The Isle of Sin and Shadows

Because ghost stories aren’t meant to have happy endings

2.5 ⭐

⚠️TW: suicide, drug abuse, rape, knife play, torture, sexual assault, cult

I read this book faster than Master of Salt and Bone even though it was also a long book, 51 chapters long.

One thing I loved about this book was the description of the locations and scenes. It was so vivid and it really made me feel like I was there. I liked that this book focused more on the mystery/thriller aspect more than the romance, I for sure didn't care about Thierry and Cèleste’s romance. I was more interested in the thriller plot and what was going to happen next.

This book had a lot of characters with a lot of relations to each other, keeping a mental list of them was difficult. But, it was needed in order to fully unravel the story. The romance was slow burn as Keri herself had revealed at the start of the book but that didn't bother me. I don't feel like they have a connection or chemistry between each other, I honestly didn't really focus on that. I breezed past all the smut scenes and anyone who knows me would know this isn't like me to do so.

I didn't get used to the accent or the type of language the characters in this book used. Even though there is a glossary at the start of the book it is a little inconvenient to abrupt the flow of the story to go back to the glossary to understand what they're saying and then go back to the chapter again. I just didn't like how messy this process was. I couldn't connect with either characters so that brought the rating of this book down further.

If there's one aspect I'd read this for it is the beautiful imagery Keri gave the readers through her descriptions. Messed up or not, I'd love to visit places like those one day.

Reviews for other books by Keri Lake
Master of Salt & Bones