Name: Rain of Shadows and Endings
Series: Legacy #1
Author: Melissa K. Roehrich
Publisher: Self-Published (this has been trad published now)
Format: Kindle (through Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Adult, Dark Romance, Fantasy
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Of all the worlds and life they created, the gods favored their children the most. But with that favor came the fear that their Legacy would one day become too powerful and overthrow them. Devram was created. A realm hidden amongst the stars. The gods gave their Legacy the best of all the worlds, and then they left, a sworn agreement to never return and to never interfere. Forced to a life of servitude, the Fae are required to provide for the Legacy in more ways than one. Every five years, the eligible Fae are gathered for the Selection and assigned to serve in one of the six Kingdoms. To be chosen as the personal Source for a Kingdom Heir is the greatest honor, and for the first time in a millennia, all six Kingdoms have heirs choosing a Source. But their selections could tip the power balance a little too far. Tessalyn Asura was as forgotten as the realm. But when she finds herself the personal Source to the Heir of Endings, she winds up serving in the darkest Kingdom of them all . The secrets within the Arius Kingdom are meant to be learned and kept, but this was never the life she wanted. Fighting not only the fate thrust upon her, but the temptation to lose herself to desire, Tessa will do anything to escape her new destiny. Until she starts to realize maybe their world wasn’t as forgotten as they thought, and maybe she’s the reason why.
Review:
I spent the majority of 2025 wanting to read Rain of Shadows and Endings, but I kept stopping myself because I discovered there was a series you ‘should’ read first. And even though I am interested in reading that series, I was more interested in this one so I was caught between what I wanted to do and whatever everyone was saying was the correct thing to do… One of my bingo square’s is to read the one book I wanted to read in 2025 but didn’t. Thus, we picked up Rain of Shadows and Endings, finally.
Now this is advertised as a dark romance, and there is an author warning at the start guiding you to her web page where you can read the trigger warnings for this series. So you are able to find out up front if there are things in this series that are a no go for you. Lucky for me, the list of triggers that will actually stop me from reading a book are zero (some will make me uncomfortable for sure, loss of a parent to name one, but I’ll still read it regardless). But please do be aware that there is a trigger warning list and for good reason.
This is a dark romance, a fantasy, but there is a weird merging of modern day amenities like mobile phones, laptops and cars… So, if that isn’t the type of fantasy setting you like then it may take you some getting used to. But I didn’t find that it bothered me all that much, but every now and then (at least at the start) I’d be pulled out of the story momentarily when I read about a modern piece of tech. Thankfully, I got used to it pretty quickly though!
We follow Tessa and Theon primarily, Tessa being the Fae chosen to be Theon’s Source and Theon being the Heir to the Arius house (none of this will mean anything to you yet, but go with it). And there are two side characters, Luka and Axel who are pretty heavily in the story too.
Tessa is thrown into a situation that she was not trained for, in fact she was actively told she would never be considered for, and expected to just give in immediately. She’s picked to be a Legacy’s Source – which basically just means that she’s bonded to (forever) a Legacy and provides that Legacy with her power to make them stronger… amongst other things. And whilst I can see how the fact that she fights it at every turn can be annoying for some readers, I loved it. Don’t get me wrong, any time she was in danger or hurt I wished she’d just accepted what was happening so that she didn’t get hurt, but ultimately you know what? Good on her for fighting a blind acceptance of something she was not prepared for.
Theon is an Heir to a very powerful, very private Legacy house, and unfortunately does not have the best role model for how an Heir and their Source should be… so when he choose Tessa as his Source, he did so with perhaps the wrong idea of how things would be. I am so so torn with Theon as to whether or not I understand what he is doing – because there is a part of me that is like if you just had a proper conversation with Tessa, perhaps she’d understand… but also I get it – he’s obviously got some trauma of his own, he’s got some secrets of his own, and he’s not willing to (or cannot) risk telling Tessa without the gurantee that the Source bond provides that she won’t tell anyone or act on it. So, I’m torn. But regardless, I still love Theon.
Then as mentioned earlier, we have Luka and Axel. Luka is Theon’s… friend? They’ve grown up together, and I spent the entire story wondering if this was going to turn into a Why Choose based on the relationship that these two have. Theon calls Tessa “Little Storm” which I love, and Luka calls her “Little One” which again I loved. And then there is Axel, Theon’s younger brother, who has his own nickname for Tessa which whilst it initially gave me an ick, I grew to love it too.
I had to spend this review talking about the main characters, because I think that if I tried to discuss the story, I’d spoil some of the reveals and twists that come because I honestly can’t stop thinking about this story! So, instead I’ll leave it with this: I gave it a 5 star rating, and I really think this Legacy series has the chance to be a god tier series for me. I am so excited to continue this story and see where Tessa goes from here.
“Know that sometimes we must break to be forged into who we were meant to be,”
Reading With Tyler 
Leave a comment