Paul Kater reviewed Feast of Shadows by Karen Conlin (Feast of Shadows, #1)
Review of 'Feast of Shadows' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Well written, no doubt about that.
It's just too slow, too descriptive for me.
Paperback, 568 pages
English language
Published April 19, 2019 by Independent.
One part mystery. One part savagery. Three parts magic.
Years ago, driven by greed, men penetrated the last soft places on earth. Out of the clear-cut jungle—out of nowhere—a man appeared, eyes rimmed in blue. The last shaman. A man who could make magic.
Across five stories, five victims of the inexplicable narrate strange encounters with an enigmatic titan, a man without a past. Caught in his decades-long battle with an unseen foe, each is given the power to alter human history—or end it forever.
Agony in Violet
As his marriage crumbles around him, a brilliant medical scientist searches for the source of a horrific illness that leaves its victims ashen and wasted. With no apparent connections between them, his only clues are the strange symbols that appear near the bodies after death. When a child is stricken, old traumas resurface and the good doctor turns in desperation to a …
One part mystery. One part savagery. Three parts magic.
Years ago, driven by greed, men penetrated the last soft places on earth. Out of the clear-cut jungle—out of nowhere—a man appeared, eyes rimmed in blue. The last shaman. A man who could make magic.
Across five stories, five victims of the inexplicable narrate strange encounters with an enigmatic titan, a man without a past. Caught in his decades-long battle with an unseen foe, each is given the power to alter human history—or end it forever.
Agony in Violet
As his marriage crumbles around him, a brilliant medical scientist searches for the source of a horrific illness that leaves its victims ashen and wasted. With no apparent connections between them, his only clues are the strange symbols that appear near the bodies after death. When a child is stricken, old traumas resurface and the good doctor turns in desperation to a curious consultant, who reveals that not every labyrinth has walls, and that the horrors you face there are always your own.
Curse of the Red Dagger
A troubled addict, pregnant with a billionaire’s baby, disappears without a trace. Determined to save his child, he offers a bounty of one million dollars to anyone who can find her, including the down-on-her-luck art school dropout who broke into his private club on a dare. Stumbling upon a trail of death, she finds everyone connected to the disappearance has fallen to mysterious circumstances. As her own fate closes around her, her only chance to save everyone she loves is to sacrifice herself to an ancient and insatiable power.
To the White of the Bone
A mangled body floats to the surface of a reservoir with nothing to distinguish the victim save for a binding knot branded under her tongue. The case is routed to the NYPD’s resident occultist, an uncompromising homicide detective whose history of unusual and uncertain results has left her career in shambles. Dodging an inquiry into a fatal shooting and pursued by a homicidal witch, she contemplates a devil’s bargain to stop the killer, who just may be the Lord of Shadows.
Part urban fantasy, part hard-boiled whodunit, FEAST OF SHADOWS is a five-course occult mystery and the most devilish meal you’ll ever read.
The complete epic conundrum is available in two parts.
Well written, no doubt about that.
It's just too slow, too descriptive for me.