Nettle King

December 21, 2015
This contemporary fantasy, which concludes Harbour’s Night and Nothing trilogy (after Thorn Jack and Briar Queen), feels overly familiar. College student Serafina “Finn” Sullivan brought her sister, Lily, out of the underworld, but at a terrible price. Finn’s lover, Jack, took Lily’s place there, and in short, kaleidoscopic chapters, Finn fails at several successive distasteful rituals that might let her rescue him. With the help of eerie Caliban, Finn learns that Jack has become a Fata (fairy) creature, living off mortal energy and wreaking havoc on Fair Hollow, where Finn and her many adolescent friends, her family, and her professors live. “Normal” adults can’t see the Fatas, so the youngsters have to save the human world. Before a predictably violent and spooky conclusion, mythic elements from disparate folkloric traditions swarm through this inflated narrative. The story is full of exciting moments and has a hectic pace, but it suffers from a too-large cast. Shape-shifting buildings, Fatas that influence humans through scathing nightmares, and an interminable procession of weird, crimson-eyed, needle-toothed entities can’t atone for jarring dialogue (“Stand still or I’ll bash your girl’s brains in”) and the confusing similarities of some characters’ names in this inflated foray into the uncanny. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.

February 15, 2016
Teenagers face down supernatural dangers in this moody faerie-tale drama. Finn Sullivan is determined to get her boyfriend back. She brought her sister, Lily, out of the faerie Ghostlands, but Jack sacrificed himself to balance the scales. Now she'll do anything in order to bring him back from the land of the dead. Meanwhile, her best friends, Sylvie and Christie, are walking their own dangerous paths: Sylvie is learning to fight from the Black Scissors, a mysterious man who doesn't quite belong in the mortal world or the Fata world, and Christie is secretly meeting with the faerie queen, Phouka Banrion, trying to learn how to control his own magical powers. Not to mention that Finn's rescued sister, Lily, may not be out of trouble yet--there's something wrong with her shadow, and things in their house suddenly seem to be prone to decay. Finn is a brave heroine who cares passionately about her friends and loved ones, and the worlds she walks in are rich with gorgeous, gloomy detail. But this series is overstuffed with characters, and the plot gets bogged down in their various machinations. There's a strong story in here about a girl determined to defy the odds, but it gets a bit lost amid all the vague threats and glamorous ball gowns. Readers invested in the series will want to follow Finn on her latest adventure, but this book will likely appeal to fans only.

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