This book makes my stomach churn in a good way. If you want a fantasy book with all The Handmaid's Tale vibes, this series is for you.
This starts off right from the end of the previous book. The Barons are meeting to decide the fate of women, the Bard and the Muse are trying to save the witches and convince the Fae of the dangers of the Black Coats, and the Fae in the West are becoming aware of the peril headed their way. Every character is compelling, and I love how Ms. Bishop alternates between their stories, building the tension in each arc.
While the Black Coats evoke early Puritans or Inquisitors, they bring their own evil here in the intense focus on women. I read this series a long time ago, but I still tense over their actions and the parallels to today's society, including women's circumcision. I can't wait to read the conclusion. ( )

I usually love Anne Bishop but this series just does not work for me at all. I find the story confusing and sort of boring and I cannot relate to the characters at all. I feel like this series gets worse as it progresses. ( )

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68 points/100 (3 ½ stars)

More witches are falling, and evil is gaining more of a foothold is Sylvalan. The Bard, the Muse, and the Gatherer of Souls are some of the only fae with the desire to stop it. Add in a ragtag group of humans and witches, spread across the land, and things are starting to look hopeless.

Shadows and Light was one really long transition book. It suffers from middle child syndrome quite heavily. Nothing really happens. We just got more of what happened in book one, just with more despair. Nothing was really solved. More was just heaped into the shitpile to be solved in the last book.

This was also just depressing as hell. It was so dire. It had so little hope. Like The Pillars of the World, I just had trouble really wanting to continue reading this. This time because there just was no hope. I couldn't see how this was going to end with a good ending, simply because there doesn't appear to be a good ending to be had. There were moments were it was funny. For instance, my favourite character of the entire book was a dog who doesn't listen. He surprised a really big laugh out of me, and I thought I was going to wake up my dad with it. However, it was also just kind of boring for most of the time.

Honestly, just not a lot happened. I can't point to many things that happened in this book. Adrian and Lyrra are wandering around, trying to find someone who will listen to what they say. Morag is struggling to come to terms what she has learned and looking for a place that will hear what she has to say and help. Liam is being introduced into the world he lives in, and his sister Breanna is starting to become a place where others will turn. And Ashk is seemingly the one with all the answers, but no one has made it to her for those answers yet. It was kind of boring.

The best part of Shadows of Light was probably the fact that the bad guys are basically not in this book. There are a few chapters from their perspective, but nothing like the last book. This is good because in general, I don't really like reading Bishop's villain's perspectives. But also because I really just didn't feel like reading torture scenes again.

Overall, Shadows and Light is just setup for the final book in the trilogy. I just struggled trying to continue reading this, and that was even after taking a break after reading the first book before jumping into this one. I want to love this, but I can't help but hate it a little bit, even as I enjoyed it. I feel like a walking contradiction when it comes to this book. It was well done, though, and that is sometimes all I really ask of something. ( )

More of the same after Pillars of the World. Pass the popcorn! The bad guys' names were a bit cringe-worthy, but I'm not telling. (September 08, 2004) ( )

Good read. There are similar elements to the Black Jewels series - strong women, stubborn men, intelligent (opinionated) horses. I have a feeling the third book will be the strongest of this trilogy. This was really a "bridge" book. It laid the foundation for the action and consequences in the last book. All of this is very similar to the Black Jewels story arc. ( )