I was so intrigued by the concept as described in the blurb. The description was short and pithy, full of mystery and the promise of hidden depths... Add in the delightful cover art and great title and the comparisons to The Night Circus and Caraval, and I was sure I would fall right in to this one.

Not so much.

It started slow, but a lot of books do. (Although not either of the comparators I mentioned, incidentally.) I'm willing to give a book 50 pages (unless I hear from a trusted source that I need to give it more - and even then, I'm not willing to give it much more); as long as it gives me something to catch my attention, I'll keep going. This one just couldn't get me there...

I understand the importance of world building, but this one felt like all world building and very little action/story - and the world was a fairly dystopian, drab one, so there wasn't even any magic in that for me.The blurb made the three major characters sound so intriguing - the brief mentions of them were like a strip-tease: a dip of shoulder with their unusual names, a flash of leg with their tantalizing roles on the train... But after 20% of the book I still felt like that was all I knew about them. Their parts of the story would start to whisper at mysterious pasts and unknown futures, then they'd fall back into prosaic roles and responsibilities running the train/business, and a minute later I'd find myself back in world-building description - shaking my head and wondering where the action/mystery/secrets went...

Den Of Shadows felt like a mix of gangster movies and westerns. And also like kind of a letdown.
Byford crafts this world that might end up interesting: a goddess instead of a god; a civilization united largely by train tracks, spread through a land of sand and ruin; a train that brings fun and debauchery to every town it passes, cementing its status as a legend of this vast desert. There is a lot to mine here, so it's a pity that the book decides to dig in all the wrong places.
A hefty chunk of the story is dedicated to the relationship between young Franco, our protagonist, and his grandfather. This is not an unusual trope, but the bulk of this plotline can be summed up in a paragraph, its whole purpose lying in showing us why Franco loves the train so much and what he thinks of his grandfather. (If you have not guessed the answers to both questions from the preceeding paragraph alone, then you may find those flashbacks more interesting!)
Another part of the novel is just day-to-day life of the train inhabitants and the shows that they put on and there's also a little promise of a treasure hunt at the beginning. These are the most engaging and steadily fun chapters of Den of Shadows, as you actually get t know the side characters and understand who they are and why they joined the travelling wonder.
But then the treasure hunt turns into a one-chapter diversion into some other novel, one where gangsters shoot up vaults full of gold and characters come to terms with the fact that they are now killers. This is wildly jarring and, to make things worse, not explored that deeply. These things are treated like plot points, not character progression points. It's as if a book about adventure suddenly implodes and emerges as some disfigured Frankenstein's monster of murder, extortion, explosions, and convoluted plot points.
There are some stale tropes like "a traitor in their midst", a Javert-like stubborn two-dimensional sheriff, and one of the worst possible endings to a story, something that should have been left in the 20th century fiction. Also, Misu's characterization is butchered, so if you start off liking her - curb your expectations, hard.
This may be better if you go into it knowing that it's not an actual western, nor a fun adventure, nor a character-driven tale. This is just a long setup towards some lengthy action scenes that are fun to read, but leave little to think about and culminate in the aforementioned horrible ending.

This was just below average to me, my opinion soured mainly by Misu and the ending. Perhaps a sequel with some improvement would make it all better, as I do genuinely feel like the world may be a highly promising one

Sci Fi & Fantasy , Teens & YA

This is my current read for review by NetGalley. Even though the beginning is about the backstory and how the gambling den came about with the train you don't have to be a train buff to get into the story. Feels sort of steampunk with the locomotive train and dress.

A lot of gambling and drinking being brought up so not suitable for younger children. I love the characters and the story caught my interest. Only about 40% so far so update to follow...

Okay the story builds up in momentum to the climax. No cliffhanger but I can see this being the start of a series that I would happily buy into.

"I can't stand the idea of not being in control, that something is pulling my strings to reach a destiny I can't influence"

* *
2 / 5

This book took me on such a roller-coaster ride of feelings. It has such a promising and solid start that I thought it would a 4 or 5 star read for sure. Then it sort of plodded along aimlessly, picked up a bit near the middle with some Western-vibe gunfights and political malarky, then shuffled to the end of the book. Den of Shadows could absolutely work for you if you like slow-paced, character study-esque novels, but unfortunately I found it rather underwhelming.

"Redemption never walked through the drift-soiled alleyways with the pimps and beggars. Clemency never sat itself at a back-end tavern and ignored the drinking and whoring. She had learnt long ago that prayers were hollow words."

Den of Shadows is about a train. Franco owns The Gambler's Den which roves on train tracks through the Sand Sea, a barren desert in a Rebel of the Sands sort of setting, providing lavish entertainment to the local people in the form of alcohol, gambling, and pretty women. The beginning features the train coming into a downtrodden weary town and it is genuinely a wonderful start, in a sort of The Night Circus fashion. Then the book focuses almost entirely on Franco, with a bit of unfinished background drama going on with Misu, the senior showgirl, and Wyld, a thief.

I'll start off with some strong positives. I though the setting was pretty cool; the roving bandits, the desert towns, the dealings with the locals. The Gambler's Den is also a thoroughly original idea (at least to me it was!). Further, the writing is simply lovely. It's beautiful in an understated way, not at all purple-prose like Caraval, which the Goodread's synopsis likens it to. The writing is so nice, in fact, that for the first third of the book it disguises the fact that absolutely nothing is happening. The train wanders around the desert, Wyld steals something, and Franco drinks himself into oblivion virtually every night.

"Somewhere, in a place where the fatigue and inebriation collided, the past turned lucid"

This book is really about Franco. Franco's past, his present with The Gambler's Den, his uncertain future on the train. It's about his rags to riches tale. It's about his relationships with his employees. It's such a shame that I couldn't stand him. I'm not sure if you were supposed to like him, to be fair, but I varied between being apathetic about him and then wanting to throw him off his own train. Far and away the best bits of the book focused on Jaques, a real stand up sort of guy who acted as Franco's boyguard, and Wyld the mysterious stowaway thief.

The Gambler's Den had a lot of promise (that cover is gorgeous!), but it failed to deliver on the plot and action elements.

Den of Shadows was absolutely amazing. It is full of mystery, intrigue and felt a little bit magical. This author knows how to grab your attention with beautiful world-building, without drifting into the realms of purple prose, and definitely had some interesting ideas.

Imagine that your town receives an invite to a mysterious event. A mysterious event which turns out to be a train, the Gamblers Den, run by a fantastical conductor and a crew of talented performers. Imagine this train will let everyone on, rich or poor, bringing a sense of unity to your town. But also giving you the chances to win some serious riches on some of the games on board. This train is a casino, carnival and party all rolled into one. And it is glorious.

This story and it's characters are largely quite theatrical, and I really loved it. It felt almost like a tale you might be told around a campfire, where the narrative is quite deliberately worded to really set the scene and tell a magical tale. However, there is nothing delicate about these characters - Franco, the leader of the performance is eccentric, intelligent and a little bit crafty but also quite influenced by his crew, despite leading firmly. I liked that he was so complex, and not so squeaky clean, whilst still being a showman. He reminded me of a certain popular character from a Leigh Bardugo book. The coquettish fire-breathing Misu is equally as intricate, and I wish her character had more chance to shine actually because she was lots of fun to read about. Equally, Wyld, the resident thief, deserved more time in the book than she was given and really grabbed my attention. The introduction of such a host of likeable, interesting characters shows really great promise for (I hope) any future books.

I love the concept and particularly that the story is constantly moving with the train to new destinations. I wanted to know why the train was struggling financially, and how Franco was going to get them out of a sticky situation that arose. The writing really is beautiful, I only wish I could have had a slightly more packed out story so I could enjoy the characters that little bit more. I absolutely recommend this brilliant book; I really hope there will be more to come!

Main character has intolerably horrible sexist views towards women. Refuse to read past 11%.