A review by red3horn
Shadow's Claim by Kresley Cole

I FUCKING LOVED THIS!

This is the perfect place to introduce The Dacians within the world of IAD. I mean, their king is Lothaire and their realm is hidden so why wouldn't they add intrigue and just MORE to the IAD world.

***I am going to have an opinion about reading order if you're new to the series. READ IN THE ORDER THE AUTHOR HAS GIVEN. Don't read it in because a podcast says to because their reason is ridiculous. Yes, there is a new faction we see in this book that has bad folk who do bad things. Okay. Every faction has that but it's ridiculous to put this off so that faction doesn't look bad. Good freaking lord. ***

Anyway.

I loved Trehan. This cover, the one with the man walking away from an explosion fits the book perfectly. The new cover makes no sense.

I love that Trehan was going after Caspion then scented his mate. I love that Bettina was all for it until, well until she realized what was going on.

I really liked Bettina. I'm noticing readers are really hard on the IAD heroines when they're more innocent and Bettina was very innocent. She's only known her small world and everything that could harm her, was taken care of by Caspion. SHE was taken care of by Caspion so it would make sense that she'd want him as her mate/husband even though they are just friends. I mean, yeah, she did talk him into entering the tournament but Cas also has his own issues so you can't put all the blame on Bet.

Now, the tournament was so much fun. For the first time since I was told we were in the "darker" books I finally got some violence and it was cinematic. Kresley Cole has one hell of an imagination with all these species coming out to fight for Bettina's hand. Some broke my heart as they lost but I was only concerned about how Trehan would win.

This was a page turner for me and I loved it. I was sucked in so fast and fell so hard for Trehan that I needed him to have his mate. I loved the moments where Bet would talk about her weapons and just sitting and talking with Trehan was so intimate. They became friends before everything else and that friendship also allowed Trehan to help Bet with her PTSD.

The romance was perfect, these two were hella hot in bed.

There is drama per the norm but I love LOVE who these two go to for relationship advice. I was cracking up at those parts.

I just loved this book. The Dacians and their mist... they're sexy.