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Book Review: Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead

Silver Shadows (Bloodlines, #5)Title: Silver Shadows 
Author: Richelle Mead
Series:  Bloodlines
Pages:  380
Publisher: Penguin
Date of Publication: 29th July 2014
Source: Publisher for review*
Synopsis from Goodreads: Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

In The Fiery Heart, Sydney risked everything to follow her gut, walking a dangerous line to keep her feelings hidden from the Alchemists.

Now in the aftermath of an event that ripped their world apart, Sydney and Adrian struggle to pick up the pieces and find their way back to each other. But first, they have to survive.

For Sydney, trapped and surrounded by adversaries, life becomes a daily struggle to hold on to her identity and the memories of those she loves. Meanwhile, Adrian clings to hope in the face of those who tell him Sydney is a lost cause, but the battle proves daunting as old demons and new temptations begin to seize hold of him. . . .

Their worst fears now a chilling reality, Sydney and Adrian face their darkest hour in this heart-pounding fifth installment in the New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series, where all bets are off.


My Thoughts:
I'd just left home for a week's holiday when I received a text from my dad, telling me that Silver Shadows had arrived in the post for me. To say I was excited is a little bit of an understatement. As soon as I got home and could get my greedy little hands on it, I devoured it, eager to carry on with Sydney and Adrian's story and find out what happened after the monster of a cliffhanger that The Fiery Heart left us with.

The Fiery Heart left us with Sydney separated from Adrian and taken captive by the Alchemists for what they believed was the worst crime possible - intimacy with a Moroi. In Silver Shadows, we see Sydney endure the Alchemists' awful re-education process, to try to re-programme her and make her realise that what she did was filthy and vile and very, very wrong. Naturally Sydney was stronger than their original efforts and so as the story goes along they try harder and harder to recondition her, and let me tell you I have not been so angry at a book for a long, long time. Good angry - I was just livid at the Alchemists for putting Sydney through everything - which I won't elaborate on so as not to spoil but GAH if you're going to read it just prepare yourself for something horrid.

The novel is told in alternating perspectives between Sydney and Adrian and so we get both of their stories running parallel to each other. I liked seeing Adrian grow significantly throughout the book and by now he's so different to the Adrian we first met in both VA and at the start of Bloodlines, and it's really great. Together the two make big steps in tier relationship and make bigger risks for each other and it was really heartwarming to read about that. There's just something about Sydney and Adrian that I just can't get enough of! I'm actually beginning to think that I like them more than I liked Rose and Dmitri in the original Vampire Academy series... Maybe!

I won't say any more about the plot to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but it's definitely a page turner! I couldn't read fast enough and when I had to stop reading to go to sleep or go out for dinner with my family I couldn't wait to get back to reading it just to find out what happens next. Overall it's a brilliant addition to the Bloodlines series - I think my favourite so far! - and I cannot recommend it enough.

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