Title: Shadowborn
Author: Alison Sinclair
Publisher: Roc Trade
Pub. Date: June 2011
ISBN-13: 9780451463944
Other books in the series:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Magic dies with the mage, or so the Darkborn believe. That’s why Lady Telmaine Hearne has been condemned to death for sorcery. She’s escaped but is now bound with her mageborn allies for the Borders and war. Meanwhile, her husband, Balthasar, has learned of his family connection to the Shadowborn-and is fighting for survival and sanity as magic turns him against everything he holds dear.
My Take: This is the third and final book in the Darkborn trilogy. The first book introduced readers to the society of the Darkborn, a people who can only live in darkness and sunlight reduces them to ashes. They are born blind and use sonn to “see” the world around. The Darkborn use technology and abhor magic.
The second book, Lightborn, takes to the other side, to the people who the Darkborn share their world with, the Lightborn. They are a people who rely on magic where the Darkborn avoid it. Their magic sustains the lights their people rely on so they do not melt away from exposure to darkness.
Now in the third book, I expected to be taken into the world of the Shadowborn. In a way I was, but not in the same way as with the other two. The third book is more about the war that the Shadowborn has instigated to attempt to tear apart the world as the Darkborn and Shadowborn know it.
This story was perhaps the most complex of the three. There were numerous points of view, both of Darkborn and Lightborn characters. It became confusing at times to follow. I did not feel like all of the questions that were brought up in the two other books were fully answered, more glazed over. In part, I think the number of point of views were the cause of this.
Still, I thought this third book was a good finish to the trilogy and I am glad I stuck with it to the end.
My Rating: 4/5
