Reviews

The Shadowed Land: A Novel by Signe Pike

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megancmahon's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Spoilers!

I'm so delighted to be continuing this series!

What I liked:

As always the writing is beautiful and Pike's prose transports me. Her descriptions of all the different facets of Scotland and medieval Scottish life made me ache to go back
The historical research is meticulous and top-notch. I loved reading the historical notes at the back of the book and realizing that a lot of the seemingly innocuous details were grounded in fact!
I loved Angharad's POV and learning so much more about the Wisdom Keepers! And about Pictland - I was genuinely so sad when Briochan died
The tensions between Christianity and the Old Way - and the way that Languoreth worked to hold her people together - were wonderfully depicted with due consideration to the political conditions of the day
I really liked all the characters and they felt distinct and real to me. Artur kind of irritated me at times, but hey, I feel like the real Arthur would have bothered me too. That felt accurate
I loved the inclusion of the monsters and myths and realizing that they were grounded in the historical record too!
Scotland is so lovingly depicted here that all of its many lands and kingdoms felt real and new to me. Pike has a great knack for making ancient myth feel fresh. I had trouble putting it down!

What I didn't:

I wish there had been a little more continuity and connection to the other POVs. I get that they're all important, and that all of their simultaneous perspectives make up the whole of the world, but they felt like they could be a few other disparate books. I almost wish this had been split into a Languoreth/Lailoken book and an Angharad/Artur book
I feel the need to put in a complaint for Languoreth's relationship with Maelgwn, which was such an awesome part of the first book and which absolutely devastated me in the second. There was so much buildup for them that I found the way this book dealt with their relationship to be a little anticlimactic. It just sort of...peters out, after all that passion. Although I have hope that maybe in the next book they will finally get to be together
Lailoken kind of fades away here, which is too bad, as he's Merlin!
I wish that Mungo had a more satisfying denouement. Languoreth says that the discovery of her affair with Maelgwn was one of the most important moments of her life, but it's resolved within like, twenty pages! And Mungo was SUCH an awesome villain in book 1 that I was sad to see him just slink out quietly. But then again...there will be more...

My quips are few and my loves were many. I'm so glad this is going to be a longer series, because I couldn't possibly have been content with their story ending here. More from Signe Pike!