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The Shadows Rule All is the final installment in the Dominions trilogy, following The Liar’s Crown and The Stolen Throne. It continues the work of the previous two in an anticipated fashion, which is not a criticism. I was just talking with a friend about the expectations set up by a series, and what it means to meet or thwart them, and how much of the latter might be tolerated by a fan base. When I say Owen has met expectations with this one, I mean that in a good way. In the previous two books, she taught me to look for action; intrigue; humor; teenaged awkwardness; the challenges of split loyalties (both for teens and for monarchs, worse for teenaged monarchs); youthful navigations of romance and sex; familial love; loss and grief and magic and more. All of those elements were present, while leaving room for surprises in terms of plot. For the most part, I feel this upholds the contract set up by the first two books in a trilogy. It will be a rare series (let alone trilogy – perhaps a more tightly bound subset of series) that subverts reader expectations without pissing them off. And there was still plenty to keep me engaged and guessing.

Beginning here, a reminder: as I’ve done before with series reviews, this review will contain spoilers for the previous two books. Just one nice, vague one for this title.

As is probably appropriate for the finale in a trilogy, Owen goes big. The stakes are higher than ever. Some very big issues in Meren’s world must be resolved: various forces are working to release the goddesses who’ve been locked in the amulets for many generations; the Shadows that haunted Reven and now haunt Meren must find their final destinations; the dominion of Aryd which is Tabra’s (and/or Meren’s?) to rule must find its ruler and its peace. Eidolon will, hopefully, be dispatched. There will be a huge, pitched battle, with all the consequences, action sequences (including magic), and some serious losses. As much as it hurt to read, I applaud Owen for being brave enough to kill off a few characters who have been central and loved. That’s what a book like this calls for.

A love story has been brewing in previous books, between Meren and Reven, originally her kidnapper (who assumed she was her twin, Tabra), although he had his reasons. In the previous book they were “bound,” in a magical ritual that means they will always find each other even in later lives, and that they can communicate nonverbally and feel one another’s feelings, among other things. In this book, Reven returns from a terrible trauma without any memory of Meren. Most inhabitants of their world find this unprecedented for a bound couple, but assume as he recovers his memories they will come back together. Worse and stranger, the physical manifestations of their bond – lines that light up under the skin – are absent. Worst of all, Meren can still feel the bond, although she cannot access his mind and feelings. These are often the most powerful elements of fantasy or absurdist stories: literalizations of concepts we already know in our ‘real’ world. So: Meren feels the loss of her traumatized, amnesiac lover physically, as literal pain, while he is oblivious, or confused by an explicable magnetism. The Meren-and-Reven push-pull feels to me like the most important thread in the story, although there are many that matter, not least the rule of Aryd, the sisterly bond between Meren and her twin Tabra, the righting of the entire world via goddesses and climate, and various other love stories. Tabra has a sweet one of her own, and by the way, my previous concern that she was too sweet has been entirely corrected here: a dear friend to those she loves, yes, and good-hearted, but with her own priorities and stubborn points and a backbone of steel.

This novel and this series contains action, gore, and loss, hard decisions and monsters and deaths. For all that, it is still an upper YA or “new adult” book with coming-of-age themes: relationships, responsibilities, finding oneself. And it is a comfort read (for those of us who take some blood with our romance). I was surprised at what a fairy-tale, happily-ever-after ending Owen granted us in the end, not that she didn’t put us through some pain on the way there. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: fantasy, romance |