Please note that this review may contain spoilers for The Girl at Midnight. You can read my review of this novel [here].
The Shadow Hour was written by Melissa Grey and first published in 2016. The novel is preceded by The Girl at Midnight (2015) and the final book of the trilogy – provisionally titled The Savage Dawn – is planned for release in 2017. The Shadow Hour follows on directly from its prequel and so you really need to read the books in sequence to fully appreciate them.
Following her great personal sacrifice, Echo has been reborn as the firebird – the only being in the world with the power to end the ancient war between the Avicen and the Drakharin. Yet she has no idea where to begin. The firebird’s incredible magic power is difficult for her to control and she now carries with her the spirits of previous potential firebirds, filling her mind with endless chatter. To make things more complicated one of the voices is Rose, Caius’s lost love, which puts a strain on her relationship with the former Dragon Lord.
What Echo really needs is time and space to find out what she has become. Unfortunately, fate is not so kind. The firebird’s existence has caused an imbalance in the world and to correct this, an entity of pure darkness is born. The creature – known as the kuçedra – brings destruction to all that it touches. Its existence sparks the interest of Tanith, who grows obsessed with finding a way to harness its power. If the firebird could be bound to Echo, it only makes sense that she could become the kuçedra’s vessel.
The threat of the kuçedra is not something that can be ignored. When the Avicen nest is attacked by the monster, the survivors – including the Ala – are left stricken with a mysterious and deadly illness. It’s up to Echo and her allies to find a way to cure the disease before it can wipe out everyone that she loves…
Arkham Reviews 