Radiant Shadows: Wicked Lovely, #4 -- Melissa Marr

Being half-human, Ani can never be a true part of the Wild Hunt, a true Hound, a true part of the pack, even if her father is the Gabriel.

But that doesn't stop her wanting to be.

Ani is also different in that, like the Hounds, she Hungers for physical touch -- which she can never fully feed because of her father's protective nature -- AND, like the faeries of the Dark Court, Ani needs to feed on emotion as well.  Her dual Hungers are so strong that if, given the chance and without even trying, she is capable of completely draining powerful faeries.

Devlin -- created out of and by Order and Chaos -- is the High Court's enforcer and assassin.  Years ago, he was ordered by Sorcha, the High Court Queen, to "remedy" a certain situation -- to end a life in order to prevent "unacceptable complications" in the future.  He didn't follow that order, and now, years later, the consequences of his failure to obey are finally beginning to take shape.

Radiant Shadows is, like Ink Exchange, a book that I'm appreciating much more after having read it than I did during the reading of it.  During my reading of it, I was so focused on following the plotlines (and remembering who was who and what was what) that I wasn't able to stay immersed in Melissa Marr's world.  This has been an ever-growing problem as the series has progressed -- and I wonder if my feelings about the entire series would benefit from a back-to-back re-read once the last book has been published. 

Ani, our heroine, is especially well-written in that she isn't completely human, and so her reactions/actions reflect that -- she isn't just a souped-up human being (*coughVampireBella*), she's something Other.  I both appreciated her troubles -- her angst was totally reasonable -- and cared about her.  The same goes for Devlin: like Ani, he has to find a way of reconciling the two parts of his own self and of figuring out Who He Truly Serves.  Although the secondary characters all felt fully multi-dimensional to me³, for me, the Devlin and Ani relationship eclipsed everyone and everything else in this book, despite the possibility of, you know, Imminent Faerie Apocalypse.

This book works much better as a stand-alone than the previous book in the series.  BUT.  I do think that, even though the relationships between the characters are all re-explained¹, and even though the main plot works as a stand-alone, and even though the connection/romance between Ani and Devlin is SO strong (and yes, sexy²), that this is a book that will be appreciated more by those who've read the previous books in the series -- having the backstory and background gives the book that much more depth... and makes some of the plot twists that much more sucker-punch-in-the-stomach shocking.

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¹While I may have found that tiresome if I'd read the books back-to-back, I found the re-introductions VERY helpful -- AND I felt that they were very smoothly done, which is a more unusual occurrence in series fiction than any of us would like. 

²Hoo boy.  Loved them.

³But it should be noted that I do have the history of the previous books to draw on.

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Previously:

Wicked Lovely
Ink Exchange
Fragile Eternity

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Book source:  My local library.

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