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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sexual/Magical amorality to the nth degree. Whew! Yikes! Excellent book!, November 14, 2009
This review is from: Shadowfae (Paperback)
Disclaimer: I rarely provide a story synopsis and haven't done so for Shadowfae. Other people do--and they do it better than I can. Amazon itself always offers a professional review. Why should I reinvent the wheel?
I should point out, too, that I definitely prefer the more erotic side of the bigger paranormal/dark urban/fantasy/etc romance field. If a book doesn't have some colorful sexuality in it, I get bored. (I have relatively little time for pleasure reading and when I can read, I want what I want.) In this book, with Jade the succubus and Rajah the incubus as protagonists, there is definitely a bunch of sex.
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So--GOOD book! Go buy/read it!
The author offers a fully-realized world contained within a delightfully unique premise. This is a valuable setup because romance books in general and urban/dark urban/erotic/supernatural/paranormal romance books in particular, seem to be suffering from a stupendous lack of creativity these days. Many, far too many, books written inside this genre have become boringly derivative of each other. Like lemmings, the majority of what is out there follow one another right over the "I Am An Utterly Predictable Romance Genre Book" cliff.
But Shadowfae breaks away from that stultifying sameness with one masterstroke of plotting: All the protagonists are amoral. Everyone in the book is a "bad guy", so to speak, at least in the beginning. Everyone is highly sexual. Furtive (e.g., dark alley, back room, and hallway) acts of grasping sexuality between entities most often results in damage of some kind to one or both. In fact, dark and abusive sexuality seems to be one of the coins of the realm for those who inhabit this world.
The other is magic. And oh does the magic sizzle! It's dirty, the Shadowfae magic. It pollutes what it touches, then it crackles back to sully its user in some way. But magic is everywhere and used all the time. Magic is a part of the fabric of this world, and of those who inhabit this world.
Pros:
1. Definitely unusual world-building.
2. First-class writing/editing.
3. Excellent characters, from the major protagonists right through those who are small and transitory in the larger arc of the story.
Cons:
1. Probably way too gritty for a small segment of readers who prefer refined or veiled sexuality.
2. The sexual situations are so well-written, and get better and better (more and more intense, hotter and hotter, more and more deeply emotional) as the book progresses, that they sometimes leave the other parts of the story behind.
3. Hmmm. I cannot come up with#3.
In this stunner of a wonderful book, all the people are amoral. They are all victims. They are all struggling in a world where death or enslavement can happen at any moment and come from any direction.
But in all worlds there are survivors.
In all worlds there is the possibility of love.
Even among the Shadowfae.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Peppered with Fae, demons and vampires, Shadowfae sets the stage for a dark romantic new urban fantasy series, October 20, 2009
This review is from: Shadowfae (Paperback)
Both leading lady succubus Jade and leading man incubus Rajah are enslaved to a demon and both long for the end of their servitude, they are forced to seduce and sometimes kill unable to resist the compulsion of their master's orders. But Rajah has discovered the way to win his freedom, a secret he shares with Jade - to be free, four special souls must be harvested, the only catch is one of the key souls is the same for both Jade and Rajah which means that only one of them can be free.
Shadowfae was an interesting read, and Aussie writer Erica Hayes' tale blurs the line between good and evil. Almost all of the characters in Shadowfae are predators, and even the `good' characters are morally gray. Just as Jade falls under the control of one of the villains of the tale, who uses his vampiric thrall as sort of a date rape drug, eventually the predator falls prey to the sensual power which allows Jade and Rajah to enrapture their victims. And that blur allows for moments where it is possible to actually feel sympathy for the villians even as they pay the price for their misdeeds and also for moments where Haye's reminds us that the leads, though capable of sacrifice and love, are not classic hero/heroine material.
With an incubus and a succubus in the starring roles, it is not surprising that sex plays an important part in Shadowfae, making it somewhat erotic as well as dark. But the sensual language is not as in your face crude as most of the few erotic books I've attempted - I tend to stick to the steamy side of main stream paranormal romance - and not all of it is meant to titillate, much of it is almost setting and texture. But if you are not an erotic reader, you should be forewarned that the sexuality woven throughout Shadowfae comes in pretty much every flavor.
On the whole, I liked Shadowfae, it felt very original and actually had one very poignant scene that captured me. And since Haye's barely scratched the surface of this Fae inhabited alternate Melbourne, there is much left to explore when the Shadowfae Chronicles continues with [[ASIN:0312578016 Shadowglass: The Shadowfae Chronicles] ]in April 2010.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Straddles the line between PNR and erotica, and I enjoyed it a lot, April 8, 2010
This review is from: Shadowfae (Paperback)
Plot Summary: Jade is a succubus. She was betrayed and sold to a demon lord, and now she must serve him for a millennia. While on a job, she runs into fellow incubus Rajah, and their attraction is undeniable. Rajah believes he's found a way to break the demon's hold and live a mortal life in freedom, and he shares his secret with Jade. They must collect four souls each, but Jade's quest is made harder by her latest assignment - cozying up to a brutal vampire gangster.
Shadowfae is hot, hot, hot. This is a deeply erotic paranormal romance, where almost every scene tingles with forbidden naughtiness. Some of the sex scenes are somewhat unconventional, so if you like the standard script in the missionary position, you might want to skip this one.
What I admire about this book is how Erica Hayes doesn't gloss over, or glamorize stuff that's quite nasty. In here, a vampire's bite is as disgusting and painful to endure as it would be in real life if somebody with sharp canines gnawed on your neck. Her acute descriptions of skin breaking and veins popping had me squirming a bit, but I enjoyed that touch of horror. It should be gross I say! I'm bored with writers who romanticize it, so perhaps that's why I found it so appealing.
The sexual acts that Jade must perform for duty's sake are portrayed as distasteful and full of despair. Juxtaposed with that is her relationship with Rajah, which is beautiful on both a physical and emotional level. There's a real romance to be found here. I applaud the ending for giving the reader a `happily-ever-after' they can live with, but it still managed to surprise me too, because it wasn't what I was expecting.
The second book in the Shadowfae Chronicals, Shadowglass: The Shadowfae Chronicles, was just released. Going by the blurb, it sounds like each book will focus on a different paranormal couple. I'm looking forward to reading it.
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