In Shadows We Fall by Devin Madson

This novella may only be 102 pages long, but each and ever page of In Shadows We Fall drips with palace politics, intrigue, and deception. Madson’s Aurealis award-winning prequel to the Vengeance trilogy, rips along at a blistering pace leaving the reader no time to pause and catch their breath. Let alone stop to reflect as, in a pitched battle of wits, the Empress Li plots the downfall of her God-Emperor husband, the Emperor Lan. Madson literally drops us straight into the heart of this story from the outset, with the Empress plotting against her cheating husband with two of her trusted guards, Cheng and Koto. And before we know what’s really happening, Li has murder two people in the dead of night. I mean, come on, this woman really wants revenge. "My knife failed to glint dramatically in the light, but it did not fail to pierce the soft skin of the man's neck. His throat offered resistance like aged meat, but I had no time for finesse. I ripped the blade through it, spraying blood.…