Review: Wind and Shadow (The Talbot Trilogy #1)

Wind and Shadow (The Talbot Trilogy #1) by Tori L. Ridgewood
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal
Release Date: June 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Rayvin Woods, photographer and natural witch. She just wanted to start her life over again after a series of misadventures. She didn't count on rekindling a lost love when she came home to Talbot...or battling a malevolent vampire and his coven for her life.

Grant Michaels, police officer. He thought Rayvin was a murderer. He will do whatever it takes to protect the community he loves from danger...but will he learn to trust his heart, and the word of a witch, before it's too late?

Malcolm de Sade, cunning vampire, imprisoned underground for a year by Charlotte Fanning and Pike Mahonen ("Mist and Midnight", Midnight Thirsts). His accidental release unleashes his hunger and ambition on a small, sleepy town…

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Wind and Shadow, book one of the Talbot trilogy by Tori Ridgewood is a fast paced paranormal thriller with chunks of all kinds of sexy romance thrown into the mix. Wind and Shadow follows twenty-eight year old Rayvin Woods, photographer and natural witch as she heads back to the hometown she left ten years prior.

Ostracized and branded an attempted murdered, Rayvin left and never looked back until life brought her back to where it all started.

I really enjoyed this book. Ridgewood did a nice job of creating Rayvin. I felt for her character so much during the course of the story. Rayvin went through so much when she was younger, which we get to see parts of through flashbacks and even now her life is far from perfect. Outside of her best friend and foster sister Andrea, not one person in Talbot is happy to see her.

Except for maybe Grant Michaels, though he doesn’t really show that in the beginning. The attraction between Rayvin and Grant lights up the pages. Ridgewood did an amazing job of letting us know what was going on in both Rayvin and Grants heads. We get to see that despite the fact that they are constantly arguing and being rude to each other they also genuinely care about one another.

Another thing I enjoyed about this book was how it dove right into things. There were no filler pages just awesome plot and supernatural happenings. One character I didn’t at all was Jason and with good reason. He was terrible and he only got worse as the book progressed. Outside of my hate for Jason I was so incredibly enthralled with what was happening and with Rayvin’s witch heritage.

Wind and Shadow was actually one of the first books where I felt like the witches could actually exist. The rituals and codes that Rayvin followed was so much like modern day wicca with the casting of the circles and the nature based meditation. It was so cool!

I was a little shocked with the way the book ended and with the darker aspects of the book, but I can absolutely see how they make sense. My emotions were all over the place while reading this book, but one thing was constant and that was how bad I felt for Rayvin. Throughout the whole story the poor girl kept getting the short end of the stick and that stinks.

I’m really hoping that changes in the second book of this series and we get to see Rayvin win a few rounds. All in all I really enjoyed this book and I’d definitely recommend it to my fellow paranormal romance lovers.

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Author Bio:

After her first heartbreak, Tori found solace in two things: reading romance novels and listening to an after-dark radio program called Lovers and Other Strangers. Throughout the summer and fall of 1990, the new kid in town found reading fiction and writing her own short stories gave her a much needed creative outlet. Determined to become a published author, Tori amassed stacks of notebooks and boxes of filed-away stories, most only half-finished before another idea would overtake her and demand to be written down. Then, while on parental leave with her second baby, one story formed and refused to be packed away. Between teaching full-time, parenting, and life in general, it would take almost seven years before the first novel in her first trilogy would be completed. In the process, Tori finally found her stride as a writer.

At present, on her off-time, Tori not only enjoys reading, but also listening to an eclectic mix of music as she walks the family dog (Skittles), attempts to turn her thumb green, or makes needlework gifts for her friends and family members. She loves to travel, collect and make miniature furniture, and a good cup of tea during a thunderstorm or a blizzard. Under it all, she is always intrigued by history, the supernatural, vampire and shapeshifter mythology, romance, and other dangers.

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