Shadow's Bane

Written by Karen Chance

Narrated by Joyce Bean

Half-human, half-vampire Dorina Basarab is back-and facing her biggest challenge yet in the next urban fantasy in the New York Times bestselling series.

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir-half-human, half-vampire. As one of the Vampire Senate's newest members, Dory already has a lot on her plate. But then a relative of one of Dory's fey friends goes missing. They fear he's been sold to a slaver who arranges fights-sometimes to the death-between different types of fey.

As Dory investigates, she and her friends learn the slavers are into something much bigger than a fight club. With the Vampire Senate gearing up for war with Faerie, it'll take everything she has to defeat the slavers-and deal with the entirely too attractive master vampire Louis-Cesare . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781494571498

Reviews for Shadow's Bane

[elainehowlin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved every minute of this rip-roaring ride of a book!With typical audacious Dory style and humour, we’re back in Chance’s world of vampires and fae. In this instalment, we follow Dory on her first job with the Senate searching for smugglers looking to benefit from the upcoming war.As with all of Chance’s books, this is full of action and so fast paced you will be on the edge of your seat!… if it’s possible to be on the edge of your seat reading a book… The book is quite a bit longer than previous instalments but with such a long gap between publications, the extra bit of recapping at the beginning was greatly appreciated but does slow progression of the plot for the first 100 or so pages.Once that’s out of the way we’re treated to the most entertaining book in the series that also does a lot to expand the universe of both the Dorina series and the Cassandra Palmer series. I absolutely loved the glimpses into Mircea’s past as a young vampire and the growing dynamic between Dory and her alter ego vampire self Dorina. There’s a lot going on there I never suspected and I can’t wait to see where it goes. We get a lot of growth in relationships and in who the characters are in this one as well especially with Dorina, Mircea and Caedmon.Loved every minute of this one and can’t wait for the next.

[spurts-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow, a lot got revealed in this one. I loved it; possibly favorite in the series with the romance angst gone, lots of action and reveals without all the weird time travel stuff. The flashbacks even worked. Dory and Dorina are more distinct beings than ever. With all the reveals, maybe this is the final book of the series? I hope not because there is clearly still more to the story despite the resolutions and reveals.

[krau0098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the fourth book in the Dorina Basarab series. It’s been six years (yes *six* years) since the last book in this series. I love this series so much more than Chance’s Cassie Palmer series (which I stopped reading after the third book). I was a bit nervous to pick this book up because of the huge time lag between books, but it used to be one of my favorite UF series so I decided to take a risk. It ended up being good...not great...but good. It was also very, very long and it felt long.Chance does a pretty good job of re-introducing characters and providing background for those who don’t have the time or inclination to re-read the first three books in the series. I was still a bit lost in the politics and I think some nuances of the story were lost on me because I just couldn’t remember the full background and all the characters after six years. I mean really, if you are going to take six years to write the next book in a series you would think you could take some time to recap the “story thus far” at the beginning of the book or something.My biggest issue with this book was the number and length of the fight scenes. I know, I know...I love fight scenes in my book and these were decently written ones. They were just soooo long and sooo frequent that they really interrupted the flow of the story. Chance could have gotten the same impact with shorter fight scenes that didn’t completely disrupt the story flow. I also got really sick of Dory getting knocked out and waking up somewhere else...that happened probably six or seven times in this book and got really old.I kept forgetting the main storyline because of the fight scenes. This led to the story having a very disjointed flow. It was almost like the story, fight scenes, and relationship scenes between Dory and Louis-Cesare were separate… they really didn’t flow well and felt very choppy. Additionally, vast portions of the book follow Mircea and his past. I could have done without these long chapters told from Mircea’s POV; they didn’t add a ton to the story and the elements they did bring to the story could have been handled in a much more concise way. Despite all the complaining above I did end up enjoying the book. I love these characters and the intriguing world they live in. I really enjoyed some of the developments in here. I love the scenes between Dory and Louis-Cesare and wish we had gotten more of that to balance all the random fighting. Chance’s writing style is easy to read and (for the most part) engaging. Overall this was a good addition to the Dorina Basarab series. I really enjoyed re-entering this world and some of the developments around the characters here. The book should have been edited better and was kind of a mess. The story didn’t flow well and the lengthy/numerous fight scenes kept derailing things completely. The parts of the book from Mircea’s POV should have been left out completely; they didn’t really add much. So, should you read this? If you are a huge Basarab fan like I am...yes! there is some really good stuff in here. However, be prepared for a lengthy slog...this book was seriously long and poorly paced.