Shadows by Paula Weston

Shadows by Paula Weston

First in The Rephaim series

4.5 stars
Gaby Winters watched her twin brother die in a car accident a year ago. She’s moved to a new town, but she can’t escape her grief or the strange a violent dreams featuring an incredibly handsome guy. One night at bar with her friend she meets Rafa, the boy from her dreams and he claims to have known her brother. Meeting Rafa unlocks all kinds of secrets and Gaby is feeling left in the dark in her own life. What is she and what happened the night she almost died and her brother did? I went into with pretty high hopes. Not exceedingly high because angel books can be tricky. They can either be great, good, or horribly bad. Shadows was pretty excellent. It’s never a dull moment in the uncovering of Gaby’s past and who she is. The writing was captivating and the story entertaining. One thing that is extremely disconcerting is the amount of angel information. I wouldn’t call it info-dumping because it wasn’t that bad, but there is a lot of information to take in about angels and their background. My brain was slightly overwhelmed.


The main female character is Gaby. I immediately loved Gaby. She was awesome in all the right ways and then all of sudden she just kept making stupid decision after another. When a hot guy shows up at your door claiming to have your best friend, why would you happily go with him? In what world is that a good idea? Really Gaby went from having common sense to being an idiot in a small time period. She does eventually collect her marbles and isn’t as much of an impulsive idiot. By the end of the book I liked her again, but I don’t appreciate the writer making Gaby a sudden poor judge of character. Gaby isn’t the best judge of character because people seem to house a thousand secrets, but it seemed like Weston purposely changed Gaby’s personality to fit the story and that’s not okay. At least she can handle herself in a fight.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 8.5

The main male character is Rafa. At first Rafa seems like a jerk at first, but I quite adored him. By the end of the book he stole my heart. Rafa doesn’t pressure Gaby and he’s quite the gentleman. He can be a jerk, but he’s a jerk with sweet moments. I hate how he keeps secrets though, but I understand why he keeps them in some weird way. I look forward to seeing more of him.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 9

The Villain- I actually like where Shadows went with the villain(s). It wasn’t shocking, but it fit well to the story. It made the battle scene awesome. It wasn’t a boring scene to read about in the least.


Villain Scale: 8

Maggie is a really good friend to Gaby. I didn’t like her a lot because I feel like she wasn’t developed enough for me to like her, but she was a good friend to Gaby. Jason, Maggie’s boyfriend, was someone who I called out for having more secrets than being truthful. He was sketchy. Of course, he turned out not be what I thought he was and I like the shocking revelation he brought to the ending. Simon is a bartender that has a thing for Gaby and I wish he would just go away. He is just such an annoying character. He tries to be the hero and it just makes me want to throw him to the hellions. I don’t like Daniel or really any of the angels from Sanctuary.


Character Scale: 8

Shadows has faults, but they aren’t extreme and they are easily overlooked. Overall Shadows was a really good read and I can’t wait to read the sequel!


Cover Thoughts: I love the cover. I think it’s brilliantly done and the wings have a really good effect of being not completely there (much like Gaby’s angelic abilities).

Thank you, Netgalley and Tundra Books for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review!