Shade of Light

Not all monsters are evil. Some choose to do better. So which one is she?

Eighteen-year-old Adele believes she is a monster because of her ability to infiltrate minds. For years she has been kept captive at Castle Forge, living comfortably enough under the watchful eye of a tyrant general. But after secretly seeing her aunt heal someone with her blood, Adele understands that the only way to get answers is to escape — even if that means leaving behind the one person who showed her compassion during her captivity.

She travels to her childhood village, and while trying to uncover the mysteries of her past she encounters the Shade: the same attackers who changed her life eight years ago. They have been raiding the village and taking its people for their queen, the ruler of the Under Realm. It is not long before Adele realises the Shade have powers much like her own, which raises harder questions about who she is, where she comes from, and how she is connected to them.

When a childhood friend is taken to the Under Realm, Adele has to choose: stay and help the village, or go back to Castle Forge, where someone she cares about may be in the general's path. Shade of Light is the first book of Kimberly Grymes's Three Shades Trilogy, a young-adult dark fantasy set in a medieval world.