How long does it take to read The Serpent's Shadow?
The Serpent's Shadow by Mercedes Lackey takes about 6 hours 49 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
Book 2 of Elemental Masters
Previous: The Fire Rose Next: The Gates of Sleep
About 6 hours 49 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2001. 372 pages, about 102,300 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 22 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 49 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 16 minutes |
The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Mercedes Lackey returns to form in The Serpent's Shadow, the fourth in her sequence of reimagined fairy tales. This story takes place in the London of 1909, and is based on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Lackey creates echoes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, pays affectionate homage to Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey (who plays an important role under a thin disguise), and turns the dwarves into seven animal avatars who masquerade as pets of her Eurasian heroine, Maya. Some of Maya's challenges come from the fact that she is not "snow white," and she has fled India for her father's English homeland after the suspicious deaths of her parents. Establishing her household in London, she returns to her profession as a physician, working among the poor. Her "pets" and loyal servants stand guard, and Maya herself uses what bits of magic she managed to pick up in childhood to weave otherworldly defenses as well. But the implacable enemy who killed her parents has come to London to search for her; if Maya can be enslaved, her enormous potential powers can be used to the enemy's ends. Fortunately, English magicians of the White Lodge have also noted a new, powerful presence in their midst, though they're having trouble locating her, too. They send Peter Scott, a Water Master, to track her down. He finds Maya beautiful and benign, and is determined to teach her to use the Western magic she is heir to, before her enemy discovers her.
Subjects: Elemental Masters, Fiction, Fantasy, British, Women physicians, Witches
