me. Oh well, as predictable it is, it’s worth a shot. Especially if you don’t mind some poor romances and less than creative plot points.