-Overall Thoughts-

Of Shadow and Sea is one side of the first book of Will Wight's Elder Empire duology. The book follows Shera, a Gardener (read: assassin) for the Consultant guild. The other half, Of Sea and Shadow covers the same events from the perspective of a captain of the Navigator guild, Caulder Marten. The two have conflicting interests in the events of the book and find themselves clashing often. I read this half while a friend read Of Sea and Shadow, reading a couple chapters each week and discussing our respective sides as we went. I've never before come across a series with this format, and it was a lot of fun for the simple uniqueness of it. The stories are told in two timelines, flipping between past and present every other chapter or so. That format is familiar and is generally something I like, but I did find it a bit disruptive to the present-timeline tensions in this case. Overall, though, it was a entertaining read taking place in a fascinating—and slightly horrific—post-apocalyptic world with compelling characters.

-The World-

The world has been rebuilt from an apocalypse in which the Elder gods were overthrown by humanity. The Emperor, the apparently-immortal unifier of humanity against the Elder gods, ruled the Empire until he was killed. Now, humanity has fractured and the various Guilds each have an agenda. In a world where Eldritch creatures are chained to ships or grafted into warriors' bodies for their powers and a dead god's body floats in the ocean as an island, there are cults who seem to worship the Elder gods, Guilds who care only about their own profits, and others who would do anything to protect the Emperor's legacy.

There are various sources and applications of magic. At its core is Intent: the intention with which a person uses an item invests that item with a little bit of magic with each use. Some people, called Readers, have the ability to read an object's history and the intent tied to it and even to modify objects and their properties with additional Intent. The world is richly built, imaginative, and honestly pretty gross sometimes.

-The Characters-

Shera is a sociopath, or something like it. She values sleep above nearly everything else, including most human life (sometimes even her own). Despite that, she has a sort-of artificial conscience in her friend Lucan—an incredibly talented Reader—who tries to instill in her a value for human life. While she doesn't really seem to get it, she likes Lucan and doesn't want to upset him with unnecessary murder. Alongside Lucan and Shera is Meia, daughter of one of the higher-ups in the Consultant guild and sort-of an alchemical experiment, having had various parts of Elder creatures grafted into her body to grant her superhuman abilities. Shera, Lucan, and Meia are raised together in the Consultant guild and trained from a young age to be Gardeners. Despite the often-concerning features of their upbringing, the trio are generally quite likable and their interactions are entertaining.

-Suggested Audience-

Readers who enjoy a dark-ish world and Eldritch horrors will likely appreciate the worldbuilding here.
If you're looking for something to buddy-read, or just a very unique format, this may be the book for you.
If you enjoy assassins with sociopathic tendencies who still manage to feel human and compelling, Shera checks those boxes.