SHADEBRINGER

Battles, military encounters, and vivid inspections of good, evil, and the struggles between them permeate a story that also presents solid moral and ethical inspections… A top recommendation for readers who like their stories action-packed and unpredictable and their characters gritty and determined.

Scalding prose takes readers from gritty warfare to an engaging fantasy romp.

Hooper’s writing is snappy and convincing, even in a menacing world of hollow-eyed ghost children and the soul-eating offspring of a goddess. Robbins is arrogant and undisciplined, but in his heart he knows what is right. Readers who like interdimensional landscapes of horror and atrocities mixed with military action will be engrossed in Robbins’s adventures and moral dilemmas.

Hooper brings wit, skilled dialogue, a telling eye for detail, and military briskness to his plot and action… an exhilarating and propulsive read.

The book is unflinching in its depictions of the tragedies of armed conflict, and of the people who take up arms for family and country. Clyde’s decisions and frustrations are its anchor, but the book as a whole, enhanced by the fantastical elements, is a well-oiled machine. With a jolting beginning and an ending that begs for a sequel, Shadebringer is an action-packed fantasy novel about conflict and free will.

With hand-drawn maps and poignant quotes both factual and fictional, Grayson W. Hooper’s Shadebringer (Book 1: The Land of Irgendwo) weaves a story that transitions from the Vietnam War era towards fantastical journeys into Death and beyond. Featuring cloudform magic, shades, terrifying beasts, and a reluctant hero, this incredible cauldron of a novel boils up a complex fantasy stew.

I’ve never read anything quite like it. Told in the immediate, forceful, voice of Clyde himself, it’s a compelling read – urgent, energetic, in the moment… There’s a host of supporting characters – from Jens Gruber, the German from WWII through Frau Gilda who was burned in Dresden, to Miriam, who burned as a witch long before the twentieth century. All of them bring something to the table to add to the strange, chaotic world Clyde finds himself in. The plot twists and turns as it should and we end on a note that makes us look forward to book two.

The entire cast of characters … were all organic and well-written. The action scenes, both modern warfare and fantasy skirmishes, had great choreography. I’d recommend that lovers of the fantasy genre give this incredible book a shot.