A YA fantasy novel for young ladies with a LGBT element - good on the whole.

This story centers around tow young ladies, Alice and Lily, fast friends, who end up separated from each other as witches conspire to harness Alice's magic. It's about Lily's search, the characters she encounters as well as those who help or hurt Alice. The fantasy element is about the Shadow Lands and the magic that some characters can use. It's a relatively simple story with a few original ideas and the language is fairly aimed at the YA readership. It's enjoyable enough - I am not the target readership - and will lead to a sequel. Recommended to a female YA readership who will enjoy it, I am sure. I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sisters of the Shadow by Katherine Livesey

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While I appreciate a good coming of age story, this one was not one I particularly liked. The world building was a bit sloppy at times, and there were often instances where I questioned a character's motivations for doing something. I think I much would have preferred a book that explored Alice and Lily's friendship, at least more than this one did. Finally, I am more of a standalone reader, so I hate when a book ends set up for a sequel. I prefer my endings to be wrapped up in a nice little bow.

Alice is a wild child, living alone in the woods until she becomes friends with Lily, a girl who would rather be outside in nature than anywhere else. Alice is the moon, Lily the sun and together they are the sisters of shadow. When Alice disappears there are rumors of women stealing away children for some nefarious purpose and Lily sets out to rescue her friend from whatever evil forces may have captured her. I think comparing this novel to Philip Pullman’s works is a mistake. This story is good enough on its own merits and will only suffer if compared to a classic like His Dark Materials

The story was interesting but I didn't realize there's a sequel coming, so I was a bit disappointed that everything wasn't wrapped up in the end. I'm not much of a fantasy reader but overall I enjoyed this.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sisters of Shadow by Katherine Livesey is an interesting, unique, and action-packed fantasy novel that kept me entertained from beginning to end.

This book was a bit outside of my normal genre, however I have delved into fantasy novels in the past if they seem like an interesting premise. I am glad that I tried this one out.

This book dabbles within a lot of concepts: mystery, suspense, fantasy, science fiction, and has an almost coming of age feel to it as well. The pacing is brisk and a lot takes place during the narrative. Never a dull moment. There was love, loss, family, loyalty, and many obstacles for the vast array of characters. So many things were taking place between Lily, Grace, Alice, and the collection of friends that we were introduced to throughout the book that it is hard to even explain things without giving away the twists and turns. (Sometimes there may be too many things…)

The book does end on a quazi-cliffhanger, as there will be a follow up, Sisters of Moonlight, to see where these characters go from here. I enjoyed it enough to see where it goes.

3.5/5 stars

Thank you NG and One More Chapter for this arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

"Anne of Green Gables meets His Dark Materials in this whimsical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Garth Nix, Natasha Ngan, and Diana Wynne Jones."

That is a *lot* to live up to, and I think it's almost inevitable that Sisters of Shadow doesn't manage it. Which isn't it's fault! Who on earth *could*?

But even ignoring the comp-pitch, I just didn't enjoy this. I do think my expectations were set too high - from the description, I was hoping for really luscious prose, which is not present - but I also found the story to be...oddly simplistic? And kind of heavy-handed. The plot moves very quickly, and probably some readers will appreciate that, but for me it was too fast; I really didn't have time to form any kind of emotional connection to the characters before we hit the ground running. And because the story *begins* with Alice going missing, we don't get to see her and Lily's friendship, either; we're just told that it's an incredibly deep and meaningful relationship, and we kind of have to take it on faith. I wish the book had been a little slower, and let us see Lily and Alice interacting with each other for a while before the plot got going. It's very hard to be invested in the relationship, or even in Alice going missing, when I haven't had the chance to get to know the friendship *or* Alice herself.

I did appreciate Lily, and the way she stood up for Alice, and was so quick to go after her friend. But...the set-up, the worldbuilding; both felt so simple and obvious. Lily's uncle says he can't go with her to find Alice, but gives no reason why. Alice lives in the woods, but has waist-length hair (can you imagine how much effort it must be to keep clean? How many twigs etc would get in it, since she doesn't even braid it back? What???) Alice needs to get to a town, but the villagers in the next settlement over warn that it's cursed, with dialogue that could have been lifted right from any Cabin in the Woods horror film.

It reads more like MG than YA, and not great MG, either.

I don't think Sisters in Shadow is outright awful. But I don't think it's great, either. It *definitely* isn't in the league of Diana Wynne Jones or Natasha Ngan. I made it through nine chapters before I had to DNF it, because reading it was just making me feel frustrated and bored.

Maybe it gets a lot better after chapter nine.