4.0
The Shadow of What Was Lost
ByPublisher Description
A young man with forbidden magic finds himself drawn into an ancient war against a dangerous enemy in book one of the Licanius Trilogy, the series that fans are heralding as the next Wheel of Time.
As destiny calls, a journey begins.
It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them -- the Gifted -- are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion's Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers.
As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he and his friends Wirr and Asha set into motion a chain of events that will change everything.
To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian's wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. . .
And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.
The Licanius Trilogy is a series readers will have a hard time putting down -- a relentless coming-of-age epic from the very first page.
"Storytelling assurance rare for a debut . . . Fans of Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson will find much to admire."" -- Guardian
As destiny calls, a journey begins.
It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them -- the Gifted -- are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion's Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers.
As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he and his friends Wirr and Asha set into motion a chain of events that will change everything.
To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian's wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. . .
And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.
The Licanius Trilogy is a series readers will have a hard time putting down -- a relentless coming-of-age epic from the very first page.
"Storytelling assurance rare for a debut . . . Fans of Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson will find much to admire."" -- Guardian
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Shadow of What Was Lost Reviews
4.0
“The Shadow of What Was Lost was the closest I’ve come to believing a book could qualify as a cardio workout.
And no, I didn’t DNF. Because I paid for this shit. I don’t abandon books. I finish them out of principle and then write about them like a concerned citizen.
Here’s the thing: on paper, this should have been my obsession.
Oppressed magic users bound by laws carved into their flesh.
A magic school.
A forbidden, god-tier power resurfaces.
Ancient evil stirring in the north, because apparently the north in fantasy is just morally exhausted.
Multiple POVs.
Time travel.
That is a buffet of things I normally inhale with joy.
Instead, this felt like homework.
Not the kind where you’re excited to unpack something complex. The kind where you’re copying definitions out of a textbook while staring at the clock.
The pacing is the first issue. This book is slow. Not “epic build.” Not “layered political intrigue.” Just slow-slow. It drifts through long stretches of travel, explanation, and mild emotional processing without ever fully convincing me that the urgency it keeps describing is actually present.
I kept waiting for ignition.
To be fair, the plot is ambitious. There’s planning here. Mysteries stack on top of mysteries. Every answer opens three more questions. I can absolutely see why plot-driven readers love this. If you enjoy theorizing and trying to connect threads across a massive narrative structure, there’s plenty to chew on.
But ambition is not the same as execution.
The writing is simple. Accessible. Clean. And often painfully repetitive. If I read “he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding” one more time, I was going to invoice the entire cast for lung overuse. Everyone is constantly sighing, pausing, gazing, or standing in companionable silence. It starts to feel less like immersive prose and more like stage directions in a rehearsal script.
The bigger problem for me, though, was characterization.
A lot of the main characters share the same emotional tone. They’re earnest. Concerned. Mildly determined. Even in high-stress moments, their dialogue often feels interchangeable. In a multi-POV epic fantasy, that’s a serious issue. Distinct voices are oxygen in this genre.
Caeden is the exception. Amnesia guy covered in blood who may or may not be the worst thing to ever happen to this world? That worked. His chapters carried actual tension because you’re constantly reassessing who he is and what he’s capable of. He felt layered. Dangerous. Interesting.
The others often felt like they were being moved by the plot rather than driving it.
And the plot does rely heavily on convenience. The right person appears at the right time. The right secret surfaces exactly when needed. Conflicts frequently resolve through combat or sudden revelation rather than deep interpersonal friction. It reads, at times, like an RPG quest chain: travel here, receive lore, fight shadow creature, unlock next exposition block.
The worldbuilding is expansive but oddly textureless. There are factions, histories, treaties, magical classifications, ancient events, and capitalized concepts everywhere. But I rarely felt grounded in place. I wanted atmosphere. Smell. Weather. Physical presence. Instead, I often felt like I was reading about a world rather than inhabiting one.
None of this makes the book bad.
It makes it uneven.
If you’re plot-first, twist-hungry, and love intricate structural setups that promise long-game payoffs, you may absolutely adore this. There is real ambition here. Real planning. Real scope.
If you’re character-driven and need voice, immersion, and emotional weight to carry you through 600+ pages, this may feel longer than it needs to be.
I finished it. I respect the scale of what Islington attempted. And I understand why it has a strong following.
It simply didn’t move me.”
“Damn. This book was the anti-pacing issues of fantasy… there wasn’t one moment where I started to get bored… the plot changed too quickly, too many things happened, so many more questions… I’m a little all over the place because I just finished and don’t want to do anything except start the next one. There was one night that I accidentally stayed up till 4am reading without realizing it 😓 I was hooked! I bought the second book like a quarter through reading this one. I knew I’d be finishing the series.
Was this the best book I’ve ever read? No. Was all the world building done in an elegant and detailed manner? Not always. Did I care? Not one bit.
The real lesson in here is TRUST NOBODY! But also, does it matter if I trust them if I’m rooting for them with my whole heart? 😬 This doesn’t seem like a story where everyone is going to make it out safe, and I can only hope Islington is gentle with mg favorites!”About James Islington
James Islington was born and raised in southern Victoria, Australia. His influences growing up were the stories of Raymond E. Feist and Robert Jordan, but it wasn't until later, when he read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series -- followed soon after by Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind -- that he was finally inspired to sit down and write something of his own. He now lives with his wife and daughter on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
