SILVER SHADOWS | Richelle Mead

SILVER SHADOWS

Richelle Mead

source: own paperback

pub: July 2014

♠.♠.♠.♠

Silver Shadows is the fourth installment in Richelle Mead's Bloodlines series (itself a spin off from her best-selling Vampire Academy) and I have to admit it is one of my favourite series. I will try and be as unbiased as possible in this review however I cannot claim complete nuetrality.


Silver Shadows picks up where the Fiery Heart left off, with Adrian and Sydney separated by the Alchemists, and ultimately this book was almost everything I wanted from it. It features wonderful scenes of Sydney being strong-willed and ingenious, Adrian having what can only be classified as a nervous breakdown (which, let's face it, we saw coming because even though Adrian Ivashkov has gone through some magnificent character development he is still at the mercy of Spirit), and many cameos from beloved VA characters.


One of my favourite things about this series has been the depiction of mental illness, while the cause is very clearly cited as the magical element of Spirit, Adrian displays a range of symptoms experienced by people with mental illness and the treatment of these is approached in similar ways. Most of the instances that I am thinking of occur in the Indigo Spell and the Fiery Heart (and I did re-read the first four books of the series before I made it to the Silver Shadows) but there is some displayed in Silver Shadows.


As the fifth book in the series Silver Shadows maintains the strong pace and content of its predecessors, though there is one thing that bothered me in a major way. I'm about to discuss a major spoiler here so if you haven't read it I suggest you avert your eyes.

The thing that bothered me was when they got married, and Adrian made sure that Sydney had the perfect wedding, or at least as perfect as they could make it. It seemed in character for the flighty Adrian but very out of character for the pragmatic Sydney. Though it led to the end showdown of the novel it seemed very unnecessary. Unnecessarily complicated if you will. 

That being said, it definitely wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, and I eagerly await the final in the series.