Review: Shadowscent

Shadowscent: The Darkest Bloom 
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

In the empire of Aramtesh, scent has power.

When disaster strikes and the crown prince lies poisoned, long suppressed rivalries threaten to blow the empire apart. It’s up to a poor village girl with a talent for fragrances and the prince’s loyal bodyguard to find an antidote.

To succeed, the pair must uncover secrets – cryptic, ancient tales as well as buried truths from their own pasts – in an adventure that will ignite your senses. 

I was so intrigued by this when I heard about it, a poisoned prince, fragrances, a loyal bodyguard and a quest to find the antidote and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this adventure! 

I really liked the focus on scents, not just in the story but in the writing. Scent subtly seeped in to the pages, and the writing style itself was rich. Each sentence was laced with detail that draws you in to the world and gets you acclimated to it in one chapter, although I did have a few confused moments as I was adjusting before everything was figured out. 

I do feel like the history of the world, and the politics could have been delved in to a bit more, and the magic system expanded upon a bit more than it already was. Then again this is a first book and I'm anticipating that perhaps happening in the next book. 

Rakel's a spitfire of a character, she's sarcastic and determined and I loved that about her. I also loved that she wasn't at all what I was expecting. She has a fantastic sense of smell which she uses to her advantage a lot throughout the book. As for our other POV, Ash, he's Prince Nisai's bodyguard and his narrative had me chuckling. He's so snarky but he also struggles with...something. I can't elaborate because spoilers but it was an interesting route to take for his character, and I'm eager to know more! 

Rakel and Ash are quite the pair, and I enjoyed reading about them together and individually. They made a pretty good team, and obviously I started to ship them. I liked watching them grow closer and learn to trust each other, it was nicely paced and didn't take over the plot. My one gripe is Rakel has an epiphany about Ash being in love with Nisai but I feel like it was glossed over and never actually made apparent from Ash's point of view, and I'm still unsure if it was a true thing or if I missed something. Speaking of Nisai though, I liked what we saw of him so far, and I'm intrigued to get to delve in to his character more in the next book! 

Barden was another interesting character he comes across as such a snake at multiple points in the book, more so than Zakkurus. His reasoning didn't seem that solid and he didn't seem like that great of a friend but then he turned it around by the end of the book and I'm curious as to what's going on with him and what his point of view of all of this is. I can't quite figure him out. He, along with Zakkurus has left me with a tonne of questions. 

While we take some time to build up to the main part of the story, meaning the actual poisoning, that's not to say the book is slow to start. It's well paced, as we spend the first 100 or so pages meeting our two main characters, getting a feel for them and the world and how things work as everything is set up and everyone's manoeuvred to where they need to be. We have a tense journey, a fight with a lion and a trial/test to get through before everything really kicks off. When it does...we've got a mystery that seems impossible and a legendary library! There was such a great sense of adventure throughout and never a dull moment. 

There's plenty of twists and intrigue with Ash's secret and the truth Rakel is trying to find out, and I loved the quest. I'm a sucker for a quest, and this was not only a fun one, but it let us see a lot of the world. Which is imaginative and full of interesting creatures, by the way, I also loved how they where casually slotted in. The picture of the world that's painted was vivid enough that it pulled me in, but it definitely leaves you curious and wanting to see and find out more about it. The mythology to this world also fascinated me, and the history we did get to learn about, I just wanted to learn more and more about it. 

Shadowscent is a fun start to a new series, it's got an interesting and imaginative world, I enjoyed the characters, it was vivid and the plot hooked me in and kept me reading. I loved the quest, and the clues to figuring out their next destination and seeing what cool creature, or tense situation we'd find the characters in next. Yes a few things could have been delved in to more on some fronts, but it successfully piqued my interest, and has left me with suspicions as to the culprit, and with plenty of questions that I need answered.