The Shadow Reader

September 12, 2011
In talented newcomer Williams’s fantasy debut, 26-year-old Houston college student McKenzie Lewis finds her studies interrupted yet again when war escalates in Faerie and its king demands she use her mystic gift for tracking the rebels through the magical fissures they use to travel between lands and worlds. Kidnapped by the rebels, McKenzie is torn between their arguments and her loyalty to the faerie king as well as between her illicit romance with the king’s swordmaster, Kyol, and the feelings stirred by the handsome rebel leader Aren. Williams portrays a realistically shaded faerie realm in economic and magical turmoil compounded by human technology and the atrocities committed by both sides in a brutal civil war. The only hiccup is an angst-filled love triangle that distracts from the action and narrowly avoids a descent into pure soap opera.

October 15, 2011

College student McKenzie Lewis, born with the ability to both see and track the fae, works for Kyol, sword-master of the king, to hunt down rebels seeking to overthrow the Realm. When she falls into the hands of rebel leader Aren, she begins to see the world of the fae as something very different from what she has previously known. Featuring a gutsy heroine and plenty of fay lore, this urban fantasy debut should appeal to fans of Seanan McGuire's October Daye novels.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.