Summary: Surely we must be running out of crappy young adult fantasy books trying to cash in on the success of Harry Potter. This time it's a satanist vicar and a Jamaican kid. What's next? Vampires and werewolves kissing? Shadowmancer is the story of a couple kids who get roped into fighting against the devil when a beautiful boy from Africa (but his accent sounds Jamaican on the audiobook) shows up and asks for help getting his doll back. The doll has been stolen by the town vicar who secretly is really super evil. Uh oh. What's that? When you dance with the devil he doesn't let you lead? Shocking! Well now everybody's fighting for their lives against the beast. That's fun. G. P. Taylor really did write this as a response to Harry Potter. Except he didn't notice that what made HP good wasn't just that there were kids and magic. It was good writing, a sense of fun, characters that matter, etc. Without those, you've just got a convoluted mess that might be trying to convert kids to Christianity. I suspect it won't work.
