Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody

Ace of Shades
The Shadow Game #1
Amanda Foody
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets…
and secrets hide in every shadow.

Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school—and her reputation—behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.Frightened and alone, her only lead is a name: Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected—he’s a street lord and a con man. Levi is also only one payment away from cleaning up a rapidly unraveling investment scam, so he doesn’t have time to investigate a woman leading a dangerous double life. Enne’s offer of compensation, however, could be the solution to all his problems.Their search for clues leads them through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets and into the clutches of a ruthless mafia donna. As Enne unearths an impossible secret about her past, Levi’s enemies catch up to them, ensnaring him in a vicious execution game where the players always lose. To save him, Enne will need to surrender herself to the city…And she’ll need to play.

Thank you HarlequinTeen for providing me with a copy for an honest review. 

I really wanted to like this more! The hype for a book got me again. It took me about a month in a half to finish this book. That never happens! I did enjoy Daughter of the Burning City, so I was quite excited when this book came out.  

I’m a very character driven reader and I just couldn’t connect with the characters in this book.  if I’m being honest, it was a bit boring for me. There is a lot of info dumping going on here and I found the political aspect to be too much.  There was a ton of backstory explained and how New Reynes came to be.

I thought that Enne was stuck up and extremely naive. I thought she would grow on me as I kept reading but she never did. Levi was a bit reckless and came off different than what I thought. He didn’t come off as a gang leader in the slightest! He was super nice and I don’t believe he could ever run a gang! Now, I loved that he was a bisexual black man. It was great to see that representation, but that’s really where my liking him ends.

Now I did like the writing and there were some plot twists that I didn’t see coming. Also, I do have to give credit that it was an interesting world.

Overall, the writing was good and it did have some good moments, but I honestly don’t think I will continue with this series. Maybe if I didn’t go into it with high hopes then I would have liked it more. It just didn’t live up to my expectations for it.

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