The Shadows of London: The gripping new historical crime thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Royal Secret (James Marwood & Cat Lovett, Book 6)

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Set five years after the Great Fire in London, this is a good murder mystery. This is the first book I've read by the author and the sixth book in the series. The story is descriptively written. The characters are well rounded, and I felt as if I really knew them. The pace is fast. The story mixes fact with fiction perfectly. This book reads well as a standalone.

A world where people with special abilities, called the latents are subjugated and treated like a time bomb, John Dominici aka Dom is an authenticator. A latent with abilities to tell the past of an artifact. But things are not always what they seem.

Shadows of London" is the sixth book in the Ashes of London series, and continues the adventures of James Marwood and Catherine Hakesby. It's 1671 and Marwood is now in the full employ of Lord Arlington, as clerk and part-time spy. His star is still rising, but he seems uncomfortable with his new role. Catherine, with her now business partner Brennan, is beginning work on a large commission to build an alms-house and a street of luxury homes.

I found my way to Ariana Nash by way of her 'alter ego', urban fantasy author Pippa DaCosta. Actually, that probably should be the other way around, but you get my drift! 😊. Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power. Yeah—I should have hated him. For multiple reasons. One of those being he was as hot as sin and had shown no signs of being interested in men, or women. Anything with a heartbeat hardly registered on Kempthorne’s radar, but give him an artifact to riddle out and he was in love. He was so far out of my league, we were on different continents. But none of that mattered anyway because posh guys weren’t my type. Latent - Someone able to generate and manipulate psychic energy. (John "Dom" Domenici is a latent). When he first arrived in London, W.P. Brown rallied the police force who arrived at the church in time to stop Frankie, but inexplicably they didn't disarm or shoot the gangster who was pointing a gun at Joe. Because of the serious nature of the crime in progress, the chief had even passed out pistols to his men. This was the ridiculous era of unarmed cops. After Frankie fired, then the cops wrestled him to the ground.

The story was very well written, kept me guessing (and surprising me) more than once, and the world building was interesting. It's not a classical romance, so expect slow burn. And no clear love interest- there’s Dom and Kage for now, but tbh I'm hoping for some Dom/Kempthrone action in one of the upcoming books. I’m not overly fond of the love triangle that’s being set up, but the rest of the story was good enough that it made the romance part less relevant.