Book Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Title: Gods of Jade and Shadow
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Release date: July 23rd 2019

Synopsis: The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. 

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

Review: We all love a good mythology retelling, but we can get wrapped up in the classics of the Greeks that leave out the wealth of other mythologies that exist in other cultures throughout the world, and that was one of the many reasons why this book was a different breath of fresh air. I'd read the blurb but I didn't really know where this book was going to take me and it was unexpected in that I loved it in a different way from what I'd expected to, and I got to explore the touch of a different mythology. 

There is a great sense of tradition throughout, and it very much feels of its time. Set during the roaring 20s with the birth of the Jazz age you get to see the dancing, the architecture and the culture and how its influence slipped into peoples lives throughout. Casiopea very much wants more from her life than the Cinderella narrative she’s been given (and she is very quick to debunk that label). She has been brought op with traditional that she holds onto without but bend into her growing ideas of the world and how her morals fit into this developing world. She’s breaking the barriers and forming her own ideas of the world and it was a great development for her. This sense of tradition is reflected not only through the characters but in the prose and the way that it was structured and flowed. One of my favourite quotes that reflects this is “Casipoea understood the strength of the narrative and the strict rules that govern a sonnet” which has so many meanings that I can’t explain until you actually read the book. It just felt like a perfect summary for the book and my heart broke when Cass said it!

 I loved the relationship between Casiopea and Hun-Kame. It has this raw energy to it, she the ballsy companion who said what she wanted and he the egotistical male (well God) with an admitted lack of humour which made their conversations fun and playful, but also as they both grew and fed off each other made them sad and sorrowful. It was that romantic beauty, with this overarching inevitability and omen of bad things to come that was the real sucker punch. His character development and the effect of humanity on Hun-kame was a beautiful change throughout and when he said “but it’s who I am right this second with you” having seen where he had come from and how they had both changed I think my heart nearly broke (scream emoji).  Why do these situations have to be soooo unfair, can’t a girl catch a break! 

Thrumming beneath all this personal magic is the real actual world altering magic of Xibalba, the land of the dead and the clash of the Gods that rule it. There was familiarity here, traits that exist across mythologies (the tree of life popped up once again) I really enjoyed the way the Mayan mythology was weaved in, the journeys that we took through the underworld and the way for once it was described with beauty, though if you were a God of death you too would have a bias opinion! As much as there was beauty, we definitely saw a darker harsher side of the after life from the villainous Vucub-Kame. The Gods were made in the ideas of human and are kept alive because of humans and this was something Vucub-Kame was prepared to fight for, kill for and do whatever it took for him to be supreme ruler. But Gods don’t fight their own battles and this element of sacrifice was brought back home. Sacrifices had been made throughout the book, but this was the crux that everything had been leading up to and there could only ever be one outcome. But what that is will be for you to find out ...and you should I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to read more from Silvia

Check out the other reviews on the Blog Blast for this fantastic book:

About the Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of several novels, including Gods of Jade and Shadow. She has also edited a number of anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu's Daughters). Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination.