Book Review
Title: Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody (The Shadow Game Book 1)
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Fantasy
Rating: 4.25 Stars
I have read Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody in the past and really enjoyed it but the opening of Aces of Shades was really confusing in comparison. We are introduced to Enne Salta who is looking for her adoptive mother, Lourdes who is missing, in a letter Lourdes said she would be dead if she didn’t return in two months but Enne refused to believe that and heads to New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin to find Levi Glaisyer who Lourdes mentioned in a letter might be able to help her. Enne comes off as the typical spoilt, rich kid and looks down on Levi for being a con man but accepts his help in tracking down Lourdes who he believes is dead. However, there are a lot of confusing elements like the currency, which is volts, the magic system called talents which people inherit from their parents, so Enne’s blood talent is dance and her split talent is math which makes no sense whatsoever. Then we also have to consider the Revolution which overthrew the Mizers, people whose talents were seen as being more magical than practical and Lourdes sympathised with this cause and the return of the Mizers which is why Levi thinks she is dead.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, I was struggling to get into the story since I didn’t really like either of the protagonist’s since it is a dual perspective novel. Levi is better to read from than Enne but we don’t see a lot of his perspective right now, however, he does introduce her to some people who know Lourdes and gives her advice about surviving in the City of Sin even if she doesn’t really want it. Enne is very entitled despite repeatedly explaining that her family is some of the lowest in dancing talents and that she’s worked hard for her position at school which should make her more open to Levi’s experience and advice about living in New Reynes. I just thought Enne ended up trapped in the omerta, an unbreakable bond, by Vianca because she wasn’t willing to listen to sound advice from someone who has living there longer than her and has been working under Vianca for a while. The omerta she is know trapped in means she has to work for Vianca as an acrobat, something she has no experience with and do extra things on the side like casually poisoning one of the most powerful dons in the City. Sedric isn’t a good man as we clearly see but it doesn’t make Enne’s position any better especially since we know through Levi’s perspective he is allied with the Phoenix Club who use something called the Shadow Game as execution like punishments and Levi has been given his warning. He now has ten days to pay Sedric back the 10,000 volts or he will be subjected to the Shadow Game which doesn’t just mean his death but the death of all the Irons including the kids under Levi’s protection and despite being a criminal he does genuinely care about these kids which make him a more interesting and likable person to read from.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, I was begging to enjoy Enne’s perspective more especially when she starts to show she has some backbone rather than being a pushover. After being bound into the omerta she ends up finding a small way around it to tell Levi who knows because he is also bound to Vianca through an omerta. He wouldn’t have taken her to Vianca if he thought she was going to bind Enne since Vianca can only bind three people at a time so they are precious to her and handed out rarely. Enne also comes clean about poisoning Sedric which Levi is worried about since he owes that man a lot of money but thinks it might work out in his favour since it buys him a little time so he doesn’t have to worry about Sedric breathing down his neck. He is also struggling with the Irons since he hasn’t been able to take care of them properly because of Vianca and that’s why he needs the debt cleared but there are some that are making small challenges to his power as the Iron Lord which is beginning to worry Levi as he doesn’t want to hurt those beneath like the other Lords do but they might not leave him any choice. Enne when she begins acrobat training shows an aptitude for it that she shouldn’t really have since she’s never done it before and it isn’t one of her talents which makes the other suspicious of her but Enne knows she is a bastard and the counting talent came from her mother not her father, who she gets her Salta blood from. This means that Enne birth mother who she doesn’t know much about might have had an acrobat talent and might have even come from New Reynes herself and I hope we get more on this as the novel progresses. There is also a lot of queer representation with Lourdes being portrayed as a non-binary lesbian and Levi is a bi King who isn’t afraid to openly act on his liking of men and women.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Enne is beginning to suspect there is more to her parentage than she has been told and wants to know more about it. They get a lead on Lourdes and learn that she was apparently staying in an inn five days ago alive and well, just a few days before Enne arrived in the City of Sin. However, she left behind a card in her room which Levi recognises as a Shadow Game card, not the calling card which is the Fool but a warning card like the one he carried, he has the Tower and Lourdes had the Hermit meaning the Phoenix Club was after them both but whether still is still alive is unknown but there is more hope for Enne now. She does end up sneaking out to go and see the blood gazer and learns that she isn’t the person she thought she was at all. She learns that her true name is Enne Dondelair Scordata, meaning she does have an acrobatic talent not a dancing talent from her Dondelair bloodline but she also has Mizer blood through the Scordata line. This makes Enne’s very existence a threat, at first she doesn’t believe this because she doesn’t have the purple eyes all Mizers had but Lola explains that the power needs to be awakened before her eyes will change and very shortly after she tries to kill Enne and fails with Enne actually winning the fight before Levi and Jac arrive on the scene. Levi has yet to tell Enne about the Shadow Game and he now wants to know what she went to the blood gazer for and what she learnt but Enne knows she can’t trust anyone with this secret. However, I think she will use this to find Lourdes, since Lourdes was a Mizer sympathizer and ran in crowds that wanted to bring back the Mizer and monarchy and her new found bloodlines will definitely help in that aspect and I can’t wait to see what kind of power she awakens.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Enne is beginning to learn more about her bloodlines especially the Scordata line since she thinks if they can learn who her parents were then that might lead them closer to Lourdes. She soon learns that the only person that could be her mother was one of the most infamous Mizers, Gabrielle Scordata. Gabrielle was supposed to executed but this was delayed due to “health reasons” and Enne easily figures out that it wasn’t acceptable to execute a pregnant woman. Her execution was also changed from public to private and they think that the Phoenix Club got their hands on Gabrielle the day after Enne was born and that she potentially survived the Shadow Game which is why they shot her. This means that there is a way for Levi to survive the Shadow Game they just need to figure out what it is although Enne and the others don’t know about his cards. Levi and Enne are also dancing around their growing feelings for each other which is a good thing right now since Levi’s gang is crumbling beneath him and eventually he is challenged for leadership of the Irons and he seems to lose and is on the verge of death. I don’t know whether this is going to be the moment that awakens Enne’s Scordata talent, her Mizer talent or whether it will be something else but this seems right. This challenge happens as they are planning to head to the Olde Bank, since the token Enne got from Lourdes that she carried everyone turns out to be a vault key and that vault might just contain the answers Enne is looking for.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, things are getting darker and darker, as Enne and Lola go to the vault alone since neither Jac nor Levi turn up but they are unaware that Chev has challenge Levi to lead the gang. Usually the challenges are to the death and since Jac stopped Chev before he could seriously hurt Levi, he is still technically the Iron Lord but many of the Irons sided with Chev so he is trying to save face and get the final few thousands volts for Sedric but he is taking a risk in gambling in Sedric’s own casino which might land him in the Shadow Game for real. They do end up following their last lead to Zulu, who is supposedly Lourdes only real friend and she explains to them that Lourdes is dead and died in the Shadow Game and that the black orb they found in the vault in one for the Shadow Game. Zulu explains that in the Shadow Game you gamble with your own life but that one was Gabrielle’s so there shouldn’t be any life in it unless she played for her daughter’s life, Enne’s life rather than her own. Enne does ask for information about her father but Zulu can’t say anything even if she wanted too despite the fact he is dead meaning there is something serious in her parentage even if she only knows half of it right now. With Lourdes confirmed as dead, Enne has nothing and no one in New Reynes that she can trust completely even if she has come to care for Levi but she knows with the omerta around her neck she can never go home and she will be bound to Vianca for as long as Vianca has a use for her and if her Mizer talents appear that might make her situation even worse. Lola does put forward the idea of Enne becoming a Lord for real and taking a section of the City for her own but she doesn’t see the point in doing that with Lourdes dead but I think something is going to happen at the end of the book that either forces Enne to become a Lord or awaken her Mizer talent or both.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, a lot goes down as we get to see not only the Shadow Game but the awakening of Enne’s Mizer talent. That being said I was a little disappointed by the ending as neither the Shadow Game or Enne’s awakening have a lot of page time I thought there was more explanation that was needed as I didn’t really understand either and although the stakes were high there never really seemed to be any doubt that Levi and Enne were both going to walk away from it. I think that if the game was played in a way where Enne got down to only a few orbs of Levi’s life left maybe even one where it was heavily implied that he was going to die and her powers emerged then allowing her to kill some members of the Phoenix Club and help them escape would have been better than what we got. That being said I did overall really enjoy the book despite the slow start and the disappointing ending but I am excited to see where the series is going to go now since the characters are splitting up and the monarchists now have a chance to rise up again since their political rivals are dead and they either knowingly or unknowingly have a true Mizer amongst them.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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