Tomes of Shadowstalking

Welcome to the land of shadows, where evil is the greatest power, where nightfall marks the birth of terror, where your very soul is at risk. Join me as I investigate worlds filled with black magic and dark souls and encounter the monsters rule these wicked places.

This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.

That said, on to the review!

Jenny Thornton and her friends have twice defeated Julian, the Shadow Man that lurked in the Game and who happens to be in love with Jenny. However, their victories were bittersweet at best. First time around Jenny's friend Summer died and disappeared. During the second game, Julian's machinations took Jenny's cousin and her boyfriend from her, trapping them in his world. Now Jenny's had it. She's determined to hunt down Julian and get her friends back, one way or another. But to do so means returning to the place where it all started: her grandfather's house in Pennsylvania, where a younger Jenny had once stumbled upon and opened a door that should have been left closed. Now the only way to stop it all is to open the door again and plunge into the Shadow World. But will Jenny and her friends survive? Especially when Julian is no longer the only Shadow Man she has to fear?

This third installment of The Forbidden Game trilogy brings everything in the storyline to a resounding close. As before, L.J. Smith centers the novel around a game--this time a quest sort of game--giving it structure and a readily observable format and consistency. Now, however, we get to see that there are other beings out there with a stake in Jenny's victory or failure. We also get to see the fate of those that cross the Shadow Men, such as Jenny's grandfather and the crooks, Slug and P.C., who stole the Game from Jenny's home in The Hunter.

Through it all we get to see that Jenny's still attracted to Julian, Julian is still in love with Jenny, Julian is still as dangerous and as beautiful as before, and Jenny's friends are still determined to stand beside her. However, we also get to see changes in Julian that you might not have expected if you'd just read the first or second books alone. We get to see a "younger" and more vulnerable Julian as well as a more compassionate and more protective one. That's not to say that Julian isn't dangerous, because he still is. Dangerous, that is.

Although a YA novel like her other books, L.J. Smith's The Forbidden Game--The Kill will snare you and lead you on to the end of the book and the trilogy. The parallelism between the "real" world of Jenny's existence and the Shadow World replica fashioned from Jenny's memories might be confusing at first, but you'll get over it quickly. You have to, or you'll never survive The Kill!

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