Ace Of Shades – Aesthetics, Giveaway & More! – The Caffeinated Bookworm Life

Hey you guys and welcome to the promised post all about Amanda Foody’s Ace Of Shades, book 1 in her Shadow Game trilogy! As I said in my previous post, I am part of Amanda’s Shadowgang and we’ll be helping her promote this upcoming release to the best of our abilities!

For my first post, I decided to share some information on Amanda’s pre-order campaign, share some fun aesthetics I created (yes, I fell down this rabbit hole too) and a link to a giveaway hosted by two fellow Doves and more! I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am. But first, let’s just talk about the book real quick, so you guys know what I’m on about!

Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets…
and secrets hide in every shadow.

Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school—and her reputation—behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.

Frightened and alone, her only lead is a name: Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected—he’s a street lord and a con man. Levi is also only one payment away from cleaning up a rapidly unraveling investment scam, so he doesn’t have time to investigate a woman leading a dangerous double life. Enne’s offer of compensation, however, could be the solution to all his problems.

Their search for clues leads them through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets and into the clutches of a ruthless mafia donna. As Enne unearths an impossible secret about her past, Levi’s enemies catch up to them, ensnaring him in a vicious execution game where the players always lose. To save him, Enne will need to surrender herself to the city…

And she’ll need to play. (via Goodreads)

Doesn’t this sound like an absolutely fabulous time? I know I am so, so ready to get lost in the City Of Sin with Enne and Levi! And to be honest? Levi gives me strong Kaz Brekker vibes from what Amanda has shared before (click here for more on this) and I am so, so ready for another Kaz type of character to just completely ruin me.

New Reynes is home to three different gangs: The Scarhands, The Irons and The Doves (which, for Amanda’s Shadowgang we were all divided up into one of these three gangs and myself and a bunch of awesome people were assigned to represent the Doves). Scarhands are smugglers, Irons are cheats and Doves are the oh so feared assassins! As I mentioned before, I created some aesthetics and they’re all related to us Doves!

From what we already know from those among us Doves who have read the book is that Doves are known to have white hair, so I kind of went off of that in creating this first aesthetic. I wanted it to be really bright in color and to feature what in my mind represented someone badass. And of course, my mind went straight to badass females because who doesn’t love them, right? And there’s apparently a character named Lola who is a Dove so creating a female inspired aesthetic seemed to make sense!

As you can tell, I pretty much stuck to a female inspired aesthetic here too but incorporated the color red into it more – to symbolize all that blood that is being spilled by the Doves. And what better color to hide any possible blood splatters than red, right? I also just really wanted to stick with badass females because as I said, I love them a lot and there’s never too much of them. I’m really hoping we’ll have some of them in Ace Of Shades!

Lastly, I wanted to create an aesthetic that was darker and more mysterious, which is exactly where this came from. This time around, I wanted to show the more sinister and dark side of New Reynes (at least, the way I pictured the people living there) and I really like how this turned out!

Now, if I’ve gotten you guys curious and ready to run to your closest bookstore to place a pre-order of this book – may I also interest you in a pre-order giveaway that two fellow doves are hosting at the moment? All you have to do is retweet THIS TWEET and THIS TWEET to be entered for a chance to win a pre-order of this fantastic book! And it’s an international giveaway too, so GET ON IT, YOU GUYS.

Speaking of pre-orders! When you decide to place your pre-order, make sure to send in a receipt of it to Amanda to get some really, really beautiful bookmarks inspired by the book as well as a signed bookplate and the link to a fun personality quiz that tells you which gang you’d be in! This goes for international readers too, by the way!

And finally, I just want to share some really important survival tips for when you decide to pay the City Of Sin a visit – we wouldn’t want you to go in there unprepared! Just follow this link to learn everything you need to know!

Now, the most important question: Have you placed your pre-order yet? If not, what exactly are you waiting for? 😉

But if you haven’t yet, are you going to after this blog post? Or do you need more convincing, because I’ll be sharing two more posts leading up to the release and I am ready to do my best to convince you!