Review – Reap the Shadows (Steel and Stone, Book 4) by Annette Marie (5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 306 pages
Publisher: Annette Marie
Release Date: October 16, 2015
ISBN: 099391029
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Steel and Stone series
Source: Bought for Kindle
Rating: 5/5 stars
This is my absolute favorite YA urban fantasy series right now and this book was even more fantastic than previous books in the series. This book is full of wonderful action, awesome world-building, engaging characters, some romance, and a fast-paced plot. The fifth and final book in the series, Unleash the Storm, is supposed to release in March of 2016.
Piper is having trouble holding everything together. Lyre and Seiya are missing, Ash is still recovering from the ordeals in the last book, Piper is being forced to do typical apprentice activities, and the Gaians are fighting with demons all over the city. Things get even more complicated when Piper’s old enemy, Raum, tracks her down and asks her to take care of an escaped draconian. Then Ash and Piper realize that all this unrest might be about more than Gaians versus demons; Samael might be bringing the fight to Earth itself.
This was a spectacular continuation of this absolutely fantastic YA urban fantasy series! I just love how this series has been such a wonderful balance awesome world-building, engaging characters, fast-paced action, romance, and magic. Once I started reading this book I could not put it down; it just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.
Marie does a really spectacular job writing action scenes; they are just amazing. She also has excellent description throughout which makes it super easy to picture the characters and surroundings. The other part I loved about this book was how interesting all of the characters continue to be, not just our main heros, but everyone.
A big part of what makes this story so engaging is the dynamic between Ash and Piper. Ash has been Piper’s protector throughout the series because he is so much more powerful than her. However in this book the balance of power starts to shift. Piper is concerned for Ash because she hates putting him in danger because of her weakness so she is striving to become an equal partner to him. I loved to see this dynamic and loved to see that her and Ash are trying to have a healthy and balanced relationship based on mutual respect (yay! for healthy YA relationships that don’t involve stalking).
Piper and Ash both struggle with their powers and the shading that accompanies them. There is a lot of discussion in this book about balancing sanity and power and it gave an interesting dynamic to the story.
The situation with the Gaians also gets a lot more intriguing as well. There are different factions of Gaians and these Gaians are wielding new and dangerous weapons that blend technology and magic into deadly force.
Overall I just absolutely loved this book (and this series so far as a whole). This series does everything right. I would highly recommend to fans of action packed urban fantasy who don’t mind a bit of romance. This has been an incredibly engaging series and I am both excited and sad to see how things wrap up in book 5. I really don’t want this series to ever end….
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
