Book Review: Isle of Shadows by Tracy L. Higley
Revised and updated from the original, Christy-award finalist Shadow of Colossus.
Enslaved in a World of Money and Power, Tessa Dares to be Free.
Raised as courtesan to wealthy and powerful men, Tessa of Delos serves at the whim of her current patron, the politician Glaucus. After ten years with him, Tessa has abandoned all desire for freedom or love, choosing instead to lock her heart away.
But when Glaucus meets a violent death in his own home, Tessa grasps at a fragile hope. Only she knows of his death. If she can keep it a secret long enough, she can escape.
Tessa throws herself on the mercy of the Greek god Helios, but finds instead unlikely allies in Nikos, a Greek slave, and Simeon, Glaucus’s Jewish head servant. As Simeon introduces her to a God unlike any she has ever known and Nikos begins to stir feelings she had thought long dead, Tessa fights to keep her heart protected.
As an assassination plot comes to light, Tessa must battle for her own freedom—and for those to whom she has begun to open her heart—as forces collide that shatter the island’s peace.
Ms. Higley immerses the reader in ancient Greece, complete with intrigue, murder plots and the saving power of the one true God.
The characters were well formed – flawed, real, heroic – while the plot was well-thought out. Twist and turns catch the reader off-guard [in a good way] and the ultimate climax to the plot is foregone in some ways but a surprise in other.
That said, I’m not quite sure why I wasn’t completely drawn into this world. I wanted to be. I should have been. It’s the kind of book I would normally be completely sucked into. But for some reason, I wasn’t. This is the first book of Ms. Higley’s that I have read. I’ll likely read another one, if offered for review, but I don’t know that I would search it out.
Overall Rating: 7.75 out of 10 stars