This was a fun read! I loved the plot and the characters. Especially Lucia and how relatable she seems to the whole situation. The romance was really cute and I felt like I was highlighting everything that was coming out of Arafel’s mouth. I hated how it started because it was so sad. I felt really bad for Lucia. All in all, it was a good story and I will be continuing the story.

This one was a bit of a trudge at times. I love the story, the sons of Lucifer looking for the other half of their souls, the nuance it can have for each of them. I love that they each have different roles in the underworld and that opens it up for each of their stories to be told.

Arafel (though I truly loathe that name) is a great “protector” MMC, and he’s got the devotion down. Although for a Lord of the Underworld, my guy seems to have no idea what he’s doing. But he peels pears for her, which he did once, I don’t even remember it happened it just sounded like he was eating a pear and then gave her one, but we literally never stop hearing about. He forbids himself from succumbing to his temptation for Lucia…for a few pages. There’s a rule that you can’t have a relationship with anyone from the living world and it seems super important for a chapter and then nope we’re just throwing that out the window, immediately, and never addressing it again. Zero consequences after that, which just leads you to ask, why have it at all? It brings in opposition to the match in storytelling terms, but meant nothing.

Lucia is a bit all over the place. I really couldn’t peg down a personality type for this FMC. There’s a lot of her telling how she is vs the book showing how she is. We get nothing from her normal life after after her mother passes and it’s just weirdly fine and dandy that she up and left to go to the underworld (then [spoiler] she goes back for a minute and literally everything is fine? Like she hadn’t disappeared for weeks? Months? Honestly, the timeline isn’t clear). I wish we could’ve spent more time in Lucia’s house in the underworld, those scenes showed a lot more of her personality than most of the rest of the book did and it was very short lived.

It’s got a lot of contradictions. The books she claims to “call to her” but were actually initially given to her by someone? The first by the librarian and the second by Kharon. Then a few pages later she’s like “these books came to me for a reason”??? Weird power placement there. That happens a few times, when something is said and then she contradicts it a few pages later. She spends so much of this book crying (understandably so) and then near the end makes an odd comment “I never cry.” Like girl, yes you do, you cry constantly. Things like that.

This book could have used about another dozen rounds of editing. It was all over the place. Random capitalized words in the middle of a sentence, misspellings everywhere, sentences that just didn’t make sense, repetitive descriptions and statements, it needs a lot of work. The formatting also drove me absolutely crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where the text wasn’t formatted to fit flush with the margins of the page. That’s more of a personal preference, it just makes the text look choppy to me. Like a draft you wrote in Word without formatting it.

I’m still going to read the next one, I’m curious and I like reading newer indie authors. We’ll see how that one goes!

I think over all that this is a graet book. i really loved reading it. The main girl in this book is a human. she has half a demons soul in her. she falls in love with the demon in this book. he is the loard of the dream world. that it is part of the underworld.

3.5 STARS ✨

I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC of Soul of Light and Shadow from Booksprout in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Soul of Light and Shadow is the first book of the Lords of the Underworld series, and it provides a promising start. The premise intrigued me instantly and the moment I saw fated mates and the Underworld, I knew that I had to give this a go. Soul of Light and Shadow is a dual POV fantasy novel that follows twenty one year old Lucia who has grown up with 'imaginary friends' who have protected her her whole life, and the King of Dreams, Arafel, one of the many sons of Lucifer whose souls were split in half. Lucia has the other half of said soul, and, after the loss of Lucia's mother's life, the reality of her protectors come to light.

The concept of the underworld being split into sections and being ruled by Lucifer's sons was really fascinating and a unique concept. I loved Arafel and Lucia, and the plot does have a lot of potential, but unfortunately the book was a challenge to get through. I would strongly recommend that, if possible, there could be a further beta read through. There were a lot of mistakes where the first letter of the word was wrong, a lot of grammatical errors and a lot of sentences that felt a bit jumbled. Of course, as an early copy, you do understand that everything isn't going to be perfect, but not to the extent where it is difficult to read. There were also a couple of continuity issues, such as Lucia's hair being described as dark, and then blonde, and then dark again. I feel like the book could have had a higher rating if the writing feet a little more fluent.

Either way, I do feel like this series will continue to be a good one, and that Soul of Light and Shadow was just the beginning of Arafel and his brother's journey.

Although I enjoyed this story. I mean who doesn't enjoy a demon romance, but the number of typos and grammatical errors were hard to miss, and I have a physical copy of the book; so, the errors weren't just on the Kindle version; it was actually in print.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading about Lucia and Arafel story. The classic story of a young woman living her life without any knowledge of who she is. Lucia had no clue the role her mother played in her being bonded to a King of Hell which made things difficult when he came to retrieve her.

This was a decent start to a new series, and I look forward to reading about Arafel's brothers finding their mates, the one being who is the keeper of their souls.

The premise of the book and characters initially were very interesting. The story progressed without enough content and context in some area. The pacing felt off, with Lucia’s arrival to the Underworld and how only bits and pieces were coming together slowly. Her sudden cold shoulder to Arafel after his injuries despite the feelings between them was almost childish.

Her character waffled between being receptive to this new life to wanting to go back to the way things were, which obviously she couldn’t do.

I don’t think I will continue the series but appreciate the opportunity to have read this first one to know this is just not for me.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.