Great Mythology, but Slow-paced - Beyond a Darkened Shore Review

Title: Beyond a Darkened Shore

Author: Jessica Leake

My rating: 3.5 hearts

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Pub. date: April 10, 2018

Publisher: HarperTeen

Synopsis: The ancient land of Éirinn is mired in war. Ciara, Princess of Mide, has never known a time when Éirinn’s kingdoms were not battling for power, or Northmen were not plundering their shores. 

The people of Mide have thankfully always been safe because of Ciara’s unearthly ability to control her enemies’ minds and actions. But lately, a mysterious crow has been appearing to Ciara, whispering warnings of an even darker threat. Although her clansmen dismiss her visions as pagan nonsense, Ciara fears this coming evil will destroy not just Éirinn, but the entire world. 

Then the crow leads Ciara to Leif, a young Northman leader. Leif should be Ciara’s enemy, but when Ciara discovers that he, too, shares her prophetic visions, she knows he’s something more. Leif is mounting an impressive army, and with Ciara’s strength in battle the two might have a chance to save their world. 

With evil rising around them, they’ll do what it takes to defend the land they love…even if it means making the greatest sacrifice of all. (synopsis from Goodreads)

I have to say, this one was pretty disappointing. The idea is great, but the execution wasn’t great. While I loved the mix of mythologies, I found the plot to be quite boring. And the characters… I just didn’t really care about them.

There was nothing really wrong with the characters. They were nice enough, but there was something missing to make them pop off the page. Because of this, I couldn’t really connect with them, and didn’t care about them at all, which ruined a lot of the reading experience for me. Honestly, the only character I really liked was Leif’s younger brother. 

The plot was just… slow, and even boring at times. I felt like it took a long time before it even started, which made it difficult to get into. It was just dragging for a big part of the book, and it made it really difficult to get into. I did enjoy the world-building, though. I love mythology, of all kinds, so the mix of Celtic and Norse mythology was really fun and interesting. And I especially love books with Norse mythology, so I really had high hopes for this book. I just wish the execution had been better.

Overall, I was pretty bored by this book. The plot was way too slow for my liking, which made it really difficult to get through, and I didn’t care much at all about the characters. I did enjoy the mythology and world-building, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the plot issues.