LOve LOVE this book! It's a great adventure fantasy book in the old tradition of escaping baddies and looming dark magic. I love the relationships as well. There's a connection between 2 male characters that I believe may turn romantic in the subsequent books, but honestly, it's so great and subtle and TRUE to them that wherever it goes I will be into it, and I wouldn't label it "Gay" persay, like say Melisure (which I love as well). Definitely picking up books 2 and 3 in the trilogy, damn Kindl...

💪 We are the Fearless MacHalos and we don't Only Read UF Crap we Read Fantasy Crap Too Buddy Read (WatFMawdORUCwRFCTBR™) 💪💀 DNF at 50%. Because zzz.➽ Serial DNFing Mode (SDM™): engaged. Crap damn bloody shrimping hell. I have not one but three, as in one, two, three Freaking DNF Non Reviews (FDNR™) to write. This is it. This is the end. I know most of you out there somewhat love to watch me suffer through crappy books and take perverse pleasure in reading my DNF reviews, but I can't do this anym...

Rating: 3.5* of fiveWINKING. THERE IS WINKING. When did the "w" verb infect our literary landscape? When did this cheesy, arch, absurd act best done to prove to children that adults are condescending idiots become acceptable...nay, de rigueur...in otherwise sensible genre literature?**MUCH LATER**Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll attempt a review. This series is billed as LGBT fiction by several sources. It's clear from the get-go that Seregil, our main man, is more gay than bi; it's obv...

”Luck in the shadows; you don’t question it, you just give thanks and pray it doesn’t run out!”Luck in the Shadows fits perfectly into the classic fantasy shelf. Sadly, it does not have any added value. It has plenty of removed value, though.Enter Seregil, a noble, a spy, a lover of luxury, and a representative of a mysterious people with a tragic past. Meet Alec, apparently a simple boy, slowly pulled by Seregil into a world where nothing is as it seems and the knowledge can only attract troubl...

An excellent tale with an unconventional hero.

3.75*This was harder than normal to read. I read this pretty slowly. I finally got faster at reading this at around page 400. Two main characters. (Seregil and Alec) It's not duo perspective. Different characters can also be the main voice at any point in the story, but Seregil and Alec are the most commonly used ones. There are 4 gods. There are wizards. Also there are these mysterious discs. It ended on a cliffhanger (the 1st two books are linked I think) so I'll probably read the next one bec...

It's as if this book was written just for me. It's the perfect swashbuckling, mystery-solving, roguish adventure, wherein the main characters are bisexual. Although that is, for Alecs part, not revealed until later. Thank you, Lynn, for this revelation of a book. It's the story of Alec, who is saved from prison and certain death by dashing Seregil, who takes him on as an apprentice. What exactly it is Seregil does is a little unclear to Alec. It's safest to say he does a little bit of everything...

One thing I want to say before I launch into a summary/review: the main characters are not gay; they're bisexual. Both of them express interest in and have relationships with women. It's a silly thing to get nitpicky about, but I do. On with business.Alec is a young man, just turned sixteen and recently orphaned, who earns a living trapping and trading furs. He's lived his entire life in the wilderness, learning how to survive and navigate seemingly featureless plains and endless forests. His so...

I've noted before about some books that they can be very hard to rate. This is another. It opens up and catches the interest drawing you in. The story is well constructed and pretty obviously setting up a long "saga". The thing is that there are times that the story grinds down to almost a halt. If you've read any of my other reviews you know that I'm not fond of personal stories, interpersonal relationships and romance when it takes over a narrative. In this book that doesn't actually happen......

I really liked this — good, solid fantasy with a pair of well-drawn MCs, sneaky enemies, and lots of action. 👍 Great wordbuilding. Lovely writing.

I originally started this book way way back in January... I would read a bit... then leave it, then come back to it a bit later. The first half of the book is very much about world-building and introducing us to the two main protagonists Seregil and Alec. Due to this i found reading it a bit of hard work. That is until I got to about the halfway point and oh boy did things pick up then! And they did not let up till the very end. I love Alec and Seregil so much... and so many of the other people

This was my first time reading Lynn Flewelling's books and I was quickly drawn into the story. The mix of sword and sorcery with classic fantasy troupes means that this feels like coming home for me and the characters instantly felt like I could connect with then and as if I was able to sympathise with their struggles. I also love the fact that this book hints at and even explicitly states that there are homosexual and bisexual characters within the plot, and as the book and series goes on I am

Luck in the Shadows is about sixteen-year-old Alec of Kerry, who at the beginning of the book is taken prisoner for a crime he didn't commit. Fate brings him his cellmate Seregil, a spy, thief, and rogue. Together they escape the prison and Seregil takes Alec under his wing as his apprentice. For a while Alec enjoys experiencing things he's never done and traveling to places he's never gone. However, things take a turn for the worse when Alec and Seregil find themselves caught in a nefarious dec...

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I was concerned as I did not have a great experience with the Tamir triad, but this gave me much more confidence in her writing.CONTENT WARNING: (just a list of topics) (view spoiler)[loss of loved one, torture, heights, sorta creepy romantic vibes, sexual assault (hide spoiler)]Things to love:-The characters. Alec, Seregil, Nysander, Micum... they're exactly the sort of gothic heroes for whom I always find room in my heart. There's brooding! There's father figures! T...

2.5 StarsAlec of Kerry is taken prisoner for a crime he didn’t commit. While incarcerated, he meets Seregil of Rhiminee. Together, the two escape and Alec soon becomes Seregil's apprentice spy, rogue, thief, and Watcher. Soon, Alec and Seregil are embroiled in political intrigue and mystery in a land poised on the brink of war with only their wits, skills, and friends to keep them alive.This one was meh. I am a fan of the fantasy genre and there was a lot of great world-building here but I had a...

In the first installment of Nightrunner books, “Luck in the Shadows”, Lynn Flewelling give us a glimpse of the complex society of Skala and its inhabitants.Through the journey our heroes made from Asengai's domains to Rhíminee, Flewelling shows you her fascinating world. Skala and the three lands have its own religion, politics, traditions and mithology and you start to see it through Alec's eyes. Though this first book has a politic plot running inside, is mainly an introduction of characters,

I decided it was time to either finish it or abandon and so I do the latter. I can't rate it as I read only 30% of the novel but it simply wasn't my cup of tea - I found it boring not because nothing happened but because everything seemed so bland. The characters weren't original nor compelling, I simply didn't care about them, nor about their country. Finally, the worldbuilding was far from subtle - one of the characters is wise and worldly, the other lived in a goddamn forest most of his life

[3.75 Stars] This is one of those situations where the beginning is pretty slow and maybe a bit unfocused, but then around half of the way through, I became really invested and wanted to know everything. I like the set up of the world a lot, and I think the characters will have a lot of adventures and will grow a ton. The pacing was a bit off at first, like I said, but in the end I was flying through the book to find out what would happen next. Seregil definitely is my favorite character so far....

DNF: 44%I....just...couldn't go on. It was just too boring for me...Read in December, 2016

I wanted to like this book. It's an action/adventure fantasy that contains gay and bi-sexual characters. The book is not a romance and contains plenty of plot and action that have nothing to do with sex. We need more books like this - books with a range of sexual orientation and expression, books that contain gay men in a story that can still be enjoyed by anyone who is not a bigot. Like many straight women, I enjoy stories with gay characters, but I prefer books that have an engaging plot that

This started out in a promising fashion, with a welcome tone of jaunty adventuring, enhanced by the presence of two winning, enjoyable main characters. But as it wore on, the pace got more and more sluggish, and the plot devolved into confusing court intrigue, with an anticlimactic ending and a “to be continued...” message on the final page. While I appreciate aspects of this work, especially the charm and authentic feel of the aforementioned two main characters, I don’t anticipate continuing on...

I really liked it, but it was a little slow. It wasn't always gripping, sometimes even quite predictable, but still enjoyable and amusing enough to keep me entertained.From time to time it lost me with all the strange names and places. The world-building, however, was well done. As well as the writing and characters, esp., of course, the MCs, esp., of course, Seregil. In fell in love with bim the first time he openend his mouth :D In a way he reminds me very much of Jack Harkness... *coughs*What...

I can see how this might be dear and important and nostalgic to many whom read it at younger age, and how this could've been something teen me would've cherished too, but it didn't really charm me of today that much; I wasn't able to get into depths with the swords and wizardry narrative, and the whole old master / young apprentice arrangement felt rather thin and just too spent a trope (in both the fantasy setting and for any more nuanced romantic pairing).Still, a rarer delicious treat for dev...

Just the fifth time (and the first time in English language) in my history as a reader I will tackle the second book of a high fantasy series.Even for that alone Luck in the Shadows would deserve five stars!

You don't get into this story slowly. There isn't an introduction. The very first scene is in the prison followed by Seregil and Alec's escape. The blurb doesn't say much and the genre labels on Goodreads don't help either. None of it tells you how well this book is written.After the escape, Seregil and Alec become partners in whatever Seregil is into. He is a lot of things: from a noble to a thief and anything you can think of in between. It is wonderful to see Alec's growth and the glimpses of...

I wanted to love this, as it's gotten great reviews from many of my friends. But while I found the book entertaining and do plan to continue with the series, it wasn't as awesome as I was hoping. I think it's mostly a personal thing - I am not a big fan of most mentor-apprentice stories, especially when they are of the "orphaned teenage boy who may turn out to be more than he appears" type. In addition to that, I found most of the plot points fairly predictable, and was able to guess many of the...

1.5 starsI like none of the characters even though I agree that they aren't annoying or badly written, but I just can't get into them, nor the plot.But...but...but...just look at the book cover of the Japanese translation of this book!!! So gorgeous! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

I didn't like the narrator voice. Alec sounds as if he was fifty, but the story is so amazing. I love it! Despite having read this book at least four times, I've never have enough of this characters and world.

There is a lot to be said for a fantasy that has an m-m cast. There isn't many around (or more likely I haven't read many), and it was refreshingly lacking the typical hero cliché that usually accompanies such novels, and that would be a young girl at the cusp of adulthood with the classic first kiss complex. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy my fantasies and their heroes regardless the sex or age, but it seems that the subtle nuances of male attraction did the trick for this one. Not overly inte...

My main problem with Luck in the Shadows was its characters’ inconsistency which made them implausible and too perfect. To give an example: an honest boy turns vigilante in just a few weeks without any second thoughts after meeting a stranger. Does this sound very likely to you? There were of course other examples. Also, there was this feeling of “fake” happiness (view spoiler)[ the happy family of the warrior and his perfect wife (hide spoiler)] or how everyone just liked everyone they just