Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book. I really enjoyed this book I think more then I was actually expecting to as the premise sounded good but I was a little apprehensive as I am of all YA in the genre but this book really lived up to it. The mystery and the twists and turns really kept me going and made me really want to finish the book. I would highly recommend this book and I gave it 4 stars.

*I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

The Eternity of Masks and Shadows was a fast paced book about a world full of the reincarnations of Gods from every pantheon. Cairn Delacroix’s Mother was one of those Gods, and when she dies unexpectedly Cairn starts to uncover things about her mother she never expected, this leads her on an journey that ties an event from 19 years ago into the present. With more Gods dying, Cairn and Nanook ( a detective that also happens to be an Inuit polar bear God) work to make sense of the past and how it related to the events currently taking place.

This book has some serious American Gods vibes. I really liked it, and burned through it in about a day. Cairn is intelligent, fierce, and a total badass. I loved reading about her. Her love story manages to be relevant and not upstage the plot which often happens in YA books. This was a really fun book, I plan on rereading it when it is released.

4 stars.

I found this novel compelling. The mystery surrounding the death of the main character’s mothers kept the plot interesting. I really enjoyed the fantasy aspect of this too.

Reading this book felt like an eternity... The underlying story of 'a girl avenging her mother's murder tangling herself into something huge' was nothing new... What I hated most was painfully reading about so many myths and gods and goddesses... Not a single thing registered in my brain... After second myth everything just went over my head... I skimmed the hell out of this book and still felt like it took me an eternity to finish it... Alive or dead, I didn't care for any of them...

I am currently trying to read more young adult fiction and this book was exactly what I was looking for! It was a fast paced mystery and I found myself completely sucked in. Once the book got going I enjoyed reading about the full cast of well rounded characters. Cairn is an amazingly strong main character, full of determination and it is easy to sympathise with her throughout this book. She has a wonderful dynamic with the entire cast and kept me wanting to read more about her journey. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book in the future, and I may even have to get myself a hard copy!

When her mother unexpectedly commits suicide, eighteen-year old Cairn finds her life changed forever, though Cairn is not alone. Across the world, many cases of similar gruesome deaths have been reported, each being committed by the reborn gods of various mythologies. As the loved ones of these lost souls grieve their deaths, someone must put a stop to these deaths and find out who would dare influence the gods of old. Set in a world much like our own, Karsten Knight creates an intriguing story of deception, despair, and mystery that will keep readers guessing.

While I desperately wanted to love this novel, I found myself not caring for the characters in any way. The book is written in a third-person perspective that does not intricately reveal character's feelings or thoughts and merely tells the reader what is occurring, rather showing it in the narrative. The novel jumps around from different time periods throughout the character's lives, leaving the reader guessing at what has occurred and giving the reader information solely to give the reader the information. The worldbuilding lacks greatly and Cairn simply recites the details of the gods rebirth from the start of the novel, shoving it on the reader in one fatal swoop that does not allow them to fully digest the information.

I am sure that some readers would enjoy the plot as it moves forward and the various mythologies presented throughout the novel, the inability to relate to characters and jumping between plot points and time periods could not hold my interest enough for me to want to read the book again.

I received an ARC for an honest review.

If gods lived on earth, I think it would a little like Karsten Knight's "This Eternity of Masks and Shadows."

I thought this was an extremely fascinating tale about what it would be like should gods and mortals live in tandem. Riddled with lots of cultural myths from around the world and an action-pact murder-mystery, Knight's novel makes for a fast and highly intense read. For those who love a little romance with their grisly murders, and a new twist on mythological tales, I highly recommend this novel.

Usually, there are warning signs before someone commits suicide. With Cairn's mother, there was none. Cairn finds herself chasing after her mother's history in a desperate attempt to understand what could've led to her suicide. When she finds her mother's journal, Cairn realizes her mother led a double-life of tracking down rogue gods and stopping them from committing crimes. Most importantly, she learns her mother hadn't killed herself but was murdered, and she won't be the only one.

Spurred on by the revelation of her mother's double life and other mysterious deaths, Cairn hunts down friends from her mother's past to seek help. The hunt for her mother's killer becomes more dangerous, threatening not just the life of Cairn and the people closest to her, but potentially the world itself.

Knight's novel uses mythology from around the world to create a fresh idea of gods who live amongst mortals, and why that might not be such a good idea. With stunning visual details, a beautiful romance between two courageous women battling their own ideas of who they want to be, and a mystery that promises to keep you guessing, "This Eternity of Masks and Shadows" is a story that will have readers hoping for a sequel.

I picked This Eternity of Masks and Shadows based on the description that promised an urban fantasy mystery with gods. In a way, that’s what I got. In other ways, it was nothing like that.

The book is set in an alternate world where all the gods of all the mythologies in the world live as humans among the general population, with some supernatural abilities based on their mythology, but with a limited lifespan. Once they die, they reincarnate with no memory of their past lives and sometimes with no idea they are gods. A group of gods living around Boston start dying, presumably by their own hand. One of them is an Inuit goddess of sea. Her daughter, Cairn, believes her mother was murdered and wants to find out the truth.

Even though the setting is basic UF—supernatural elements in modern world and a mystery that is solved by an outsider investigator—the execution is nothing like it. For one, it lacked the energy and immediacy of urban fantasy. Instead, the narrative is lingering and dreamlike with not much world building, the point of view is very distant third person that offer only a superficial insight into the characters’ minds, and it relies heavily on telling, not showing. And worst of all, it has no humour whatsoever. In the afterword, the author mentions superheroes as one of the inspirations. Going with that notion, this book is the dark, no-laughs, no self-irony DC world of superheroes, not the more upbeat Marvel with humour and the ability to laugh at themselves.

It’s not a bad book though. The mystery is interesting and told in two timelines, the present and twenty years earlier. There are enough surprises that the main baddie isn’t obvious until the great revelation. The pacing is slightly off however; there are two climatic scenes at sixty and eighty percent mark that both could’ve led to the end, but the book continues on to the final showdown. And then it goes on some more. At the eighty percent mark I wasn’t invested in the outcome anymore, mostly because of the distancing narrative that failed to make me care about the characters and their fate, but I read on.

The main weakness of the book is its characters. I didn’t care for any of them. Cairn as a grieving daughter was initially interesting, but the reader learns nothing about her during the story. She is a person who has been formed by events before the book starts, and that’s all the reader gets. She doesn’t grow, she doesn’t change and she doesn’t get any sort of catharsis from avenging her mother. The supporting cast was a collection of cardboard cut-outs. I had great hopes for Nook, a grumpy polar bear detective. For the first third of the book when he and Cairn investigated together, there was some proper interaction between them, but then they were separated for most of the book. Yet at the end the reader was supposed to believe they had grown fond of each other. Then there were the victims. I didn’t care for any of them. Just because they met gruesome deaths wasn’t enough to feel for them, when I hadn’t learned anything about them that would’ve make me sympathise with them. For most part, they were very unlikeable characters.

The most annoying, perhaps, is Cairn’s relationship with Delphine. Urban fantasy often has some sort of romantic element in the background that doesn’t dominate solving the main mystery, but which adds spice to interactions between characters. Not so here. The book starts with their romance, but it has already had its great formative moments before the book begins. Then it’s just a series of on-again off-again events that doesn’t make the reader believe that either of them cares for the other, let alone loves. One of the climaxes depends on the reader caring for their relationship, but it was just the same for me what would happen. Basically, I began to root for both of them to die.

All in all, this was a mixed read for me. The mystery was satisfying, the rest of it not so much. There was some setting-up for a series at the end, but I doubt I’d read more of this.

I received this e-book in exchange for an honest review
This was just not really to my tastes at all. I enjoyed the Lynx though but that was about it.

I thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a digital ARC of this bbok.

There's one peculiar scene in the first book of the Kane Chronicles where Carter, who has just arrived at the House of Life in Brooklyn, looks out of a window towards Manhattan and sees weird things flying in the sky. His uncle just tells him "other Pantheon, not our business".
This book was exactly like that, but take the last quote out and put in at least 20 other Pantheons together. And somehow it is something I didn't know I needed. I really liked how this book mixed mythology, urban life and investigating, and I also enjoyed the characters. It was very entertaining to read, and its plot twists left me definitely astonished.
This book, though, has a few flaws that in many books brings me to low the rating at 3.75 stars, but since I was very entertained by this particular novel I have decided to rise the rating at 4 stars: some small details should have been developed and refined better. Some connections between the plots and the myths, for example, left me a bit perplexed because I doubt that people who have basic mythology knowledge like most of the characters would have guessed what was happening so fast. It seemsed a bit unrealistic, I would have preferred if some of these myths were searched by the characters on page (I think it would have been very funny if they googled some myths or some god's name like I did while I read this, lol). Also the characters' interactions were cute, but I wouldn't have minded if they were, again, more developed on page.
Overall I really liked this book, it was based on a very interesting concept and it brought it to life in a very entertaining way.

This Eternity of Masks and Shadows, by Karsten Knight, comes out on the 2nd of June. In a world where Gods are real, and are reincarnated to walk among us, some choosing high profile celebrity lives, others living more mundane lives, this book follows a mortal girl. After her mother dies in mysterious circumstances, 18 year old Cairn is on a mission to find answers. But her journey will take her back 18 years to dark event on an isolated island.
I loved this book. From the first few pages it gripped me. The author didn't have to describe a lot of the emotions the characters felt because I felt them with them. The world was well built and easily understandable. The characters are vivid and likeable. And the story. Wow. So much detail, multiple viewpoints and jumped forwards and backwards in time but remained easy to follow. It was full of action and suspense and contained surprises right to the very end. This is a must read, 5 stars.

I really enjoyed this book and I loved the premise of God's walking among us . It has non-stop action that kept me intrigued and turing the pages. There was some LGBT romance throughout the book which was nice to see. This book reminds me a lot of Percy Jackson and I can see fans of that series enjoying this book a lot too. My only complaints was that I was craving more world building and further character development which would have pushed this book to a higher level. Without it this book reads like a fast paced borderline YA novel. It was still highly enjoyable and I will be looking into more works done by this author.

I enjoyed This Eternity of Masks and Shadows. I think the idea of gods and goddesses living among humans is interesting. I liked Cairn as a character. I did think that the father should have played a bigger role. I enjoyed the mystery, the magic and mythology in this story. The LGBTQ+ romance was just the right amount of romance for a YA novel. Though I want to know more about what happens with Delphine now, actually all the characters.

Reading this book felt like binge-watching an entire first season of a Netflix show. It was action-packed. I read this over several days; baffled enough to keep putting it down or re-reading entire chapters but intrigued enough to continue picking it back up. The protagonist is eighteen year-old Cairn Delacroix, in a world where gods live among us, as she investigates the death of her mother Ahna, a reincarnation of the Inuit goddess and mother of the sea, Sedna. Set in Boston, this story is part murder-mystery, part detective-noir and part political thriller wrapped up in an urban fantasy, split between Cairn in the present, investigating her mothers death, and her mother, as Sedna, in the past, on an expedition to L' Isle du Sable Noir where it all began...

”... like watching a drop of ink diffuse through a glass of water, only in reverse, obsidian tendrils coagulating until a humanoid form took shape”

I enjoyed a lot of things in this book: Cairn’s romantic relationship with her best friend, Delphine; the hard-nosed reincarnated polar bear god turned detective Nook; and, how mythology, geology and nautical references were weaved into the narrative. Ultimately, the plot was just too-fast for me. Cairn’s geologist father, Emile, and her pet arctic tiger needed more screen time as they were both adorable.

“Emile’s wistful eyes landed on his wife, ‘In my experience, it’s always the cutest ones that get you into trouble’”

This book is great if you’re looking for a fun, fast, murder mystery “whodunnit” with mythological gods and superpowered vigilantes.

This Eternity of Masks and Shadows
Author: Karsten Knight
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ /5
Reviewed: Maya

I was so excited to read this; a blend of fantasy and murder mysteries, however this did not turn out like I hoped. From the very first page, I found myself thrust into Cairn’s life where gods walk on Earth. I did not feel there was enough character or world building at all, and I often felt confused until around the middle of the book because of this. From the very beginning, there was action, action, action which didn’t allow me time to fully process the reveals each action overturned. I found it hard to connect with any of the characters because of the lack of character building, which really lowered the rating for me. The story was told in alternating POVs, although mainly from Cairn’s perspective, which I really liked as it was able to give the readers more information. I loved the way Cairn’s relationship with her girlfriend, Delphine was handled so naturally. I had the time to finish this book in one day, but I kept procrastinating reading because I couldn’t engage with any of the characters. I think the storyline is a really great idea, but there was too much action when the world should still be building. I would recommend this book for readers who like a fast-paced, action-packed read and I can’t wait for this book to be published so that I can read your opinions!

First I want to say, I am sorry that I did not like it.
I wanted to love this book, because the world in which the story was set was super interesting and would be something right up my alley. But I just didn't, it didn't work for me. While I loved the idea of reincarnated gods, there were too many gods and religions all mixed in there and not knowing any of the religions or beliefs within the world except the basic Greek god I could not connect to the characters at all.
The world was super fascinating, but I got lost and confused and I cared more about understanding the world than the actual story.
I enjoyed the relationship between Carin and Delphine, it was really natural and flowed easily throughout the book but there were a few moments I forgot she even existed.
I finished the story, but it was something that wasn't too memorable for me, someone else may love it but it wasn't for me. Which is really unfortunate.

If I need to point out something about This eternity of masks and shadows it is that it reads fast !

Since I thought it was a more a fantasy focused book, with godly adventure with a small part of mystery, than I full on mystery book, I got a bit thrown off my reading when I realized that. I'm not a big fan of investigations books, but I kept pushing, and in the end, I happened to enjoy the story well enough, and finished the whole thing quickly.

Cairn is a really good character, even though a little too stubborn, and she makes the perfect team with Nook, part grumpy detective, part polar bear god. Their dynamic is really good, and the way they interact with each other was entertaining enough to keep me going through a mystery book.

Since I'm bad at knowing gods that aren't the classic Greek one, I was grateful to get to know different mythologies, and learn new things in general. The whole island ordeal also intrigued me a lot, and the flashbacks to the events taking place there are probably my favorite in the books, along with the parts where Delphine is around.

Delphine is Cairn's best friend, and has been around her forever. She really is an amazing character, who evolves a lot as the story goes, which is exactly why I would have wanted to read more about her. Maybe some chapters from her perspective would have been cool, but it was already nice to have her around.

I can't finish this review without saying how great the ending is. There is a lot of action taking place in the last 15% of the book, and I felt as though I was watching a Marvel movie. You can just picture the action, the characters, the general ambiance, you can feel it all !

Even though I'm still no big fan of this mystery genre, this one was a fairly good surprise, and it kept me way more entertained than I thought it would. It really is a cool discovery !

This Eternity of Masks and Shadows
Author: Karsten Knight
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ /5
Reviewed: Maya

I was so excited to read this; a blend of fantasy and murder mysteries, however this did not turn out like I hoped. From the very first page, I found myself thrust into Cairn’s life where gods walk on Earth. I did not feel there was enough character or world building at all, and I often felt confused until around the middle of the book because of this. From the very beginning, there was action, action, action which didn’t allow me time to fully process the reveals each action overturned. I found it hard to connect with any of the characters because of the lack of character building, which really lowered the rating for me. The story was told in alternating POVs, although mainly from Cairn’s perspective, which I really liked as it was able to give the readers more information. I loved the way Cairn’s relationship with her girlfriend, Delphine was handled so naturally. I had the time to finish this book in one day, but I kept procrastinating reading because I couldn’t engage with any of the characters. I think the storyline is a really great idea, but there was too much action when the world should still be building. I would recommend this book for readers who like a fast-paced, action-packed read and I can’t wait for this book to be published so that I can read your opinions!

I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gods and goddesses of multiple pantheons are living among the mortals in Boston, but mystery surrounds the systematic murders of them.

This was not the page turner I was hoping for, but it was still a great story. A slow start, but a big bang by the end. Being born and raised in Rhode Island, I really appreciated the Boston references. For example, the aquarium. Had I not been there, I would have had a hard time picturing the scene. It is the only aquarium I can recall ever seeing a cylindrical tank with the ramp circling it. I loved the twists this book had as well.

If you like books like The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky where mythologies/folklore meet, you will like this one too.

Literally everything about this book pulled me in from first that first glance. It is very beautifully written and the characters and fantastical system are very original. If you are looking for a solid fantasy with a brilliant main (and gay!) character and a great supporting cast of friends then you should pick this series up and give it a try.