African American Book Review

 




I read a glowing review about this trilogy a while back and it mention how there aren't all that many fantasy novels with action and adventure that have a strong Black female lead.  Supposedly publishers are looking for more books like this from authors.   This book series caught my attention once again because of the cover pictures.  It's not very often that you see a powerful African American woman who looks like she can kick someone's butt on the front cover of a book.  And just by looking at the covers you can tell this is an adventure series with strong Black female leads.  There's a lot of Egyptology in the books as well which is appealing to people who are into mythology.  Here some reviews for book one that I have listed below.


5 out of 5 Stars - Richly Imagined and Thorough Urban Fantasy Series Debut

By Tracy: The first thing I did when I finished reading Shadow Blade earlier this morning was make sure that my memory was correct, and that it was the beginning of a series and not a standalone novel. Not because I didn't like how it ended, but because I was so impressed with Seressia Glass' fully developed and vibrant world rich with ancient Egyptian and Africa history, not to mention the three dimensional characters, zippy narrative, and intriguing plot.  I'm thrilled to say that Shadow Blade hit all my happy spots. All of them. I loved it.  I'm not going to summarize the plot here, as it's been done sufficiently in the product description and in more depth in other reviews. I just need to express what I most enjoyed about it. I loved the setting, Atlanta. I was really impressed with the flawless blend of history and mythology that never - for me - bogged down the story or stuttered the plot. I found the lead character, Kira Solomon, to be a stunning blend of intelligence, confidence, and aptitude with her work (both jobs), devotional commitment to her calling, and refreshing innocence and sense of yearning with everything else. Some reviews have criticized that dichotomy, but for me, it made perfect sense. The poor girl has been able to touch exactly NO ONE in her entire life without it ending in coma or death or pain. Twenty-six years of complete physical solitude unless she's killing. The wounds on a person's psyche under those conditions are unimaginable, horrifying, and entirely well represented by Kira's responses to events in Shadow Blade. I believed it utterly and I sympathized completely with her, as my admiration for her as written grew and grew. And kudos to Glass for the masterful development of Kira through the arc of the story.

 

2 out of 5 stars Wow. This story needs a better editor.

By Amazon Customer: I should start this off by saying that the characters and the setting reminded me strongly of the Kate Daniels series... and that is what lead to my great disappointment with it. Kate Daniels series is great. This is very very mediocre. The writer just talks too much. And says nothing of import. I couldn't help but re-write sentences, paragraphs and even entire scenes in my head. There was so much extraneous STUFF that had no purpose. And everything is explained in great detail-- even when it really doesn't need to be.There was a lot of potential here but the execution isn't at all up to par. Another issue is the 'big bad opponents'... the half breeds are idiots, the "OMG I'm can't believe it's a SEEKER DEMON!" is defeated entirely too easily and wasn't scary at all. In anyway shape or form. Oy. For most urban fantasy heroines the 'biggest bad' in this book-- the creature controlling the seeker demon-- would be just a routine exercise. For example, the first Kate Daniel's book had Kate facing 40 out of control vampires she has to figure out how to control with her mind and then kill them (after defeating their controller)... for a WARM UP to fighting a nasty serial killing creature that can only be killed by a very fragile weapon and a zombie dragon. That's what I call BIG BAD. These were just... remedial not so good guys.  Sorry, the writing needed a heavy editor and the story wasn't believable or consistent and the danger was laughable.