"Here lies Caelan--couldn't count. Got eaten by a dragon. Ralked it up just like Kade said not to. Well, I showed him, Caelan thought to himself."

You may wonder what flavor of fantasy Shadows of the Dark Realm is. Is it an Arthurian Quest? Portal Fantasy? Monster Hunter? Political Intrigue? You name it, the answer is simply, "Yes". 

The tagline of the second book, Reapers of the Dark Realm, is "If Lord of the Rings, The Witcher, Mistborn, and Dungeons & Dragons were mixed together into a cake, it would be a Dark Realm cake." That tagline 100% sums up this series (yes, I've already started the second book).

I started and finished this book in 3 days, which is strange for me to do with a 500+ page book. I usually savor my thick, epic fantasies and spread them out over months, because I don't want them to be over, but I couldn't stop reading this. Part of that is owed to the non-stop action and the fact that there was no safe place for me stop reading. If I had left the book alone for too long, the characters might've actually died before I got back and I couldn't risk losing Caelan, Vale, and Kade.

As a big fan of The Witcher, there are several aspects of this book that I believe will appeal to other Witcher fans, the biggest being Disgraced Knight Vale Lox. He has "Geralt-inspired" written all over him, but he is definitely still his own character with his own quirks and backstory. Vale and Caelan have a "Geralt and Dandelion (Jaskier for those who have only seen the show)" type of friendship that had me laughing out loud. 

Fans of epic fantasy filled with monster attacks, incredible battle scenes, and a plot that thickens around every curve, will not be disappointed by this book! 

Just as with the previous book that I read by this author, The Outlands, cursing is book unique, which means the characters do curse (often) but they use substitute words that only exist in this story world. There's a glossary in the back of the book that made me laugh because it's almost exclusively a "Curse Word Glossary", though there are some other phrases you need to know. The battle scenes are intense and there is non-stop action, however, the descriptions aren't overly gory or horrific. There's no romance plot in this book, unless you count Caelan's love for antagonizing the others, in which case, the book is filled with it.