My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: The Shadow Wand (The Black Witch, #3)

Author: Laurie Frost

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 608

Publication Date: June 9, 2020

Categories: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Elloren Gardner hides the most powerful secret in all Erthia—she is the Black Witch of Prophecy, and destined to triumph…or be used as the ultimate weapon of destruction.

Separated from everyone she loves, isolated and hunted, Elloren must turn to the last person she can trust—her fastmate, Commander Lukas Grey. With the Mage forces of Gardneria poised to conquer all of Erthia, Elloren has no choice but to ally with Lukas and combine their power to keep herself out of the hands of Gardnerian leader Marcus Vogel…the holder of the all-consuming Shadow Wand.

With just weeks to train to become a warrior, and no control over her magic, Elloren finds unexpected allies among those under orders to kill her. It’s time to step up. To fight back. And to forge onward through the most devastating loss yet. 

Thank you to Inkyard Press and NetGalley for giving me a chance to read this eARC.

My Reactions:

My Attention: wavered sometimes (mostly in the first half)

World Building: epic world building but sometimes too much going on

Writing Style: pacing was a bit off

Bringing the Heat: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 – was not expecting this…😬

Crazy in Love: …love triangle…😣

Creativity: love the world of The Black Witch

Mood: mixed feelings

Triggers: sexual harassment, violence

My Takeaway: I thought this was the last book of the series…and I think it should’ve been.

• Elloren finding her courage – but damn it took so much and so long for her to do it. We are in book three girl, you gotta unleash that power and learn to control it! Be the Black Witch already!
• Lukas Grey is so knowledgeable and such a leader, sometimes I wish he was the Black Witch 😅. He is battle honed, politically savvy, smart and just an all around leader. I liked getting to know him better in this book.
• Epic world building is still there and you just get a sense this world the author built is so vast.
• There is so much action in the last third of the book, it really picks up pace and then it’s a irritating cliffhanger!

• The beginning of this book could have been whittled down some. It took me awhile to get into the story. I wanted things to be tied up in this one but I felt like it added more things, new names, and just too much.
• All I wanted was for Elloren to just become the Black Witch stop saying she is and just BE. Let’s get on with taking down Vogel and freeing all the people! She annoyed me because this is book three.
• There has always been a love triangle and okay I get the appeal of Lukas and Elloren, their affinity lines match, and like I said, he’s a leader, he’s super smart/knowledgable, sexy and lethal. He is someone you want at your back or side…but she loves/loved Yvan who is dead, supposedly. So her getting together with Lukas in this book chaffed at me because I just KNEW something would happen to mess them up as well. How many books are in this series?…because I can’t take this swinging back and forth on who she loves and who’s alive or dead. Maybe we just need her to love herself and wield that power to help all these oppressed people like she’s supposed to. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Basically this installment is about Elloren embracing her power instead of fearing it. She learns to hone fighting skills so she isn’t helpless but honestly, this all takes place in the second half of the book! Elloren and Lukas definitely have an attraction and I am team Yvan but I definitely see Lukas’ appeal – the two of them smolder around each other (more than once in this book). And then there is that cliffhanger which made me groan out loud haha, because as much as I love this series, I don’t want it to drag on either. This so far is my least favorite book of the series but I hope the next gets us to the major battle and ties up loose ends.