About
In a world devastated by a rampant maddening disease, Lieutenant J.J. Berger takes his Special Operations team into Southern Portugal to search for his lost comrades. His path will cross with a mysterious woman and her little daughter, escaping from their captors. Their strange powers might hold the key to a better world.
Stats
- 3 out of 5 stars
- ebook
- 202 pages
- Published February 9th 2019
- Original Title Laura and the Shadow King
- ASIN B07M815WG6
- Edition Language English
- SeriesLaura and the Shadow King
My Thoughts
Laura and the Shadow King was a strange read for me. It is a book that straddles many different genres without sticking a full toe into any of them. For me, that can be good and interested or leave me feeling unanchored as a reader. I think in this situation, it was a bit of the later rather than the former.
The world that Soares creates is a world reeling from a devastating outbreak that leaves countries and governments in ruins. It has also left most of the population a sort or zombie type creature. Alive, but full of incredible aggression with an infectious bite. The apocalypse is all background and setting for what the real narrative is, that of JJ Berger. The leader of a military outfit called Shadow Troop and a woman named Maria. Maria is a woman determined to save her young daughter from the Russian mafia that has taken control of them. The story is shifting perspectives between these two individuals as their lives, and their destinies slowly become intertwined. I think the issue I had with the story was the military jargon. Soares did an excellent job with the dialog. The character’s personalities are clear and concise; it felt like hearing actual conversations between individuals rather than what we think a discussion should sound like. But the amount of military jargon juxtaposed against Maria’s chapters kept knocking me out of the story. At times I found the dialog difficult to parse and keep up with.
I do, however, recommend this story if you are a fan of military fiction type stories interspersed with a bit of apocalypse and fantasy elements. It is well written and interesting but left me cold.
Procurement
I received a copy of this from the author in exchange for my open and honest review.
About the Author – Bruno Martins Soares
Bruno Martins Soares writes fiction since he was 12 years old, and his first book, ‘O Massacre’ (The Massacre), a collection of short-stories, came out in Portugal in 1998.
It was followed by several contributions to newspapers, magazines and other collective books.
In 1996, he won the National Young Creators Award for Writing, representing Portugal at the 1997 Torino Young Creators of Europe and the Mediterranean Fair, where his short-story ‘Mindsweeper’ was translated and published in Italian.
His first novel ‘A Saga de Alex 9’ (The Alex 9 Saga) was published in Portugal in 2012, by publisher Saída de Emergência, within a series that features authors like George R.R.Martin or Bernard Cornwell.
