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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
3.75/5 ⭐️
When Shadows Grow Tall is an ambitious and well written book with some vivid imagery and a bold creative vision. It does a great job of immersing you in its unique world, full of interesting magic, complex politics, and intriguing threats but please be aware this is a SLOWWW burn. A bit too slow for my ADHD self, but worth it for those who love in depth fantasy.
The story switches between two main characters: Lovelace, a brooding ranger mage who’s dedicated to protecting young magic users, and Kylene, a teenage girl on a personal quest to find her missing father in a land full of political tension. Both viewpoints add something to the story, but I found myself more drawn to Kylene’s chapters.
The world building is definitely my favorite take away from this book. The lore seems somewhat original but uses elemental magic and dystopian governments. However, some parts feel a bit dense or unclear, especially in the beginning of the book, as a lot of information gets dumped on you all at once. Voss does have a real talent for visual storytelling. Some of the scenes she creates will stick with you long after you finish reading. However sometimes it can get a bit overly wordy or metaphor-heavy, which you may love or hate.
This definitely as a ‘first book in the series’ feel so much of the plot feels like setup for later stories and the ending doesn’t quite deliver a satisfying conclusion, just a stopping point which left me feeling unsatisfied given the slow burn.
Overall, I would say that When Shadows Grow Tall is a solid pick for fantasy lovers who enjoy layered worlds and slow-building stories. It’s a rewarding read if you’re patient and invested in a long term story. For those who prefer faster paced plots or more complex character development, it might be disappointing. Thank you to the author and publisher for this advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.
This fantasy novel has a compelling heroine and well-crafted characters, making it an ideal read for those seeking immersion in a captivating story. The quality of writing in this book is excellent, and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre. I look forward to exploring more of the author's works.
This book was great! The story was intriguing from the start and there was a good mix of plot building and action throughout. I enjoyed the dual POVs and was anxiously waiting for them to cross paths! The chapters aren't labeled by character, but Maressa did a great job with making clear who was speaking. The writing in the book was beautiful and descriptive without being long-winded or difficult to comprehend; I could definitely tell that the author is educated in classics! I'm looking forward to the rest of this series and will definitely be on the lookout for other releases from Maressa.
3/5 ⭐
this was actually a really good and engaging debut! however, i found the story a little too predictable and yet, it didn't stop me from reading it as i enjoyed the bits of magic. when it comes to the writing: i did need to get used to it but it was beautifully and competently written in general. i think this story would be great for those who seek captivating world building and those who love having a book with more than one perspective. (yes, we have two POVs which is what i appreciated the most:))
(netgalley arc review)
this was actually a really good and engaging debut! however, i found the story a little too predictable and yet, it didn't stop me from reading it as i enjoyed the bits of magic. when it comes to the writing: i did need to get used to it but it was beautifully and competently written in general. i think this story would be great for those who seek captivating world building and those who love having a book with more than one perspective. (yes, we have two POVs which is what i appreciated the most:))
(netgalley arc review)
I LOVED IT ALL!
In the beginning we meet our new friend Kylene, who lives with her parents and sister. Spending her time tinkering with the occasional explosive experiments in their basement. Kylene is the FMC that is forever curious with an actual head on her shoulders - not fixated on some random guy, that's her sister - but more about that later.
We then meet Gunnar and Lovelace. Two rangers of a magical order that are trying to find kids with earthly magic or abilities. I don't want to spoil the why, but in the first three chapters you figure out what's the big bad.
I enjoyed the writing, the world building and the characters. I loved Kylene immediately and felt Gunnar's dread.
This is easily one of my favorite reads of the year so far and appreciated the way the storylines of our friends connected.
If you are looking for a great adventure, this is it!
#CuriosityAndCourage
"You must never stop asking questions, my darling. If you don't go about asking questions, no one has to worry about the answers they're giving you."
Thank you to Maressa Voss for giving me the opportunity to embark on this adventure!
In the beginning we meet our new friend Kylene, who lives with her parents and sister. Spending her time tinkering with the occasional explosive experiments in their basement. Kylene is the FMC that is forever curious with an actual head on her shoulders - not fixated on some random guy, that's her sister - but more about that later.
We then meet Gunnar and Lovelace. Two rangers of a magical order that are trying to find kids with earthly magic or abilities. I don't want to spoil the why, but in the first three chapters you figure out what's the big bad.
I enjoyed the writing, the world building and the characters. I loved Kylene immediately and felt Gunnar's dread.
This is easily one of my favorite reads of the year so far and appreciated the way the storylines of our friends connected.
If you are looking for a great adventure, this is it!
#CuriosityAndCourage
"You must never stop asking questions, my darling. If you don't go about asking questions, no one has to worry about the answers they're giving you."
Thank you to Maressa Voss for giving me the opportunity to embark on this adventure!
This book was the perfect opening to a fantasy series, it did take me a fair few chapters for me to get used to the world building and how it all works, it was also a slow start for me. Once I got into it I really enjoyed it! I also found the the characters really likeable. The writing in this was great! Maressa Voss sure does know to write a story and I can’t wait to see what happens in the rest of the series.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for allowing me access to this advance copy
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for allowing me access to this advance copy
*Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review*
This started out really interesting. You're really thrown in, but the dual-POV was intriguing enough and the magic system was very inventive. However, around the 70-80% mark, I started to lose interest and by the time the ending rolled around, I was a bit frustrated, especially since the ending felt far too rushed. It felt like all this build-up for what amounted to not a whole lot of satisfying pay-off.
This is a potentially nitpicky opinion but I really hated the repetitive use of "man & woman" as gender identifiers. Like, please, you can just say "people" or any other word in the thesaurus to illustrate that. Think outside of the binary, I beg!
There was a religious system, but it sort of felt incidental? I guess, it didn't make a whole lot of sense and the way it integrated into the world wasn't always entirely clear to me.
This is a pretty expansive world and there was a LOT of info-dumping, which took place during dialogue. I wish there'd be more actual moments of discovery on both the part of the characters and the reader rather than outright telling. Also, there were parts of the book that felt overwritten in a way where I had to re-read the sentence or paragraph a few times because things weren't entirely clear. That's not to say the writing wasn't good at times. There were moments where things were illustrated in a way that I liked. Overall, though, it felt it was trying too hard to emulate a narrative style that didn't quite work.
The book, also, I think needed to be longer to account for the depth of the world. Like, I was honestly surprised at how short the book actually was in comparison to what the author was trying to outline. Sometimes a high fantasy book can accomplish this, but I don't think it worked here. Especially because the vast majority of the world-building had to be dumped into large chunks of dialogue as a result.
I'm also unsure of Kylene. I don't think she was an unnecessary character, but I do question whether her POV was even needed at all, despite later revelations in the book. I think the story would've felt more cohesive to just focus on Lovelace's POV and build from there.
Overall, while this started out interesting, I was ultimately left kind of bored. I'm not really interested in continuing with further books in this world.
This started out really interesting. You're really thrown in, but the dual-POV was intriguing enough and the magic system was very inventive. However, around the 70-80% mark, I started to lose interest and by the time the ending rolled around, I was a bit frustrated, especially since the ending felt far too rushed. It felt like all this build-up for what amounted to not a whole lot of satisfying pay-off.
This is a potentially nitpicky opinion but I really hated the repetitive use of "man & woman" as gender identifiers. Like, please, you can just say "people" or any other word in the thesaurus to illustrate that. Think outside of the binary, I beg!
There was a religious system, but it sort of felt incidental? I guess, it didn't make a whole lot of sense and the way it integrated into the world wasn't always entirely clear to me.
This is a pretty expansive world and there was a LOT of info-dumping, which took place during dialogue. I wish there'd be more actual moments of discovery on both the part of the characters and the reader rather than outright telling. Also, there were parts of the book that felt overwritten in a way where I had to re-read the sentence or paragraph a few times because things weren't entirely clear. That's not to say the writing wasn't good at times. There were moments where things were illustrated in a way that I liked. Overall, though, it felt it was trying too hard to emulate a narrative style that didn't quite work.
The book, also, I think needed to be longer to account for the depth of the world. Like, I was honestly surprised at how short the book actually was in comparison to what the author was trying to outline. Sometimes a high fantasy book can accomplish this, but I don't think it worked here. Especially because the vast majority of the world-building had to be dumped into large chunks of dialogue as a result.
I'm also unsure of Kylene. I don't think she was an unnecessary character, but I do question whether her POV was even needed at all, despite later revelations in the book. I think the story would've felt more cohesive to just focus on Lovelace's POV and build from there.
Overall, while this started out interesting, I was ultimately left kind of bored. I'm not really interested in continuing with further books in this world.
*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book*
"When Shadows Grow Tall" is the first book in a fantasy book series with fascinating world building that verges on dystopia in parts. At the heart of the story are power struggles and religious fights concerning the 'truth'. With two different focalisers, a ranger from an ancient brotherhood and a young girl leaving home following her seditious father, the story has a good pacing and manages to make the world feel vivid. I sadly disliked both focalisers and also the artifical mystery surrounding Kylene (especially in the end) somewhat annoyed me. The 'evil guys' also remained flat characters for the majority of the book. Maybe I was not in the right mood for this book, but I was kinda bored when reading...
What made me really mad, however, was the stereotypical usage of Celtic languages in yet another fantasy novel. Droch Fhortan = bad luck, really; to just name one example. If you have studied Celtic Studies and have learned Celtic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and some Breton and Cornish too), seeing Celtic names in books about to be butchered by readers, audiobooks and whatnot, makes me sad on top. Especially if the words picked are not coherent in terms of context, time and language. Why do people still do this? I wish people would either put real work into the languages and cultures they exploit for literature or just make stuff up themselves. *sigh*
So, a promising novel with some flaws for me. I'm not sure if I'll read a sequel because I disliked the characters and found the overall conflict somewhat trite. Sorry.
3 stars max.
"When Shadows Grow Tall" is the first book in a fantasy book series with fascinating world building that verges on dystopia in parts. At the heart of the story are power struggles and religious fights concerning the 'truth'. With two different focalisers, a ranger from an ancient brotherhood and a young girl leaving home following her seditious father, the story has a good pacing and manages to make the world feel vivid. I sadly disliked both focalisers and also the artifical mystery surrounding Kylene (especially in the end) somewhat annoyed me. The 'evil guys' also remained flat characters for the majority of the book. Maybe I was not in the right mood for this book, but I was kinda bored when reading...
What made me really mad, however, was the stereotypical usage of Celtic languages in yet another fantasy novel. Droch Fhortan = bad luck, really; to just name one example. If you have studied Celtic Studies and have learned Celtic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and some Breton and Cornish too), seeing Celtic names in books about to be butchered by readers, audiobooks and whatnot, makes me sad on top. Especially if the words picked are not coherent in terms of context, time and language. Why do people still do this? I wish people would either put real work into the languages and cultures they exploit for literature or just make stuff up themselves. *sigh*
So, a promising novel with some flaws for me. I'm not sure if I'll read a sequel because I disliked the characters and found the overall conflict somewhat trite. Sorry.
3 stars max.
Thank you to Netgally for this ARC. All thoughts are my own.
I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did. I am tired of Gaelic inspired fantasy and this came at a bad time. I don’t mind fantasy novels with a lot of world building but I just wished less of it occurred in info dumps.
Kylene and Lovelace were interesting enough characters but I didn’t like Lovelace’s POV until about 80% of the way through and I think he made the story drag. Kylene’s may have been more interesting due to the fact that she was younger and her journey was so much newer to her than Lovelace’s was to him. I did enjoy the banter between Lovelace and Gunnar and Pif was one of the most enjoyable characters in the book.
My biggest issues were the pacing, the character arcs and the antagonist. To start, the beginning of the book is so visceral and attention that everything afterwards felt like a drag (again, a lot of it was during Lovelace’s POV.
I also think the book was dragged down by the very binary good versus evil characters and plot. Because every character had a very strict archetype, it felt like there was little room for character development or deviation from a set, predictable plot. This good versus evil also heavily applies to the antagonists. Alev and Osbert are very stereotypical villains that don’t have much going for them, either to make me believe that they’re extremely evil (other than were told they are) or to even find some sort of sympathy for them.
I also think that even if a first book is intent on world building for a series, there still needs to be more happening (for example Black Sun did a good job of this). This fantasy world where magic exists also just had such strict rules regarding gender and sexuality, I just wish we saw fantasy writers stray from.
I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did. I am tired of Gaelic inspired fantasy and this came at a bad time. I don’t mind fantasy novels with a lot of world building but I just wished less of it occurred in info dumps.
Kylene and Lovelace were interesting enough characters but I didn’t like Lovelace’s POV until about 80% of the way through and I think he made the story drag. Kylene’s may have been more interesting due to the fact that she was younger and her journey was so much newer to her than Lovelace’s was to him. I did enjoy the banter between Lovelace and Gunnar and Pif was one of the most enjoyable characters in the book.
My biggest issues were the pacing, the character arcs and the antagonist. To start, the beginning of the book is so visceral and attention that everything afterwards felt like a drag (again, a lot of it was during Lovelace’s POV.
I also think the book was dragged down by the very binary good versus evil characters and plot. Because every character had a very strict archetype, it felt like there was little room for character development or deviation from a set, predictable plot. This good versus evil also heavily applies to the antagonists. Alev and Osbert are very stereotypical villains that don’t have much going for them, either to make me believe that they’re extremely evil (other than were told they are) or to even find some sort of sympathy for them.
I also think that even if a first book is intent on world building for a series, there still needs to be more happening (for example Black Sun did a good job of this). This fantasy world where magic exists also just had such strict rules regarding gender and sexuality, I just wish we saw fantasy writers stray from.
As an avid fan of elemental magic systems, the synopsis of this book immediately caught my attention, prompting me to request an e-ARC. Unfortunately, I decided to DNF this book after about 20% due to several issues.
The primary challenge I faced was the overly confusing world-building. The story featured extensive info-dumping without sufficient explanation, leaving me struggling to understand the setting, political dynamics, and social backdrop even after nearly 100 pages. This lack of clarity made it difficult for me to become immersed in the narrative.
Moreover, the characters lacked depth and complexity, which prevented me from forming any emotional connection with them. Their actions and motivations felt shallow, making it hard to care about their journeys or outcomes. The sentence structure also contributed to my difficulties, often being overly long and convoluted, which disrupted the flow and readability of the story.
Despite these drawbacks, it's clear that there is significant creativity and an ability to craft interesting ideas within the book. However, more attention to clear and coherent world-building, streamlined writing, and deeper character development would be necessary to fully realize the book's potential. With these improvements, future works could become much more enjoyable and captivating for readers like me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The primary challenge I faced was the overly confusing world-building. The story featured extensive info-dumping without sufficient explanation, leaving me struggling to understand the setting, political dynamics, and social backdrop even after nearly 100 pages. This lack of clarity made it difficult for me to become immersed in the narrative.
Moreover, the characters lacked depth and complexity, which prevented me from forming any emotional connection with them. Their actions and motivations felt shallow, making it hard to care about their journeys or outcomes. The sentence structure also contributed to my difficulties, often being overly long and convoluted, which disrupted the flow and readability of the story.
Despite these drawbacks, it's clear that there is significant creativity and an ability to craft interesting ideas within the book. However, more attention to clear and coherent world-building, streamlined writing, and deeper character development would be necessary to fully realize the book's potential. With these improvements, future works could become much more enjoyable and captivating for readers like me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.