This seems to be the least popular book in this series and I kind of get why but, at the same time, I don't think this is the worst book in the series. I think Lynn Flewelling's writing improved with every book, it was just a few other little things that made this one not quite as good as it could have been. 
 Since this is the fourth book, there's not too much I can say without spoilers, so I'll keep it brief: 
 Good things: 
 -Of all the books so far, I thought this one showed some great character development, particularly on Alec's part. It's great to see him being more independent and, essentially, growing as a person. 
 -There's a new character that I already love. I don't even care what anyone says. 
 -I was very happy with the plot - so far, we haven't had a case of plots being largely reused, I felt this was very original and a great opportunity to really explore the characters. 
 Bad things: 
 -There are some great side characters in this series, and they were mostly absent from this. That was very sad. 
 -It was a bit slow and not that much went on, especially in the first half. This didn't bother me too much but I know some people like it to be more action-packed. 
 -It was pretty info dumpy. There was a lot of reminding you what happened in the previous books which I suppose would have been helpful to the people reading them as they came out as there was a big gap between Traitor's Moon and Shadows Return but I've read them quite recently so those passages could be quite boring. 
 This was definitely not as good as Traitor's Moon, which I gave 5 stars, but I still did enjoy it rather a lot and am very annoyed at myself for leaving The White Road at uni. I can't read it until September *cries*