How do you kill a shadow? 

As a raging storm descends on the Blasted Coast, the crippled young rigger, Caleb Rusk, meets a stranger on the road. Little does he know that the encounter will pull him into a conflict that threatens everything he holds dear—and change the course of his life forever.

Meanwhile, in the Capital of Taralius, a string of inexplicable deaths have captured the attention of the Ember Throne. Second Corporal Avendor Tarcoth is tasked with uncovering the truth behind a danger that could threaten the very fabric of the Realm.

There’s a certain amount of anxiety (at least for me) that comes with being contacted for a review directly from an author. If a book is sent to me from a publisher…it’s like there’s a built-in buffer there. If I don’t love the book, that’s ok. I write my honest review, I DON’T TAG THE AUTHOR, and I figure the chances of that author finding/reading my review are incredibly slim (especially since I don’t use Goodreads). But that all changes when the author contacts you directly, no? I mean, I’m still going to write my honest review, but now it all just feels a bit…dicey. And on the flip side of that coin, hats off to any author contacting book bloggers, and then sending out that little piece of their soul for critique. That can’t be super easy!

But I knew within literally the first couple pages of The First of Shadows that I had no reason to feel anxious, and that I was in the hands of an extremely talented writer. This novella was a goddamn blast, and I’d highly recommend any fantasy fans check this one out!

The First of Shadows opens like a fucking boot to the face. An (as yet) unnamed character is in the midst of an epic battle.

With a demon.

On a cliff.

In the middle of a nightmarish storm.

The man refers to the demon as The Faceless, and it’s clear that they’ve been locked in this fight for some time, one pursuing the other in a seemingly endless life and death struggle. And considering The Faceless appears to never stay dead for too long, our unnamed hero is just plain tired. Shem (as we soon come to know him) stumbles into a village, bleeding & desperate for help.

He finds help in the form of Caleb Rusk, who works as sort of a rigger in a sky ship yard. With Caleb’s help, Shem assembles a small crew to assist him, and things take on a bit of a quest vibe.

I’m doing an absolute shit job of describing this book without giving up too much of the plot. But for a novella, The First of Shadows reads like a much longer book. It is dense in the best way possible. And also incredibly ambitious. There is a complex magic system in place here, one that’s only partially revealed.

Deck Matthews (a pseudonym for Matthew Ward) also does outstanding work handling a large cast of characters, relative to the length of the book. There are some incredibly vivid personalities in The First of Shadows! My personal favorite was of course Palawen Ty. She’s a drifter, a crack shot with a bow…just a total fucking badass. And don’t call her Red.

But separate from all the demon fighting and badass characters in moody taverns, there’s also some genuine & well-earned gut-punchy moments, which doesn’t necessarily happen in every fantasy novel, let alone in a novella.

I honestly enjoyed this completely. It felt like the beginning of something really special (this is a part of Matthews’s Varkas Chronicles, but can certainly be read without prior knowledge of any of his other stories). The pacing is brisk, the characters & dialogue compelling, and this world feels incredibly vast. The First of Shadows had me turning the pages rapidly, racing to get to the end. Now…I’m just wondering when book two of The Riven Realm comes out.

Big thank you to Deck Matthews for sending me a copy!!