Lit Witches: A Fantasy Book Podcast
This year’s must-read YA fantasy: 'Shadow Reaper' by Lynette Noni
11 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is 'Shadow Reaper' about and who is the author?
This podcast is recorded and produced on Cammeraygal country. We acknowledge the traditional custodians and the first storytellers of this land and pay our respects to elders past and present.
She does characters so well that I just, they're always my favourite. Like, I just love everyone in this book. No one will die. LAUGHTER Don't kill anyone off. Please.
I guess that's also maybe the difference between YA and adult is that the focus is not as much on the romance because it's more about the friendships almost and like those can be just as beautiful and about that love. I've just had that thought. Hello and a very warm welcome to Lit Witches, the podcast for fantasy readers, writers and all things in between.
I'm your host, Adelaide Jensen, and today I'm joined by Adiba Omar and Izzy Wero. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having us.
Hello. Welcome, Adiba, for your first time.
I know. Are you nervous? Yeah, just a little.
Well, today on the roundtable, we will be discussing Shadow Reaper by Lynette Noni and the YA fantasy genre. Now, as always, let's start with an icebreaker question. Which YA couple did you ship hardest when you were a teenager?
Oh, that's hard. There's so many. I can't say Jason Clary. I can't. I can't say Jason Clary.
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Chapter 2: How does the magic system in 'Shadow Reaper' work?
But I was like, no, it can't be. But true love. Sorry, I'll think of something else. I don't know. The first thing I thought of was Jacob and Bella, which is really sad and gross. I'm sorry, Team Jacob. I was Team Jacob. I know it's really embarrassing.
uninvited from the podcast get out wow I know new theme on this podcast uh Edward versus Jacob now fight I was trying to think back to like and I don't actually remember how old I was when I read this the first time but I do remember it was the first time I had like the problematic love interest obsession which is when I read Shadow and Bone and I was trying to tell all my friends I was like I'm sorry but she absolutely should be with Darkling and they were like that is not what the point of these books is I'm like I don't care
I ship it hard and in my heart that is where she went.
It's my heart and my truth.
It's my heart and my truth. The villain should have been the love interest. And then here we are, you know, in reading Romanticie every day and we're like, great, I get to have this all the time. Amazing. Well, I mean, you're still always obsessed with mortal instruments, but that's okay.
Yeah. Look, can I say, oh, but Rose and Dimitri from Vampire Academy is also not a good ship.
I rescind all my statements. You know, it's okay to live. Just live your truth, Izzy. Live your truth. Let's get chatting about Shadow Reaper. Lynette Noni needs no introduction. She is the queen of YA fantasy in Australia.
Between her best-selling Prison Healer series, the Madoran Chronicles, the Whisper duology, and her standalone novel, Wandering Wild, her books have sold more than a million copies worldwide. Today we'll be talking about Shadow Reaper, which is the first in her new duology. And Rebecca Yarros has named it the year's must-read YA fantasy, which is a huge endorsement.
Set in an isolated city surrounded by a deadly black mist, Shadow Reaper follows 17-year-old Viri, a hunter on a mission to find the Reaper Priest, the man who killed her parents. But to do so, she'll have to team up with another Reaper and the Priest's most loyal follower, Reeve Ashton, our male main character.
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Chapter 3: What themes are explored in 'Shadow Reaper'?
So when Twilight came along, I was like, well, obviously this is what everyone should be reading because it's fun and it's, you know, a bit of romance, a bit of mythical creatures. A bit of yearning. A bit of yearning. It's what we learned to yearn. Were those the first books that taught us to yearn? Surely not. No, surely not. When did The Fault in Our Stars come out? No, that was much later.
Yeah. Yeah. Hunger Games I read after Twilight. So that probably, yeah.
Where did the yearning begin? What's the appeal of YA fantasy to you? Why do you keep coming back to it as a genre? Does it appeal to you in a different way to adult fantasy?
I don't know. I just, I've always really liked YA books, I think, in general. I think even as an adult I've always preferred reading YA. I don't know, there's something just a little bit more innocent about it. But I just, yeah, I'm not sure. I just really liked it. I just think that sometimes that adult fantasy or romanticism and a lot of it now is a little bit too smutty. Fair.
Complaint of too much smart. I mean it is something to be said about like the innocent issues and I think sometimes the stakes are a little bit more comforting in the way that they're like high but they might not be the same level of like death, destruction. But still they can take down governments, et cetera, but it always feels a little bit safer perhaps as a read. Is that why? Do you agree?
Yeah, I'm nodding.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
But I actually only, I think I've kind of gone past my YA now and I'm only coming back to YA for particular authors or particular books. So like Lynette will always be an exception for me because I've kind of, well, I loved the Prison Healer series so much that I was like, as soon as I knew that she was coming out with another YA, I was like, Yeah, I'm going back to my YA for Lynette.
But yeah, unless there's specific authors or books that just kind of look fun and interesting, I've kind of maybe moved past YA a little bit just because I know that it's not really for me. Unfortunately, I'm past the young adult stage of my life now. Are we? Are we?
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Chapter 4: How do the characters in 'Shadow Reaper' differ from those in 'The Prison Healer'?
Well, that is one of the questions that I'm always asking myself is where is the line? Where does something become adult rather than YA? Yeah.
I know, and it's a little harder to tell now because I think a lot of the romanticism, like the characters, they're not as old as you think they would be. Like some of them start at 16 and you're like, oh, this could be YA. And then the further you read, you're like, oh, this is not YA. Yeah.
It always has classically been that like the age of the characters and like the life experience that they go through. Like, is it more a coming of age book where they are kind of their issues are more about discovering who they are as a person? Or are they like big real world issues being forced upon them because they're a 22 year old budding assassin prodigy or et cetera, et cetera.
But then is the romance part of it? And then like the actual nature of those scenes. Yeah.
changes the conversation but those books that we read when we were teenagers were not necessarily like I don't think quite as hard on the barriers there and it didn't seem to be quite interrogated quite so much and perhaps like the readers and the gatekeepers are trying to control what teens are reading harder because they feel that maybe it's gotten more inappropriate but I don't know that it's changed that much from what I read because I read some inappropriate things when I was a teen I feel like what I read when I was a teen was
horrific not horrific but the themes were quite horrific and really dark and I whatever way I read now I'm just like oh this is like I feel like I was reading such like more darker things when I was so much younger and I was when I was a bookseller trying to sell books I'd have parents being like oh I don't want anything too dark I don't want it and I was like it's really hard because every book seems to have something about it that a parent might not like
And I was always just like, what about Anne of Green Gables? But then she's an orphan and goes through such horrible things as well in her childhood. What about? I'm trying to think desperately of something to recommend.
The whole point of fiction is that there needs to be some adversity there. But also, like, this is how you learn as a teenager, I feel.
It's a safe way to experience it. It is.
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Chapter 5: What are the first impressions of the main character Viri?
She's on sort of more of a revenge mission and trying to explore those deepest, darkest parts of herself but also of the world. So maybe that's kind of the opposite. It's like Kiva started dark and kind of got lighter and maybe that's like Viri's going deeper perhaps. Yeah.
yeah yeah um but that's really interesting you didn't think it was wait no yeah I was I just think compared to prison healer I don't know I think it's because like prison healer was like in a prison and they were like there was like drug addiction and a am I allowed to say like her people are dying um and then she's in these life or death trials whereas I felt like Very.
I don't know if it's because it was in a city and she had like a little home and her fun little friends and stuff. Just like really cozy and like warm. Meanwhile, there's Reapers out on the street. I was just like, oh, yeah, Reapers. Soul sucking Reapers. Whatever. But it's not a death prison. It's not a death prison.
Well, let's talk about the characters a little bit more because Very is basically a badass character. Right. Like her job is to go out and kill Reapers. And that's like her life's purpose as well as her job, because it is a personal for her. Reapers killed her parents and she's on this journey of, I guess, constant journey of revenge. But she does have her new found family.
Like she does have this beautiful at home situation, which is amazing. Very different. Oh, my God.
Games night. Very cozy.
It's like the juxtaposition of her like beautiful, warm, cozy home life and then like spending the nights going out and like murdering soul sucking Reapers. But then Kiva was also like a very strong character, but she was sort of gentler in a way because she was a healer. How did you feel about that? The change in those sort of protagonists?
I actually, so funny because I, because I'm just so familiar with the Prison Healer series, I was actually quite like, oh, like this is a fun new character. Like I'm so used to Kiva because I've reread those books a few times and Kiva is just so like soft and warm and she doesn't want her to fly. Meanwhile, Viri's like, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to take my revenge.
I was like, yes, go Viri. Yeah, they're very different characters. Very different. Yeah. Winter kind of reminded me a little bit of Kiva, only maybe just the healing bit. But I was like, oh.
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Chapter 6: How does the portrayal of Reeve impact the story?
And that's what Shadow Reaper delivers. And I loved it. Who was your favourite character from Shadow Reaper?
Walnut. Walnut. There is a bunny called Walnut.
This is not a spoiler.
But, okay, an extension of that, probably Jonas.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we discover sort of in the story I suppose there are like Reapers who maybe aren't inherently as evil and it's like a whole cohort of them and they're a fun juxtaposition as well to – I was going to say Kiva.
Rimi's kind of like she's on this opposite side of like light and dark and that's also always a really fun way that Lynette takes like what you kind of expect and then goes, oh, these characters aren't what you think. What about you, Adiba?
I think I like winter. Yeah.
The best friend. Yes.
She's super cool. I do love Winter.
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Chapter 7: What tropes are prevalent in 'Shadow Reaper' and why are they significant?
Why do I even care about him? But then obviously I was like, oh, okay, I get it. I really like, and then I went back and read them like again to be like, what did I miss?
Oh, yes. And I think that the rereading, and I would love to discuss this later, but the rereading is really rich for these kinds of books because Lynette's so good at weaving things through.
She weaves. She weaves. She weaves. Yeah, I felt the same when I first started reading them. I was like, who has this book? Why has this journal just appeared? But then it makes sense. And I was like, okay, good. And I'm glad we had it because it just made things come together quite nice and neatly.
Yeah. And I guess the feeling of the book is like a little bit isolated in the world in a way because it's all set in this one city where, you know, reapers are out there murdering. Reapers be reaping. The black mist surrounds the town and no one can kind of escape because it's this sort of magical barrier in a way. So it is very isolated. But that creates such a rich like inner world.
And then Cadmus' kind of diaries sort of show you this glimpse of like what things were like or are like outside of that, which I really liked. And I thought it was a really clever way of doing it.
Would you not be so claustrophobic just knowing that like you're there and you're stuck there and you can't leave because of this black mist that would just like kill you? Yes. I'm just like I would be so mad. I'm like why am I stuck here? I don't know. I'm just – I was really stuck on the black mist. I was like – But they can't go anywhere.
You're like, I would never give up my magic. I would be like, no, this is mine and also why can't I ever leave? You would be a rebel.
No, but I would do what I'm told, but I would be mad about it.
Yeah, I agree. I think I'd be like, I don't want to give up my magic, but, you know, it's to save everyone.
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Chapter 8: What can readers expect from the sequel to 'Shadow Reaper'?
So it did give off that vibe.
you know but they're soul suckers so yeah then introductory so I was like trying to think of the word the introductory scene of like a like seeing a reaper I was like wow this is intense probably more intense than a vampire I would say because again I'm also all about the vampire but um it was very visceral it was very visceral as you were talking about which books are darker it's literally like it reaper murders a child like in front of her
I think that's what makes it darker is that it's children that Reapers go for, you know?
So true. Yeah, because that explanation of like Reapers are sucking kind of the elixir out of people, like sucking their magic potential almost out of people. And so only children less than 14 who have not given up their magic to the obelisk first. I thought that was really clever because it also gives it higher stakes.
One of the things that I love most about Lynette's writing is how she handles tropes, which, of course, is a very important part of YA fantasy. Which tropes of Shadow Reaper, again, without giving anything away, was your favourite parts of it? Or I can say widely about Lynette's writing. What do you love to see in YA?
Oh, that's hard without spoiling anything, though.
I mean, if we're talking about Prison Healer, it had everything that I love in a book. It had like secret princess and secret prince, secret magic, secret like queen, I guess, like every part of that. But what I loved the most about the Prison Healer experience was that you had that joint satisfaction of like kind of knowing some things were going to happen.
But she still managed to surprise me with some of them.
Oh, yeah. The big reveals. Classic. We love. She's like, I'm taking you down one path. Or am I? Am I? Actually, there's three paths I could take you down. Yeah.
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