City of Shadows

Volume XXX / Issue 23 - February 23/ 2024

City of Shadows

Author: 
Kevin Harkness
Series: 
A War of Banes & Demons
Vancouver, BC: Shouting Room Books, 2023
350 pp., trade pbk., available on Amazon.ca
ISBN: 
9781778226281
Grades: 
Grades 7 and up
Ages: 
Ages 12 and up
Review by: 
Ronald Hore
3
Excerpt: 

The boy ran through the woods, snapping branches and tearing clothes in a stumbling flight. He stumbled over an immense tree that lay across his path, patches of moss flying as he kicked and grabbed for purchase. He fell to the ground on the other side and lay panting, the sound of his own breath roaring in his ears. Covering his mouth, he listened.

No sound of pursuit. The demon might have lost his scent. Hope flared in his chest, but he smothered it with crossed arms. His family was still in the logging camp, now a league away. Mother and father, his many older siblings, all huddled, frozen, waiting for the beast to return. Only he had run, like the coward everyone said he was, but it had worked, drawing the shrieking monster away from the camp

City of Shadows brings back the stories of all of the wandering characters from the first three books. Marick and his companions from the expedition to the south have returned to the city of Shirath along with representatives of the people they befriended there, including Vala the sandwalker and Son-neen from the City of Fountains. They bring an interest in developing trade, and the information that they had seen only one dying demon down there. Marick shows signs of maturity and his usual daring to ferret out traitors in the city.

Our heroes from book one, City of Demons (www.cmreviews.ca/node/3811), Garet, the youth who went from being a bane to king’s agent, and Salick, a bane and his love, were dispatched to the far north in search of answers about the source of the demons. Garet finds his father there and learns that the fire-breathing dragons of the north may have a connection to the demons. They follow that trail back south.

With very human characters, the mystery of the how and why of demons, Harkness adds in the deeper problems of the north with its dragons and a forest filled with suspicious goings on. The tale has varied and very human characters readers can care about. City of Shadows should appeal to readers who enjoy a fast-moving fantasy tale in a world plagued by monsters, human villains, and defended by youthful, very relatable heroes.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Ronald Hore, involved with writer’s groups for several years, dabbles in writing fantasy and science fiction in Winnipeg, Manitoba, under the pen name R. J. Hore.