Ace of Spades - Amanda Foody Review (The Shadow Game #1)

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Teen for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't know much about this book going in, in fact I didn't even read the synopsis, I had just heard vaguely through booktube that it was about a proper young lady who goes to the city of sin to track down her missing mother with the help of a con man and it sounded like a lot of fun! I didn't even realise that this book was sci-fi and fantasy until I had picked it up!

Honestly this book was hard to get into. I had to force myself to pick it up at times to read it and forcing yourself to read a book is never any fun. At first I thought I was having such a hard time to get into it mainly because like I said I had not expected this book to be sci-fi or fantasy and was finding it hard to wrap my mind around it but honestly the story wasn't really going anywhere until almost half-way through the novel.

I understand the first book in a series is usually not as good as the others will be/are as there is a lot of world building so not much happens but there is still so much about this world that I do not understand and a few things I found confusing.

The second half of the book is definitely where the story picked up and where things got really interesting. I flew through it and really do want to continue on with the series to see where it will go.

The cast of characters is very interesting and Amanda Foody does a wonderful job fleshing out the characters in 400 pages. You see the different sides to most of them and even get a little background information to some of them which I think is wonderful. Most authors focus mainly on the main character and the other characters are usually one dimensional but that is not the case here. I think there will be more of that in book two as like I said most of this book was world building.

While this book wasn't a favourite read for me and I honestly think it was just an average book, I think I will be picking up book two to see where the story line goes.

This book comes out on the 23rd April and can be purchased here.