“Amazing story building, gripping action and fantasy…”

~ Under the Covers

Recommended Read!

I can honestly say that this is by far the best book of the three. WHAT a RIDE! Thanks to the underlying pressure and sense of danger throughout the book Gilded Serpent has you running to reach the end of the book. Amazing story building, gripping action and fantasy, and a lot of travel through new lands. If you loved Danielle´s Broken Kingdoms books, or if you love Sarah J. Maas´s fantasy worlds, you should pick up the Dark Shores series, because you will devour the three first books. But let me start from the beginning.

After Dark Shores and Dark Skies you reach Gilded Serpent with double the anxiety, double the story building and double the love for each couple. In an intriguing move which I haven´t seen in many series, the author makes book one and two parallel stories with two main characters in each, creating an impressive world and great story building. Both stories come together beautifully in Gilded Serpents.

A quick recap: Dark Shores finishes with Teriana becoming ever more entangled with Marcus, struggling to understand her feelings towards the thirty-seven legion and her need to liberate her people. After defeating Urcon, Marcus works towards an alliance with the Arinoquians, as well as trying to identify who betrayed him. Back in Mudaire, Dark Skies finishes with Lydia choosing to be taken to Hegeria´s temple, and Killian has finally been granted commander of the Royal Army, but this comes with a steep price: watching as Quintus, Grand Master Healer takes Lydia back to the city to fight the blight.

What I loved most about Gilded Serpent was how great it was to now get to follow our four main characters throughout the book. We´ve come to love each of the duo´s uniqueness through the previous books, and being able to follow all of them at the same time, it was amazing! After Dark Shores, reading Dark Skies was a test in patience for me, because I was itching to know what was next for Marcus and Teriana. Gilded Serpents fixes this, giving me information of both and making the story much richer, expanding the world as well as making me wonder how both stories are connected. Gilded Serpent´s is a much longer read, yet it did not feel like it. The stakes are higher and the suspense greater, and the author has you running behind every thrilling action and adventure our characters come across, and the pages just fly by. Our dark shores world keeps getting bigger, and the curiosity to meet each of the kingdoms in this world keeps you hooked.

Paradoxically, what I didn´t love as much of this book was the amount of jumps between one couple and the other. At the beginning I did feel a bit of whiplash trying to follow the simultaneous stories. I would have liked to see more chapters together following just Teriana and Marcus, or just Lydia and Killian. Thankfully, after the first fifteen percent of reading, the dizzying sensation was no longer noticeable for me. Afterwards the author was able to establish an amazing balance between one couple and the other, making me pull my hair out trying to control my anxiety. I was going crazy with every chapter, because both couples had thrilling danger waiting at every corner.

Finally, the level of romantic entanglement is what I loved most. It´s a low simmering romance in both cases, never taking over the plot and adventure but always there in every conversation. I love each couple for very different reasons, and both have different obstacles that they need to work through in order to be together, and I´m really interested to see how that plays out in the next book.

An amazing read, fantasy with a bit of romance at it´s finest. A great add to the Dark Shores series, and I cannot wait for the next book, especially after that ending! I just need to live now with my anxiety, knowing that this was not the end, and I will be counting the days until the next book comes out.

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[about-author author=Danielle J. Jensen”]

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I´m a 20 something – closer to 30 than 20 if I´m being honest – year old latina obsessed with the English written world. Living in Argentina with only two real English bookstores has been a challenge for most of my life. Most of my international trips include coming back home with a bag dedicated to books bought abroad. My kindle is my most prized possession, helping me read multiple books a year, as well as getting to know new authors. When I´m not working, you can find me spending time with my friends and a good wine or enjoying the outdoors. Always with my head behind a book (kindle or paperback, whichever I can get my hands on), my friends describe me as that obsessive reader that loves to spend hours on end in my couch, or the bus, or even walking with my mind in the fantasy world. If it´s not of this world, I´m usually a sucker for those, since I especially love to disconnect through living in worlds totally different from ours. Anything with romance, be it Urban Fantasy, New adult, Paranormal and YA is usually part of my yearly reads. I´ve burned my friends’ ears talking about dragons, fae, vampires, and werewolves and obviously hearing about all of my amazing book boyfriends I´ve met throughout the years. Some of my favorite authors include JLA, Sarah J. Maas, Ilona Andrews, and Jeanine Frost. Find me on Instagram @intotheunknownreviews

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4 Comments

  1. I somehow missed this series and it sounds really good! So, I have now added it to my tbr. The story seems interesting and that cover is amazing. Thanks for the review!

    Reply