The Shadow and the Rose by Amanda DeWees

TL;DR artistic boarding school ends up having supernatural characteristics

TBR #1803, added Dec 5, 2016

finished 12/10/16

I'm gonna be 100% transparent and admit that I decided to download this book because the main character has the same name as me. The only other instance of that I've encountered so far is Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy by Daisy Meadows, which, ironically, was uncannily on point with the inclusion of Jack Frost into the plot. But that's besides the point.

The characters in The Shadow and the Rose were pretty good! It took a little bit of time to get used to seeing my name everywhere (since it was 3rd person narration) but I really enjoyed Joy Sumner and Tanner. They showed more depth than I was expecting and definitely changed for the better over the course of the story, and I did enjoy the secondary characters. Other than the name thing, the narration was easy to read and was definitely the first thing that made me decide to read past the first chapter.

The plot of this was a little simple, but at least it had it together. It flowed nicely and wrapped up nice and it never felt like too big of a story scope (ie having a huge society that magically nobody knows about). It also had paranormal elements that I've rarely ever seen (if ever) as the main driving force of the plot, which was nice.

I'm definitely willing to pay to continue reading this series, but I've been spending much more than I anticipated recently, so I'm gonna pace myself. (And I keep buying physical books which I should probably consider touching during winter break ...) It's definitely one of the first ebooks on my list to buy once I shave my TBR down a little more lol.

TL;DR it's not nearly as dramatic as other Paranormal Romance books so it was definitely a refreshing read. And I finally found another fictional character with my name that wasn't a one-off from a massive series!