Saturday, February 15, 2020

Review: The Burning Shadow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Book: The Burning Shadow

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Series: Origin #2

Publication: October 8, 2019


When Evelyn Dasher crossed paths with Luc, she was thrown headfirst into the world of the Lux—only to discover that she was already far more involved in their world than she ever suspected.

Because the Luxen aren’t the only ones with a hidden past. There’s a gap in Evie’s memory, lost months of her life and a lingering sense that something happened, something she can’t remember and nobody is willing to tell her. She needs to find out the truth about who she is—and who she was. But every answer she finds only brings up more questions.

Her search for the truth brings her ever closer to Luc, the Origin at the center of it all. He’s powerful, arrogant, inhumanly beautiful, extremely dangerous…and possibly in love with her. But even as Evie falls for him, she can’t help but wonder if his attraction is to her, or to the memory of a girl who no longer exists.

And all the while, a new threat looms: reports of a flu-like, fatal virus that the government insists is being spread by Luxen. A horrifying illness that changes whoever it touches, spreading panic across a country already at its breaking point.


#1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout returns to the world of the Lux with this steamy, shocking second installment of the Origin series that will leave readers reeling.



I expected nothing less from JLA and, more importantly, Luc!

This book picks up literally seconds after the ending of the first book. Literally everything in Evie's world has been turned upside-down in the past few weeks, and after the showdown with Micha, things are slowly dying down. Or at least that's the hope.

The first thing I will say is that it is oddly satisfying to see Luc actually struggle with things in this book. In the last book, Luc was typical Luc: he knew everything, was omnipotent and omnipresent in practically almost all ways. But in this book, there are very clear moments where he doesn't have the answers. And, of course, Daemon has no qualms pointing them out and being baffled. (Daemon! Is in! The book!!!)

The parts that got me the most were whenever Evie called Luc and he literally dropped everything and zipped over for her. Swoon swoon. Buuuuuuuutttt at the same time, that bothered me a bit, since Evie was dependent on Luc for nearly everything. Which I guess is understandable, given that it's in a contemporary setting and you would definitely need help and a clean up crew trying to hide some very deadly, very supernatural activities you aren't supposed to be engaged in, but...

What I really liked was that this book built upon the pre-existing notion of what fear, misspelled and miseducated, can do to humans. In the last one, there was an establishment of anti-Luxen groups, but this book ramped it up to give you a sense of what happens when an entire country finds itself being run by fear and ignorance. Moral questions of right and wrong aren't exactly clear, especially the you start mixing human and alien races together. Have some of the Luxen been harmful? Yes. Are these isolated incidents, potentially isolated groups that don't reflect the overall nature Luxen? Also yes. But are humans going to judge them on the worst of them and assume they all are like that? Yes. See the problem here? I sometimes want to smack the human race, especially since they (the humans) have a tendency to do this very same thing to each other.

We definitely get some new revelations, one that ties the original Lux series to this one. Specifically, we're left with more questions that answers in regards to Evie herself, where ever answer we get opens up a plethora of other questions. Evie's character also grows a bit more from the first book, in a much more satisfying way from the first book. With so many new questions, familiar faces, and the world once again ready to be shaken to its core, I'm really looking forward to the next one!


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