Personal Favourites - In the Company of Shadows

In the Company of Shadows by Santino Hassel and Ais is one of the few books that had such an impact on my emotions that I was a useless shell of a person for some days after reading the first two books.
That was partly because I was so heavily invested in the characters and partly because it had pretty heavy in graphic topics. But mostly because of the combination of those two. Emotionally agonizing and awul scenes my boys, Sin and Boyd, were invovled with that my skin crawled.
Now, that doesn't sound like a great read you might say. And truly it isn't a great read in the way most of my books are, were I lay it down in satisfaction after the last sentence, basking in the afterglow of a story well told.
No, ICoS leaves you sitting in your chair, emotionally bruised and battered, not feeling able to interact with another human being for the foreseeable future because you're too exhausted. It made me physically and emotionally feel ill at times. But I read them in less than a week and lemme just tell you that Evenfall has 1400 pages and Afterimage 1000 (at least the uncut versions). It is not published or professionally edited, there are parts that could be shortened or tidied up but it has been a long time since even a published book had such an impact on me.

Evenfall and Afterimage give you the illusion that everything will be alright and that Sin and Boyd might be happy just to rip your heart out in the next few chapters and crush it brutally, and then let you sink into despair with the certainity that nothing will be okay ever again before giving you a nice warm blanket of some comfort, and then abandoning you in the cold where you'll be for the rest of the book with a hint of hope on the very last page.

Requirements for reading this book:
- a person that will hug you and tell you that everything is eventually going to be okay and that the pain you feel will go away
- a blanket and a warm cup of tea
- some stuffed animal you're not fond of so you can vent some of the anger and frustration you'll feel

It helps if you already experienced series finales and are accustomed to having your emotions tormented by the hands of writers.

That still doesn't sound like a book I want to read you are probably saying and parts of it probably aren't something you want to read unless you enjoy emotional and physical abuse or torture. But for all the bad scenes this book made me go through it made the good times stand out and seem so much more brighter and wonderful even if they probably aren't all that bright and happy compared to my usual reads. Also some very hot scenes that burn oh so much more brighter and I threw myself in those flames because heaven knew when the next happy scene would be.

I'm probably not doing a good job at convincing you to read it and I'm not because I don't handle emotional stress, angst and anxiety well and for that reason I can't in good conscience tell everyone to go read it. I was not exaggerating at the start when I said it left me a useless shell of a person for days.

Or let me put it like this ICoS is on of my favourite series and I haven't read the last installment for the past few years because I'm too scared of what it might have in store. That basically sums it up.

Big plus, IT'S FREE, you can get it via goodreads or on the webpage but you can also buy the director's cut Evenfall as paperback split into two volumes. Over here you can find the link to the shop and the password you need because the books aren't actually really published. Only Evenfall for those who really want to cry onto the paper instead of their reading device. But I hope they put the other books up for sale someday as well.