Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #350382 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

This is two books in one
This book must be read as two books. Mercedes Lackey has written a good book about London in the early 1900 and her heroine Dr. Maya meets all the usual characters expected child pickpockets, prostitutes, battered women, drunks, etc. But she never digs deep enough for us to feel that we really know this London of hers. Then she goes for the magic and fantasy we expect from her and the two just don't mesh. Because she is so busy exploring London her characters are like cardboard cutouts and it leaves you feeling that this book is just a review and surely more must come. But suddenly in the last few pages she becomes the Lackey we all know and love and the story just zips along. Maybe she will take the characters in this book and write another story for them with London as just a background and not ANOTHER story.

A worthy sequel to Fire Rose set in London, new characters
I'd been wavering between buying Serpant's Shadow or buying Beyond World's End (also by Mercedes Lackey). I think I made the right choice. The characters were all new and were well developed. The book is set in 1909's London and unusually for an American author shes got it as close to right as most British authors. I found the plot to be clear and the integration with the character development was very smooth. The best bits? The really Victorian males, I can think of a few who are still remarkably like that now but these just walked off the page.

Read it twice
I reviewed this book in 200l and gave it two stars and I was wrong. I have reread it several times and I was drawn into the characters and the scenes in London in the 1900s. The magic fits in very smoothly and you won't be able to put it down.
My first review was a result of reading all Mercedes Lackey's books together and that is a mistake because she doesn't write the same book over and over. So ignore my first review, buy the book and enjoy.