It’s a fantastic feeling when a book recommendation surpasses expectations. Shadows of Fate by Angela Dennis did just that. An example of great world-building within the story, that doesn’t overwhelm the reader with too much information to process at once, is Shadows of Fate. The story follows Brenna, a Shadow Bearer banished to earth, as she struggles to solve a serial killer case that is killing off her Interspecies Relations Taskforce (IRT) coworkers and potentially endangering her supernatural housemates. Solving crimes in a post-apocalyptic earth isn’t easy, but Brenna isn’t a typical supernatural. She’s an incredibly powerful Shadow Bearer, and her substantial power will be needed to save what remains of the earth from demon invasion. Shadows of Fate is an action-packed drama well worth reading and filled with death, demons, love, and lies.
Redemption lies beyond the veil between truth and lies.
After witnessing her husband’s brutal murder, Brenna Baudouin lost control of her Shadow Bearer powers and wreaked havoc on her home world. Her penance: one hundred years policing hordes of supernatural misfits that spilled onto the Earthly plane after a cataclysmic war.
She’s on a routine exorcism run when she learns she’s been assigned a new partner. But there’s something about this Shadow Bearer that sparks her suspicions. Particularly when people closest to her start turning up as piles of ash.
Gray Warlow holds tight to the glamour that allows him to get close to the woman on whom he plans to wreak vengeance for betraying his people. Yet as he skillfully manipulates his way past her distrust, he begins to see her not as the heartless monster he was led to believe, but a strong, vulnerable woman.
As they work to put together the pieces of a killer’s macabre puzzle, an attraction deeper than blood and bone flares between them. And they must reveal their deepest secrets to avoid becoming the final targets,
Product Warnings
A thrill ride of supernatural proportions. Contains violent battle scenes, nail-biting suspense, crazy hot sexual tension, and enough twists and turns to make your head spin.
Brenna is an incredibly powerful Shadow Bearer. She’s also been exiled to earth after killing hundreds of her father’s lackeys and soldiers when her husband was killed. Returning to her home-world means torture and, ultimately, death. Brenna’s made the most of her exile and uses her powers to solve crimes for the IRT. It isn’t until a serial killer case with demonic implications causes the death of her partner that Brenna is faced with a blast from her past in the form of a new partner, Gray. I love the chemistry between Brenna and Gray. They clearly have pre-conceived ideas of one another – both of which are wrong. Gray is super-secretive and uses his glamour to camouflage the extent of his identity. It’s pretty easy to figure out the connection between the two of them, but observing them come together on their own is just as powerful as the lengths to which they go to solve the serial killer case.
There is no lack of action in Shadows of Fate. Brenna and Gray are on the move from the beginning. Even while they are each coming to grips with their respective pasts, the serial case is bearing down on them. Brenna is somehow the focus of the case, and her boss, Seraph, is working to keep her out of the line of fire. Not only do I want to know how Brenna and Gray move forward with the revelations in Shadows of Fate, but I also want to know more about the supporting characters that were introduced. Seraph breaks out some amazingly powerful magic, and, though he is a long-time friend of Gray’s family, no one seems to know what he is. I have some suspicions… Also, Lucy the grumpy gargoyle, Sam the incubus, and Mira and Claudius the vampires provide a full cast of characters to round out Shadows of Fate.
Shadows of Fate created a wonderful starting point for a new series that I look forward to following. Brenna and Gray have a long way to go before they can heal the hurts that have accumulated over the last 90 or so years. Their connection, the IRT cases, and the post-apocalyptic world make this detective urban fantasy series one to pick up. I’m not sure how many books are planned for the series, but there was enough good stuff in Shadows of Fate that it could be the beginning of a long, successful series.
Read Order:
Shadows of Fate
Fading Light
Piercing the Darkness
