Review: Wind and Shadow

Title: Talbot Trilogy #1: Wind and Shadow

Author: Tori L. Ridgewood

Date of Publication: June 20, 2013

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: Rayvin Woods, photographer and natural witch. She just wanted to start her life over again after a series of misadventures. She didn't count on rekindling a lost love when she came home to Talbot...or battling a malevolent vampire and his coven for her life.

Grant Michaels, police officer. He thought Rayvin was a murderer. He will do whatever it takes to protect the community he loves from danger...but will he learn to trust his heart, and the word of a witch, before it's too late?

Malcolm de Sade, cunning vampire, imprisoned underground for a year by Charlotte Fanning and Pike Mahonen ("Mist and Midnight", Midnight Thirsts). His accidental release unleashes his hunger and ambition on a small, sleepy town…

My Review: 

Wind and Shadow is one of those books that is hard to review in that I just don't have much to say about it. I wasn't really impressed by this novel, neither was I completely put off. On a totally unrelated note I do love the cover, so many novels have covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the story but Wind and Shadow is one of those few novels that has a cover that ties in perfectly! That aside, even though there were a lot of positive aspects of the novel there just wasn't enough originality to make it stand out to me.

Rayvin was a likable, though unremarkable, main character. I was especially fascinated by her past in Talbot and what really happened that night with Jason. Ridgeway did a good job building up suspense and giving just enough information to make you wonder what happened but, at the same time, not telling the entire story. Other than that Rayvin was just like every other female main character who also happens to be a witch, she even had the black cat named Samantha to make the whole stereotype complete.

The romance between Rayvin and Grant was interesting enough though I didn't feel a huge amount of chemistry between them. I felt like their romance was based more on lust than on mutual respect and that made it hard for me to completely become engrossed in their relationship. Toward the end I started to feel a little bit more between them but not enough to make me change my mind about their romance.

I will give points for originality when it comes to Ridgeway's take on vampires though. Generally vampires play a much more positive role but in this novel they were the villains, and good villains at that. Ridgeway did a great job with creating tension between Rayvin and the awakened vampire and throwing in just enough action to keep me from losing interest. The cliffhanger ending does make me wonder what will happen in the next book but to be honest, Wind and Shadow just wasn't interesting enough to make me want to run out and pick it up.

Overall Wind and Shadow wasn't a bad book, but a forgettable one. There just wasn't anything that made this novel stand out among the slew of other vampire and paranormal books out there. Ridgway is a very good writer but just needs to work a little more on originality!

3/5