Shadowbridge

October 22, 2007
Orphaned 16-year-old Leodora, a talented puppeteer and storyteller, is forced to hide her identity and gender as she travels the spans and tunnels of the ocean-crossing Shadowbridge in Frost’s exciting first of a diptych. Stubborn and god-touched, Leodora feels nearly friendless until she meets a youth with similar gifts. Diverus, an enslaved simpleton, is endowed with intelligence and uncanny musical abilities when an unpredictable deity visits his span. When Diverus plays and Leodora performs, their synergy creates magic and brings them instant fame. Only Leodora’s mentor, the perpetually drunken Soter, realizes that their brilliance attracts dangerous chaos energy, and he must protect the young pair while keeping long-held secrets about the deaths of Leodora’s parents and the dangers of her talent. Frost (Fitcher’s Brides) draws richly detailed human characters and embellishes his multilayered stories with intriguing creatures—benevolent sea dragons, trickster foxes, death-eating snakes and capricious gods—that make this fantasy a sparkling gem of mythic invention and wonder.

November 15, 2007
Born on a world of bright seas crossed by glittering spans that provide homes for the planet's population, the girl called Leodora finds her true calling as a shadow puppeteer, collector, and performer of the stories of each culture she encounters. Disguised as a man, Leodora performs as Jax, the greatest shadow puppeteer since the legendary Bardisham, her mysterious father; only her two companions, the drunkard Soter who once served Bardisham and the young musician Diverus, touched by the blessing or curse of a nameless god, know the truthand their knowledge could mean death for them all in a world that does not accept women as keepers and performers of the stories of their lives. Frost ("Lyrec; Fitcher's Brides" brings elegance and grace to a novel that explores the importance of memory and imagination in the forging of a destiny. This first entry in a new series set in the unusual fantasy world of Shadowbridge is a good purchase for all fantasy collections.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2008
Shadowbridge is a world constructed on the spans of bridges, so vast that no one can cross every bridge, in which occasionally gods walk the earth and drop their gifts into the hands of the unsuspecting. Leodora is a traveling puppeteer storyteller known as Jax to protect her identity. Hers is astory of events that began with her speaking to a god. As in conversations with gods in many other stories, the most important thing is left unsaid. From walking the spans to collecting the strange tales of every place she visits to picking up a god-touched musician for her act, Leodoras journey is filled with the brilliant details of Frosts masterful world building. The tale starts taking on tension as Leodoras fame grows and she begins attracting dangerous attention, the kind last attracted by her predecessor, the legendary Bardsham. Leodoras traveling companion and manager, Soter, traveled with Bardsham, too, and clearly knows more of his fate than hes telling. He drops hints sometimes, when distracted, but never quite tells Leodora the whole story. Frost has created a world containing all manner of fantastic story and the promise of a fascinating history as Leodora moves into her destiny and the unknown future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)