The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington is the first book in The Licanius Trilogy. It is a somewhat complicated, time-bending, magical adventure story. In fact, the story bloomed and grew in so many various directions, I had to go back and re-read the beginning just to see how it started and which characters were involved. A lot happens and many of the characters that are important later on, aren’t mentioned until later in the story.
The tale, at the beginning, other than a brief introduction with a character named Tal’kamar running away from his shadow master into the Waters of Renewal, the story centers on three – Davian, Wirr and Asha.
The three reside at a school for the Gifted, and right there I got a bad feeling. I’m tired of the worn-out copycat cliche tales of teenagers navigating some special school for magical beings.
Thankfully, this story does not get stuck inside the school. In fact, I’d like to say more here but I feel it would already be giving away spoilers, so I won’t say more, suffice to say, the three begin journeys into a rather big world, all of them getting separated from one another to discover paths they never imagined their lives walking. We also learn a great deal about their pasts including things they themselves don’t know about themselves.
Yes, it is a story with sorcery and magical beings, and augurs, and political intrigue whereas the “Not Gifted” try to keep the Gifted bound by certain Tenets and magic shackles in order to feel safer.
It did take me a while to start caring about the characters. At first, they seemed rather bland and simple, and I felt no emotional bond. Their relationship to one another appeared that way also. Just average teenage acquaintances. But the characters grew on me as their awareness of the world, the magic, and the politics forced them to grow up and face hard truths about themselves and their friends that they did not imagine existed.
There is some time jumping as well but I didn’t find it distractive. It helped give clarity to certain elements of the characters background stories that I was confused about.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next book in the trilogy sometime in the near future. I’ll be back for more. 5 stars.

Excerpt –
He shrugged. “As to the other… well, they hate us so much because they fear us. And they fear us because they know they can never control us. Not completely. Even though the Tenets make them our masters for now, we’ll always be stronger than them. That’s a hard thing for people to accept, and it’s what drives them to push us down at every opportunity. They broke us once, and now they worry that if they don’t keep at it, we will rise up again and exact vengeance.”

BOOK REVIEW OF
The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

Allen M Werner is the author of the epic fantasy tale
The Crystal Crux Series.