One Dark Window; Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King Series)
By: Rachel Gillig
Recommendation: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - (Out of 5 🌕)
Genre: Romance, Fantasy
Length: 419 Pages / 458 Pages
Pace: Fast
Moods: Emotional, Sad, Dark, Mysterious, Tense
Release Date: September 27, 2022 / October 17, 2023
I am behind with reading this series. Not just behind, way behind. I was really excited to read One Dark Window when it released. There had been a lot of great social media buzz at the time. Unfortulnately, I lost track of my TBR list, now it's 2025, and I devoured both books in two days. I can whole heartedly admit that I am an idiot for waiting so long.
As an author, Rachel Gillig is incredibly talented. I don't say this about just any author I read and it is very rare for me to rate a book 5 out of 5, let alone the entire series 5 out of 5. So many elements to this series was perfection. The cover art is beautiful and each a detailed story for what the reader will find inside. The writing and prose are extremely well written. I didn't have a chance to make notes for either book because I was too focused on the storyline but the one item I felt compelled to highlight was this sentence, 'The orchestra was larger by three violins, and played louder now that the dinner hour had ended and dancing begun.' What a unique way to paint a picture as to how the volume of the music in the room increased.
The world and character development are superb. Elsbeth and the Shepherd King as two consciousness in one body must have been a complex narration to write. The Shepherd King was not a very likable character for me but through the two books I began to see his depth. At first I was very wary of him, hated him for how he treated Elsbeth, I eventually grew sad for him and his back story, at the end of the story I mourned him. As a duloagy, we were given the perfect amount of story....not too long and drawn out but not too short, just the right amount of detail conveyed the story across the two books.
My current mood is utterly and completely lost. I am uncertain what to read next as nothing can compare to what I have just finished. I look forward to more from Rachel Gillig.
Brief Description.....
The citizens of Blunder have always had to stay away from the mist that surrounds their village. If they wander too far into the forest without their charms they run the risk of being coming infected. For 500 years Blunder has been this way, ever since the Shepherd King bartered pieces of himself for the creation of twelve Providence cards. Cards that give the yielder the magical ability. But for some of those that survive the mist's infection they develop their own magic, a dark magic. Elsbeth must find the thirteenth card before the winter solstice in order to bring the end to dark magic.
