School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--On the small dwarf planet of Dohrsar, Sonara is the illegitimate daughter of the queen. One day her brother and best friend, Soahm, is abducted by a mysterious spaceship. With Sonara as the only witness, the queen doesn't believe Sonara's story, and wrongfully sentences Sonara to death for killing Soahm. Sonara comes back from the dead as a Shadowblood with the newfound power to sense others' emotions and auras. She joins a ragtag group of Shadowblood outlaws who embark on a quest to prevent a powerful rock called Antheon from getting into the wrong hands. Their mission is thwarted, however, when Sonara spots the same spaceship that abducted Soahm. Consumed with finding him, she interrogates and subsequently kills Karr, a member of the ship's crew. This sets off a chain of events that results in many Dohrsarans being imprisoned and forced to mine Antheon. Karr is reborn as a Shadowblood and joins forces with Sonara and her friends to free the Dohrsarans. Most of the characters are purposely unlikable, albeit three-dimensional. Throughout, Sonara is referred to as the Devil, although her unremarkable powers will leave readers perplexed about the nickname and her notoriety. The betrayals and plot twists at the end fail to redeem the novel from the slow-moving plot. Sonara's and Karr's ethnicities are not stated. VERDICT With a convoluted plot that is slow to unfold, this story is unlikely to motivate readers to read to the end.--Candyce Pruitt-Goddard
Kirkus Review
A story that reaches from the stars to the depths of the planet Dohrsar. After Crown Prince Soahm, Sonara's older brother, is abducted in front of her, their mother, Queen Iridis of Soreia, who holds her responsible for his presumed death, kills her. Through the power of the Shadowblood, Sonara receives a second chance at life that is granted to some of the Dohrsaran, and as the Devil of the Deadlands, she creates a new existence but never stops hoping to solve the mystery of her brother's fate. On the edge of the Milky Way, low-status smugglers Karr and his brother, Cade, are on their last job. They're headed toward Dohrsar on an assignment from a wealthy man--one of the few human survivors of the Reaper's Disease who is now living on Beta Earth--to pick up a rock that will revolutionize science. Immense power is hidden in the heart of the planet, but which faction will get to it first? The humanoid alien Dohrsaran live in a world of magic and mystery. The novel's pacing is excellent, jumping among the perspectives of Sonara, Cade, and Karr, with each character having their own problems and histories; readers are dropped into the action, and past intrigues, as with Sonara's love life, are filled in. Characters are racially indeterminate. Melds science fiction and fantasy elements into a delightful blend. (pronunciation guide, author interview) (Speculative fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
