Reviews with content warning for War - Sanctuary of the Shadow

Too Much Instalove and Sex, Not Enough Circus and Character Development

Going into this world, I was hoping for an immersive fantasy with characters that radiate circus energy like Ty Lee from Avatar, high stakes hidden identity, unravelling mysterious pasts, and compelling banter.

This did not deliver.

I love a good map as much as the next fantasy reader, but in my mind they should be like a cherry on top, a nice little touch for the well constructed world. Not a crutch to be used in lieu of the actual world building.

From the initial marketing I saw for the story, it promised a magical circus, and "vibes like Avatar the Last Air Bender". This book is about as much like Avatar as sour cream is like ice cream. And as far as the circus was concerned, it felt like more of a convenient start for the story rather than a part of the story.

I've seen other reviews saying going into this expecting a fantasy novel is setting yourself up for a bad time. This is a romance novel, it has okay-ish romance scenes but they seem also awkward and forced. I'd think a 60 year old and an amnesiac wouldn't dive into physical relations so quickly, but that's my logic.

The fantasy elements just don't grip like I'd want them to.

Overall, the story felt forced despite the really cool things it promised going into it, the plot was hard to find, and it felt like it was trying so hard to be a stand alone while also maintaining series potential.

Content Warnings

mysteriesbooks's review

Go to review page

fast-paced

Loveable characters? No

1.0

I’m beginning to believe that Red Tower doesn’t employ any editors. At least, they don’t employ any who look for anything more than grammar issues.
I will say that if you are a person who likes tropes like insta-love, and touch her and you’ll die- maybe this book could be for you? I personally just think the list of short-comings far outweighs the moments I might have enjoyed myself while reading this. Most of all, I feel the book has some serious questions of consent. So, I guess let’s get into some of that. Spoilers ahead.

By far, I’m most saddened by the lack of circus happening in the book. It’s a main feature on the cover, and it’s what’s first marketed to you via the synopsis, but we only spend a fourth of the book in the circus itself. And much of that time is spent only with Harrow and a few others in the backstage. We get some alright descriptions of Mal and her acrobatics routine, and obviously since the book is partially from Harrow’s POV we get her seer readings, but we really don’t hear or see much of the rest of the circus family or what they can do. If you are looking for magical circus that actually focuses on more of the circus and various magical carnies, The Night Circus and The First Bright Thing are going to be much more up your alley.

Ascher has clearly been taking lessons from Alex Aster in how to tell not show (and in how to use such young language that the book feels borderline middle grade in its writing) even if it doesn’t make sense for the world. I cannot count how many times I was getting frustrated at having my hand held every. Single. Step. Either through actual dialogue or inner monologue characters just feed exposition, have blatantly obvious thoughts, or surface level feelings, to an irritating degree. And, sometimes, it doesn’t make in-world sense! Literally within the beginning pages we see an example of this. Malaikah and Harrow have been friends for decades. They have worked with each other for decades. They have been CLOSE friends, to the point of deeply loving each other for DECADES. Harrow’s premonitions have always come from the water. This is her whole schtick as an elemental. So, why does Malaikah feel the need to ask if this is coming from the water? SHE KNOWS! Or, at least, she should. It felt so out of place, and instantly came off as something done to give exposition for readers, not as a natural dialogue between the two friends.
Another jarring example that irritated me was a little later at the Tavern post-escape. Instead of expecting readers to know what an Ouroboros is, we’re hand-held with an explanation in a way that literally threw me back to my child-self reading Lemony Snicket. But at least in a middle grade adventure, it made sense to give definitions. This is supposed to be adult fantasy. Not only are we told, it doesn’t make sense how we are told.
“”Are you sure it’s not run by that Hybrid gang?” Everyone knew about the Hybrid gang.” If everyone knows, then why is Mal explaining the gang is called Ouroboros? Harrow should already know this as established LITERALLY BY THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE. This could have been done so much cooler with showing instead of telling.

I know a lot of us readers associate elemental powers and nations somewhat with Avatar: The Last Air Bender, just because of how impactful as a cultural phenomenon it was, and it was ingrained into so many people’s childhood’s, mine included-
but everything changed when the Fire Nation, I mean, Queen attacked was something I struggled to take seriously. I actually laughed. And when you’re trying to set up a deeply serious war, that is probably not the desired reaction. And I’m sorry, if the comparison ended there, maybe it wouldn’t be such a prominent stick in my mind. But then you have Harrow. A person who was of the Water Tribe, whose entire Tribe was murdered by the Fire Nation, I mean, Queen, except for her as a child and who has been simultaneously trying to train her gifts while remaining a secret…. What in the Katara is this.
And Harrow? If it wasn’t explicitly stated she’s 60 (which is still young in elemental lifespan so maybe that’s the excuse) I would think she was a teenager with her first crush.

Oh, and Raith. (Deep Breath) One, I can’t take his name seriously. I hate it. It’s one thing to do a funny bit of a character with amnesia looking around a room and just picking a random thing to inspire a name, it’s another when it’s the misspelled name of his species??? It’s odd. And every time a conversation about “Raith with an R” had to be had, I wanted to put down the book.
Two, he has no chemistry with Harrow. And why would he? He barely talks, so they don’t have bantering conversation to go off of. (Not that there’s a lot of that anywhere. Seriously, the stilted language is unnatural at times.) He’s in a cage all the time she first meets him. By all accounts, her crush quite literally came out of nowhere. It should have nearly been one sided.
But instead, we get instalove and a week of banging after they’ve barely known each other. Also, I’m not going to lie, from a technical point, the writing jumps up slightly in quality during sex scenes. But it isn’t enough to take away from how wildly uncomfortable I was reading it for reasons I’m about to get into with Raith.
But by far, my biggest problem with Raith is how much he falls into the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. I loathe this trope. And if you don’t know what I mean, think Leeloo from The Fifth Element, or Madison from the 1983 movie Splash. (Pop Culture Detective on YT has a really great breakdown with the problems with it.) Typically, it’s done with women, who are adults and fully developed, usually undeniably attractive- but they have all the world experience and naivety of a child.
And Harrow even admits, this fits Raith to a T. She quite literally tells Mal he has an innocence about him she only sees with Children. And I’m not going to lie, it’s this starting from scratch naivety and being compared to childlike that got me so squicked out about their entire relationship. Their first ‘surprise’ kiss/make-out especially, because it happens literally a few pages after Harrow just compared him to being child-like.

Speaking of the surprise kiss, oh my gods, that wasn’t the time. There’s such an emphasis placed on this big escape. It is THE most important thing to them at the moment. It is supposed to have SUCH high stakes. We spent so much time establishing how dangerous and powerful Salizar is that this event CANNOT go wrong. And I was immediately taken out of all that because Harrow decided to have a make-out session, in the OPEN, putting HER BEST FRIEND and herself at risk on a whim. I’m sorry, no kiss is THAT worth it. It’s just so mind-numbingly stupid that I questioned if Harrow would even make it based solely on lack of intelligence.

There is no build up to ‘revealing’ Raith for who he is or what he’s done. We know far too soon. Even if you think Salizar is full of shit, the thought crosses your mind so early on that by the time Harrow herself knows for sure, you can’t help but wonder how naive SHE really is. Or if the denial dick was really just that strong.

I never got invested with the Queens or their feud. The entire worldbuilding is lacking too much. And Dayra’s first initial apology felt so fake and out of character that there was no surprise at her “betrayal.” I mean, come on. She had held a grudge and power and this feud for centuries but suddenly because of Harrow she was willing to admit how much of a mistake it was? When Dayra herself didn’t lose anything? We spend most of the book calling them Bitch Queens and showing that they’re supposedly so self interested that most elementals feel shunned and cast aside by them. And we were just supposed to take Dayra at her word after all that?

My last piece is that going beyond the Born Sexy Yesterday trope, I feel we actually crossed a line into dubious consent near the end of the book. At least when Raith first started sleeping with Harrow they had known each other longer than minutes. It was still uncomfortable, and there were still questions of consent lingering in my head along with the ethics of sleeping with someone with this severe amnesia. BUT WE JUMP to a new line later. I was SEVERELY uncomfortable. Raith loses his memory AGAIN, is a shell of a person who doesn’t know who he is, doesn’t know who Harrow is, but because Harrow says she loves him and because he feels lucky to have a pretty girl offering herself up to him- it’s just supposed to be all okay? I really don’t feel any of this met informed consent bars and I DO stand by that it reached into dubious consent territory and that should be blatantly tagged with a trigger warning for new readers.
I now don’t think I trust Booklist at all anymore just for the fact they had the nerve to say "Ascher's latest is a fantasy romance that has everything nice—a hot love interest, a relatable main character, female friendship—and plenty of (consensual) spice." and the fact consent was brought up at all in their blurb has me wondering if ANYONE ever brought up the questionable consent aspect to Ascher or the publisher ever. Did they know and hope everyone would gloss it over? Or was there really such little oversight to this publication that it genuinely was never brought up?

It’s a pretty book. That’s all it really has going for it. What a disappointment.

Content Warnings

jasper_is_atypical's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Starts great, the middle is kind of awful other than the side character POV bits, and even then... The last third starts with some interesting stuff and then sort of goes downhill, though not to the extent of the middle section's snooze fest. I really don't know what to say. I wanted to like it, but I would have preferred a book about the main side character over the protagonists of this book. A bit messy, though the editing was good and I'm glad they were able to get a good sensitivity reader. I will definitely be reading the author's next book (about the side character, who would have guessed), but I will be going into it with tempered expectations. Overall, not the worst I've read, but it left me wanting. (Also side note this definitely felt like it started out some iterations ago as Acotar Azriel x Elain fanfic with some added diversity~ as spice. A seer and a shadow guy with wings who doesn't talk much... come on)

Content Warnings

More...