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Shadowspell: Faeriewalker #2    by Jenna Black Amazon.com order for
Shadowspell
by Jenna Black
Order:  USA  Can
St. Martin's, 2011 (2011)
Softcover, e-Book

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* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Here's another YA series filled with raging hormones and wild magic! Shadowspell follows Glimmerglass as the second in Jenna Black's enchanting Faeriewalker series, which strikes me as a teen version of Laurell K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry adventures.

In the first book, Dana Hathaway (who grew up looking after an alcoholic mother) discovered that her father Seamus is a powerful Fae and that she herself has the rare ability to 'travel freely between Faerie and the mortal world, with the added "perk" of being able to bring magic into the mortal world and technology into Faerie.' This talent has painted a target on her back, so that her father has assigned a bodyguard, Finn, and set her up in a safe house (a cave deep within a mountain) in Avalon, the only spot on the planet where humans and Fae coexist and their worlds intersect.

As Shadowspell opens, Dana heads out on a date (sort of, and accompanied by Finn) with Ethan (her best friend Kimber's brother), for whom her feelings are mixed. He betrayed her in Glimmerglass, but then he risked his life to save hers. He's 'totally hot', he spells trouble, and he's not the only one. The Erlking, 'the only man the Queens of Faerie are said to fear', brings his Wild Hunt into Avalon - and he wants something from Dana. After she sneaks out to attend Kimber's birthday party (helped by Finn's son Keane who trains her in martial arts) and later has a run in with a lackey of her vicious aunt Grace, Dana is seriously grounded.

When Ethan is captured by the Wild Hunt, Dana uses her small magics (that she's been secretly practicing) to meet the Erlking, Arawn. She makes a bargain with him for Ethan's release, and he gives her a spelled brooch of a leaping stag to keep her safe. Just as well. Soon she has another run-in with Aunt Grace that almost proves fatal. As Shadowspell ends, Dana's complicated life is even more complex than ever, her situation one that will leave fans anxious for more in the next book in this exciting series, Sirensong.

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