Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Jen's review of "The Book of Blood and Shadow" by Robin Wasserman

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
Publication date: April 10th, 2012
Publisher: Random House
Number of pages: 448
Format: Kindle/ARC/Netgalley
Description: It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark.

But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora’s best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora’s sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.

Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.
I admit, I had a hard time trying to get through this book. I don't know what it was, I can't really explain it. For the first few chapters I felt like something was putting me to sleep and I couldn't bare to move forward. The pace was slow and nothing was really happening, but I knew I had to stick to it and I did.
It was a hundred or so pages inward that things did start to pick up and get interesting. That was when the plot and story started to happen. Where things begun to make sense and you understood the premise of the story which you had read about in the description for the novel.

The story soon transformed into something I didn't expect. It was captivating and fulfilled those promises in which we came to expect from this book.
Robin Wasserman did a great job in building this story and the world she created. It might have started off slow and took a little while to get going, but once it did it changed into something you couldn't put down. There was twists and turns so shocking that you just had to see what is going to happen next.

I really liked each of the characters in this book. I think my favourites were Nora and Chris, and Max for a time even if he acts a little creepy at times.
But by the end of the book, you will start to wonder whether you really knew certain characters at all. There are certainly things you don't see coming, but it doesn't take away from the story at all. If anything, it just only adds to it.


If you are looking for a book of mystery, and a little dark. That is full of intrigue, romance with dead-set shockers that will leave you gasping for more, then this book is for you.

I would like to thank Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book. This was an exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3/5



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