Demir Grappo is a political prodigy and a strategic genius. It also helps that he has magical assistance in his thinking process through something called witglass. In the Shadow of Lightning opens with Demir’s great victory over the rebels of Holikan. As he accepts the surrender of Holikan’s mayor, his troops began to destroy the town, supposedly on his orders. Except Demir never gave that order. He tries to stop the troops, but their devastation is unstoppable by one man. Demir has a mental breakdown, quits the military, quits his political post, and runs off to the countryside to live in shame and privacy. Nearly a decade after his breakdown, a close friend finds Demir to let him know his mother was murdered. Demir is now the patriarch of the Grappo guild-family. He returns to the capital to take over the family businesses and to try to find out who murdered his mother. While going through her things, Demir’s mother implores him to seek out a glass-smith in the neighboring country of Grent. Except Demir’s nation, Ossa, is using his mother’s murder as an excuse to wage war on Grent. Demir must slip into a warzone to fulfill his mother’s request. He soon learns that godglass society depends upon may soon run out. Without the godglass, economies will crash; nations will fall; and civilization may undergo a dark age. As Demir investigates his mother’s death and the looming godglass crisis, he learns there’s more going on than he ever imagined. Reconnecting with old friends and finding new allies is Demir’s only path to succeed and stay alive.

In the Shadow of Lightning is a close third person epic fantasy. The books follows four main characters with each chapter rotating between the different points of view. Demir, his childhood friend Kizzie, Idrian the tank of a soldier he served with, and Thessa the apprentice glass-smith well on her way to mastery.

A lot of action takes place in this book. McClellan packs in so many storylines that other authors might take an entire book to explore. The book flies from adventure to crisis to war and back to adventure quickly while still keeping the intimate moments with the characters. Each of the four POV react to the events directing their lives. They reflect on the changes to their world and to themselves. Demir is quite successful in his many adventures, and this might lead one to think that he’s a Gary Stu. However, McClellan walks close to that line without crossing it. Demir’s successes rarely last, and another big problem waits for him and the other characters immediately upon solving a problem.

A side of effect of all the action is that the scenery is bare bones. Upon finishing the book, I couldn’t remember what any of the locations looked like. This might be an issue for some readers but not others. I would have liked to see more of Ossa.