Robert Zimmermann

A shade, different realms at play, and a passion strong enough to risk eternal damnation for. That’s what can be found within the pages of Tara S. Wood’s The Shade.

Wood does a beautiful job of setting up the world in which Everly dreams. The descriptions threw me right into the story running along side by side with the MC. I felt what she felt, I feared what she feared. The real world settings were also just as descriptive, painting a picture just as beautiful but still allowing the reader to feel there was a difference in mood between the dream realm and the real world realm. The third realm that shows up in this novella is just as well written. This is the one in which The Sandman and Cillian dwell. It’s not a nice place.

The passion The Shade, Cillian, has for the human Everly is what drives this story. While there are more aspects of this story than the romance, they aren’t as played out for the reader to grasp onto. It’s a non-stop journey through the different realms as Cillian attempts to work his way into Everly’s world and Everly tries to figure out who this mysterious man of her dreams is.

Don’t worry, there’s conflict worth reading about as well. Aside from Everly being utterly confused by the mysterious Cillian, the fear from her dreams reaches its way into her ever day life making it difficult for her to function. She’s a writer. Even writers need some sleep to work better. I thoroughly enjoyed the reveal of what the embodiment of this fear was. And what takes place after that….well I can’t tell that here.

With the great settings and enjoyable characters, this book was a great read. The ending left me a little on edge, and it was great. I hope Tara plans on putting out some more novellas. She worked well in this short form of writing.