Review: Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead

Silver Shadows (Bloodlines #5) by Richelle Mead

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.
In The Fiery Heart, Sydney risked everything to follow her gut, walking a dangerous line to keep her feelings hidden from the Alchemists.
Now in the aftermath of an event that ripped their world apart, Sydney and Adrian struggle to pick up the pieces and find their way back to each other. But first, they have to survive.
For Sydney, trapped and surrounded by adversaries, life becomes a daily struggle to hold on to her identity and the memories of those she loves. Meanwhile, Adrian clings to hope in the face of those who tell him Sydney is a lost cause, but the battle proves daunting as old demons and new temptations begin to seize hold of him. . . .
Their worst fears now a chilling reality, Sydney and Adrian face their darkest hour in this heart-pounding fifth installment in the New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series, where all bets are off.

GR
Publishes in US: July 29th 2014 by Razorbill
Genre: YA Paranormal
Source: bought
Series? yes. Bloodlines #5
my review of #1 Bloodlines
#2 The Golden Lily
#3 Indigo Spell review
#4 The Fiery Heart
#6 - The Ruby Circle - Coming February 2015
Buy it: Amazon Barnes & Noble IndieBound Book Depository
Author stalk away: site twitter facebook blog Read the first SEVEN chapters!

    I wanted to read this because I love this series and Richelle Mead is one of my favorite authors with her YA series. I am so happy that Adrian found someone he loves and that loves him back regardless of their "species" her being human/alchemist and him being a Moroi (vampire). In their culture this is frowned upon.

    I read a recap on Recaptains but Silver Shadows did a good job of reminding me what happened and who is who. It was a pretty natural way too. 

    It was really hard in this one because Sydney and Adrian are separated, and Sydney is going through torture to be reformed by the Alchemists who jerked her from Palm Springs where she had actually made friends, but worst of all in their eyes, she had fell in love with a vampire. They did all sorts of things like sensory deprivation and Pavlovian conditioning in hopes to bring her back to being so wary, almost hating the Moroi and dhampirs. Sydney keeps Adrian and their memories on her own private reel and thinks about the center will hold. 

    Adrian falls back into drinking to numb himself but tries so many times to find her in her dreams, but he never can and gets increasingly depressed and frustrated. He has a surprise visitor and has decisions to make about getting himself together or making another hard choice. I saw so much more character growth in him while still keeping his personality. He also demonstrated a very real issue-- that with depression sometimes big events can cause you to slip into bad habits. 

    I loved the course of the story and how competent Sydney is and that she doesn't lose her head. She fights and remembers the center will hold. She also makes allies and friends and the way that she sneaks and obtains stuff she needs, as well as being resourceful without her amulets and other magical tools that could help. 

    And the ending, break my heart now. I loved where the plot took them and that they had some glimpses of getting things on track when bam. Ms Mead drops a big one and then its over. I loved it though and will certainly finish the series because I love the characters, the actions, the real emotions, the romance and plot turns. 

Bottom Line: Another fantastic book in a series with characters and a romance that I love.

My question to you, my lovely readers:
Do you think that you could withstand torture to keep your view of life/religion/race?