Book Review: The Shadow of the Gods by Alyce Caswell

Author: Alyce Caswell

Title: The Shadow of the Gods

Genre: SCIFI, Fantasy

Format: ebook

Pages: 492

Published: December 15, 2022

Where I Got It: My shelf (Netgalley)

Summary: 

Most beings live their entire lives in the shadow of the gods.

Once you leave that shadow, there’s no going back.

Ami N’uni is a starship captain with too many pirates to chase and too many lives to save. She doesn’t need complications. But she’s a sucker for helping the haunted and Kieran Krendasta definitely qualifies. He's the least powerful agent the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency has to offer — so no one believes him when he says that he’s a danger to everyone around him.

Hoping she won’t regret it, Ami invites Kieran to join her crew. His presence on her ship soon proves to be useful and distracting by equal measure. Her old enemies are beginning to surface — which wouldn’t be so bad if Kieran hadn’t brought new ones along with him.

Ami’s past might be stalking her, but something much worse is stalking Kieran. Something she can’t protect him from.

No mortal is a match for a god.

Review:

Randomly stumbled upon this in Netgalley. The cover and summary had me intrigued. I was nervous, though, because I rarely read SCIFI (I am so picky in that genre for some reason) BUT I decided to take the risk. 

Here we follow Ami and Kieran. Ami is the captain of a starship with far too many pirates to chase down and too many lives to save. However, she is a sucker for helping the haunted and damaged...enter Kieran. He is the least powerful agent the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency has to offer and he has some enemies. Ami invites him to join her crew but his presence soon proves to be useful but distracting. There is something big stalking him. 

There was a sprinkle of romance here, but it didn't overshadow the story and I was fine with that. This was mainly a SCIFI novel for sure. There is too much going on for a full romance. 

I liked Ami and Kieran. They were both good eggs and bless Ami and her big heart....I think I would've left Kieran on the moon or something. No thanks, pal!  Haha. But I did like him tho....it's hard not to. He's like that destructive puppy you want to shake but cuddle all at the same time. 

Now, I will admit, I did struggle in some parts. Some areas were just plain slow and info-dumpy. It slowed down the story that is for sure, but once you got past those blimps it was back to the races and I couldn't stop reading. 

In the end, I did enjoy this more than expected to...if I'm being honest here. I do really struggle with SCIFI. Some slow areas, but getting over those humps was worth it. I enjoyed our characters and the story overall. I'll give this 3 stars.