Skyshade by Alex Aster
- Mar 17
- 2 min read
The most recent installment in Alex Aster’s Lightlark Saga, Skyshade was released in November of 2024. This is a review for Skyshade, if you are looking to refresh your memory about what happens in the first two novels, check out our summaries of The Lightlark Saga. In this novel, we see war, death, confinement, body horror, violence, blood, murder, kidnapping, and injury detail.
We pick up quickly after the events of Nightbane. Isla is dealing, or not dealing, with her love for both Oro and Grim as well as her guilt about her past actions and guilt about atrocities she’s prophesied to commit. All in all, there’s a lot of guilt in this book, and a lot of keeping secrets. To make matters worse, upon arriving in Nightshade, Isla discovers that the realm is plagued by tempests and storms don’t bring just bad weather, but disease and viscous creatures as well. Now she must find a way to stop the storms, save the Nightshade and the Wildling people, and circumvent a prophecy - or two.
Oh man, I don’t know why I do this to myself. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. I had disliked the first in the series, Lightlark, but I thought that Nightshade, the sequel, was slightly better. I had hoped that this book would continue on that path, I was wrong. Sixty percent of this book consists of Isla thinking to herself about how she MUST find a way around this prophecy because she couldn’t kill either Grim or Oro, or contemplating what a terrible person she is, or lamenting the fact that she is in love with Grim, or with Oro, or with them both. The remainder of the book was spent trying to move the plot forward, which is likely why it was so confusing. Much to my dismay, I found out that this is NOT the last in the series as I had originally thought, so keep your fingers crossed that number four is easy to follow and possibly even likable. I’m not optimistic.
I’m giving Skyshade by Alex Aster 2.5 out of 5 with a spice level of 1. I am not excited for the next book, which will likely be out at the end of this year based on her publication history. I did have an idea that I thought would make this book less irritating, more unique, and better as a whole, but Alex did not take my recommendation of making Isla, Oro, and Grim a throuple. Maybe in the fourth novel.
For more from Alex Aster, visit https://www.asterverse.com/
Pairs well with black licorice and letting kids be kids!
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