Isle of Shadows

Title: Isle of Shadows
Author: Tracy L. Higley
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Pages: 374
ISBN: 978-1-4016-8744-1
Publication Date: November 13th, 2012

Synopsis:

Revised and updated from the original, Christy-award finalist Shadow of Colossus.

Enslaved in a World of Money and Power, Tessa Dares to be Free.

Raised as courtesan to wealthy and powerful men, Tessa of Delos serves at the whim of her current patron, the politician Glaucus. After ten years with him, Tessa has abandoned all desire for freedom or love, choosing instead to lock her heart away.

But when Glaucus meets a violent death in his own home, Tessa grasps at a fragile hope. Only she knows of his death. If she can keep it a secret long enough, she can escape.

Tessa throws herself on the mercy of the Greek god Helios, but finds instead unlikely allies in Nikos, a Greek slave, and Simeon, Glaucus’s Jewish head servant. As Simeon introduces her to a God unlike any she has ever known and Nikos begins to stir feelings she had thought long dead, Tessa fights to keep her heart protected.

As an assassination plot comes to light, Tessa must battle for her own freedom—and for those to whom she has begun to open her heart—as forces collide that shatter the island’s peace.

Review:
Tracy L. Higley once again brings her readers back into the past with her fantastic writing style! Isle of Shadows (formerly titled Shadow of Colossus), sweeps us back to ancient Greece to the Isle of Rhodes, where secrets, spies, and conspiracy run rampant.

Isle of Shadows focuses on Tessa, a hetera to the most influential politician on the island...in other words, she is a slave. Paid for her services as a companion. However, the system back then is interesting. Wives and daughters didn't have a say in politics or didn't have the ability to have an intellectual battle with men, but the hetera's could. They were the only women welcomed into the men's area of the house and forums and in doing so, hetera's had their ears at all time to the political climate and to the secrets that abound these men of society.

Even though Tessa has what other women of her position wanted, it wasn't what she had hoped for. Tessa is desperate to be free. Free from her owner and buyers, free from the island, but the freedoms she desires are a far off dream and because of this, she is closed off, desperate to turn to stone and not feel. As much as she wants to keep the ability to feel at bay, Nikos, a new worker to the island slowly starts to break away at her facade with the help of an old servant at Glaucus's house, Simeon.

As Tessa learns more about Nikos, she finds he is different then most of the men she is use to dealing with. However, with Nikos is not all that he seems to be. Like most everyone else in Rhodes, he comes bearing secrets, but his are far different then those that Tessa are used to.

This was such an interesting story to read. It brought me to a place I didn't know much about and it was fun to explore this area through the book.

I can't wait to read another story by Tracy L Higley! The attention to detail and history is just wonderful!

Too Read
4 out of 5