Category: Shea Godfrey

Corey Reviews King of Thieves by Shae Godfrey

Cassandra Marinos, world class thief, meets Finnegan Starkweather, ex-Interpol bounty hunter, in San Francisco. That’s the elevator pitch and I expected something along the lines of Finn catching Casey with her ear to the safe, Casey using charm to slip away, Finn intrigued but conflicted, pursuing her And that would have been fine. But that is not this book. Author Shae Godfrey has something else in mind, and oh I loved it.

“San Michele di Serino, Present day” are the book’s opening lines, and the plot does indeed require location and time-stamps to keep you oriented, Even then, I consciously gave myself up to not understanding everything and letting the puzzle of action, family, revenge, justice, humor, and oh-my-god chemistry between these two women wrap me up.

As each bit of backstory fell into place, I wanted to return to previous scenes armed with new knowledge; but my strong need to read what comes next pushed me onward. The mutual seduction of Casey and Finn was equal parts sexy and sweet and urgent and languid. While I did have a moment of full-stop consideration when one sexual/relationship identity was brought forth, in the end I shrugged, decided it does work for Finn and Casey, and kept diving into their story.

Yes, I plan to re-read this book. Yes, I immediately one-click purchased the author’s other two books (knowing nothing except that they are fantasy novels, not of our world). Yes, you should read King of Thieves.

You can download a sample or purchase King of Thieves by clicking here.

Nightshade by Shea Godfrey

I believe this is Shea Godfrey’s first book. It tells of two countries who have hated each other for generations – two very different lands with very different climates, leaders, and views on women. Lyoness, where our Princess Jessa is born and basically kept captive, is a harsh land with an even harsher ruler. Arravan is where the Durand family rules. It is lush and green and the women are granted much freedom. Princess Darrius, the youngest of the Durand children, is quite taken with the foreign Jessa when she and her evil brother arrive under the pretence of a possible marriage between the families. There’s also some mystical stuff and some political intrigue.

I finished this book about an hour ago and I have some mixed feelings about it. Moving from All That Matters to Nightshade took me a little time to get used to the change in language. It’s more of the formal, medival type, which I like very much. There were many times that Jessa used her native language and I had no idea what she was saying and I felt like I missed out on some things because of it. I could get the general gist of it most of the time but there were a few times when I really wanted to know what she was saying. But, overall, I enjoyed the flow and feel of the words. The author used some interesting sentence formatting to show various emotion and flow and, while that sometimes bothers me, in most cases during Nightshade, I enjoyed it.

As I got nearer to the end of the book, watching the page numbers tick away, I realized that either the author was going to have to very quickly wrap up several plot lines or there had better be a sequel on the way. Well, nearly nothing was really resolved so I certainly hope there’s a second book. Even with a sequel, I found the ending abrupt and, to me, that took away from some of the good feeling I had while reading. Particularly because I had no idea that there was going to be no closure to the major events that had been building from the beginning. And I hate that. I think sequels can be done without leaving the reader double checking to make sure some pages weren’t accidentally missed.

But, now that you know what to expect and can prepare yourself a bit, go buy the book if you enjoy the fantasy sort of thing with kings and queens and battles and magic. I enjoyed it a lot – and there’s some good sex scenes, too. Really, I did like it and had a difficult time putting it down. I’m still just a little miffed at the abrupt nature of the ending. I’m going to ramble a bit here because I guess some things were settled but the majority have not. I don’t want to make it seem worse than it was. I just finished it so I’m still caught up in the story, I guess. Read it and post your comments here if you think I’m wrong or want to expand on what I said. Thanks.