Whilst unravelling the secrets of her past, she finds herself drawn to the elusive Ashes, a dark witch that can control shadow creatures with the ability to rip flesh from bone within seconds. Ashes plagues her thoughts and dreams. She is her enemy, her undoing and an obsession she cannot escape. The language used was more suited to middle grade than YA - everything was big or small, red, blue, green etc you get the idea. I was less sold on the romance at the centre of this story, however. It was very obvious, which I did not dislike, and very sweet, which warmed by heart, but it sometimes felt a little surface-level. I never felt I truly knew where their hearts lay as they kept their true emotions secret from each other and the reader. I wanted to see them soften even more towards each other and reveal even more of their loveable characters. Unfortunately the world building and writing ended up feeling rushed and sloppy. Details were overlooked and it seemed like many character choices were made to further the plot, then them making sense for the context and how the character was developed. She is soon accosted and taken to the Queen and King where her true lineage is discovered - she is the lost princess of Eriobis.

I really bonded with these characters and I thought the author did a stellar job of introducing the reader to them all and making us consider their plight, despite them often opposing the struggles of others. I could consider all angles of this story and it made the good/bad binaries never clear, luring me into dually bonding with and questioning them all. The stakes were never lowered due to this.The book Is not as spicy as it was made out to be, but I can understand as I feel it was made out to a younger audience; however, there we a lot of kinks.

Ty to penguin books for providing me with a copy. I believe the copy I have is a finished copy which is why I have brought up the grammar/repetition as an issue. Writing for CD-ROM Today, T. Liam McDonald called Shattered Lands "a refreshing new twist on familiar AD&D games", and noted its "vastly improved interface" compared to SSI's previous products. [10] Peter Olafson of Electronic Entertainment found Shattered Lands to be flawed, but he concluded that it was still "a very good game". [11] If you liked Alina's arc in Shadow and Bone and the end of Tangled, this book has lots of elements you'll enjoy. The Plague consumes everything it touches, leaving its mark in the form of Corruption. Alterborn gameplay systems are all inherently dualistic, enforcing the player fantasy of being slowly but steadily corrupted by an unnatural force. You can choose to combat the Plague by cleansing the world around you or pursue its power by corrupting your gear, upgrading your Phantom Form and more. I know this was originally written to be spicy and adult (going by Brenna’s prior TikToks) and was edited for a younger audience so this content should have been removed.Shattered Lands does not use SSI's older Gold Box engine. The game uses a top-down view of the world similar to the Ultima series. Much of the game involves interaction with other characters, giving the Dark Sun series more emphasis on role-playing and less on dungeon crawling than in the Gold Box games. [3] Argonath is in a different dimension than the regular material plane. This place seems to be an endless landscape made up not of normal terrain, but of chunks and sections of other places, stitched together into a patchwork world made up of everywhere else. One might find a volcanic field next to an archipelago of floating islands, or a verdant forest pressed up against a toxic swamp. It’s a world of strange possibility, where one can easily find displaced ruins, and people who’ve been pulled along with these pieces of land to make new homes for themselves. She’s strong willed, impulsive, curious and loyal. What I loved about Sapphire are her questions and anxieties match the readers as the story unfolds, I didn’t find her naïveté annoying or frustrating like I often do with FMC’s blind to their situation. She’s anxious but there is depth and realness to her emotions that felt believable to me. Appropriately so, Sapphire doesn’t trust everything she’s told and there are lots of twists and turns in Eriobis. One good thing is that you easily connect and understand the characters and bond with them. There's not much more to say about the book. Rausch, Allen (2004-08-17). "A History of D&D Video Games - Part III". Game Spy . Retrieved November 17, 2012.

Variations of "like a child" to describe how Sapphire feels she's reacting to something came up at least 14 times. Sometimes it was used twice in a chapter. I get that maybe it's meant to show that she's barely not a child but the author could've done that in a way that shows us such. This series contains the radiant classics, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, and Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager. Sapphire has spent 18 years in Witrotean, a waste land that was ravaged by beasts and famine, and expects to spend the rest of her maybe short life there. That is until one night during what she thinks is a dream she is transported to Eriobis, a land full of magic and secrets. Not only was she born in this new lands, but she is the lost princess they have been looking for. While searching for answers to the history of Eriobis and the war that split the kingdom 1000 years ago, she meets Ashes, a Shadow Witch. Shadow witches are rumored to be monsters that control the shadow beasts, they were the side of the war that lost those many years ago. Though they are enemies, Sapphire and Ashes cannot ignore the buring attraction between themselves. They will have to question wiether or not the truth that is revealed will start the end of a kingdom. ALTERBORN is set in a grim, lawless world permeated with death and destruction, corrupted by an antediluvian force. You’re an Alterborn, one of the last survivors that eluded demise at a terrible cost. Through the eyes of some, you are no longer human but rather an abomination corrupted by something unknown that is slowly taking over. Constantly tempted by the allure of Phantom power, will you cling to your humanity or delve into the dark nature of your inner self?

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The political conflicts and magical intrigue were more fascinating and ensured I will continue on with this series to see what occurs after that explosive finale. I could see it coming but was devastated to having been proven correct! Sapphire finds herself in Eriobis with a crown, a castle and too many handmaidens to count. And so her life begins as the heir to the throne of a country she doesn't understand - a country ruled by magic and secrets. There were parts that were a bit repetitive and boring, but there were also good parts that kept me reading. If a second book were to come out, I definitely will read it, as I want to see how the ending plays out.