The Shadow of Fallen Gods by V.R Cardoso

Being the second installment of the Wounds in the Sky series by V. R. Cardoso, I was excited to see how the story continued from where it left off. This book does an excellent job picking up where the last one left off and seems to build up to its own plot nicely while expanding its universe as well. While the first book had its own share of deaths and high-risk situations, this book seems to take everything to the next level. Unfortunately, it appears that it'll be some time before we get to read the third book, so, for now, I'll have to make do with these two!

First off, I want to talk about the writing of the book. While the first book has a few grammatical errors here and there, this one seems to have far more mistakes. These issues range from missing a word to having the word in an incorrect place in a sentence. For example, "Aric knelt next to beast's neck and took it from its misery with a clean cut." (page 114). Other than that, I really didn't find many issues with the book. It seems like English is not the author's first language, but the writing doesn't make the text unreadable.

Now, for the story itself, you have about three substories happening at the same time. You have Fadan's, Aric's, and Cassia's/Doric's accounts and are constantly switching between everyone's point of view. In the previous book, the different views eventually took up a chapter. They would rotate, but in this book, you have two stories happening in one chapter. For me, this wasn't that big of a deal, but I liked the first book's structure best.

For the plot itself, there were more high-risk gambles all around for everyone. In Fadan's story, I just really got irked with Persea. As Fadan said, just because mages didn't help fight wars before, you'd think they'll make an exception this time around. Seeing as, you know, everyone might die. At times you'll find yourself at the edge of your seat as you wait to see how our heroes will pull off their missions.

This author is no stranger to killing off several characters you might have grown attached to. Just when you think the cast will be protected by plot armor, boom! They're dead. We have more conflict in Aric's group, which left me theorizing on how this will affect the story, but, alas, I guess I have to wait for the next book.

To conclude, this book does its predecessor justice. Not only does it build up from where book one left off, but it managed to go far beyond as well. The book's cover art alone gives you a feeling of an eerie, insurmountable enemy. While this book finished off on a pretty good note, it left some pretty good cliffhangers, which isn't a bad thing. It just means we have to wait for the next book.

The Shadow Of Fallen Gods by V.R. Cardoso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars