Shadows of the Dark Realm

By Tyler Edwards (December 2023)

Genre: Fiction – Fantasy

Pages: 503

Via: Author request

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Tbe Basics:

The idyllic kingdom of Parisia sat nuzzled securely in the Great Emerald Mountains. For generations Parisia had known nothing but peace and prosperity. When the elder dragon Darka Mors, steals the Darkstone, the entire realm is threatened. Without the Darkstone, the magic sealing away the Shadow King would fail. His return would bring death and destruction to the world of men.

Desperate, the king of Parisia calls on an unlikely hero, the Disgraced Knight Vale Lox to lead a group of Seekers on the most important quest in a thousand years.To save the realm and everyone they have ever known from the rising shadows of darkness, these misfits must survive hostile lands, enemy armies, unspeakable monsters, and each other in order to retrieve the stone from the dragon’s lair before it’s too late.

The Lowdown

This book is a little The Once and Future King. A little Lord of the Rings. Add a dash of Inkheart and a pinch of Macbeth. Stir in magic. Mages. Monsters. And voila! Epic fantasy/adventure story is served.

This book is pretty well-written, with colorful characters and action a-plenty. The author’s world-building skills and command of the language is impressive. It’s also a pretty heavy lift, weighing in at over 500 pages.

Having just finished a Dickens novel clocking in at a cool 831 pages, we just didn’t have the energy to dive into another prodigious tome and swim all the way to the other side. So we won’t be rating this book. However, it shows promise and is worth a look-see if you have the time. The target audience is Young Adults.