Wondrous Strange

Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

ISBN# 978-0-06-157537-2

Available now

Published by HarperTeen/HarperCollins

Format: HC, 327 pages

Genres: YA, fiction, urban fantasy

This is Lesley's first novel, but hopefully not her last since it doesn't look like Sonny and Kelley's story is quite finished.  There's no news of a sequel on her site yet, but I'm fervently wishing for one.  You can also find Livingston in the anthology Misspelled which was released last year and is edited by Julie E. Czerneda.  The anthology features seventeen tales of what happens when spells, or the people casting them, go awry.  I think that most of the contributors are fairly new authors because the only name I recognized, besides Lesley's, was Jim C. Hines.

Seventeen year old actress, Kelley Winslow has just been given her big break.  She has just been promoted from understudy to the role of Titania in a production of of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  This will actually end up being the least substantial thing to happen to her this week.  After her first rehearsal is ruined by a case of nerves she retreats to her favorite spot, Central Park, where a rose from a handsome stranger makes her day a little brighter.

Sonny Flannery is one of thirteen Janus Guards.  All of them are changelings which means they were born human, but stolen and raised in Faerie.  By order of the Winter King, Auberon, their job is to guard the crack in the Samhain Gate on Halloween night and the Nine-Night every nine years making sure nothing gets in or out.  When he happens across Kelley on the first night of this year's Nine-Night there is an almost instant attraction followed by confusion.  She doesn't register as anything familiar to his inner senses, and she's in Central Park at night when most humans instinctively stay away this time of year.  

When these two meet worlds collide, stories intertwine, but will fate intercede?  It all starts with a horse unlike any other taking up residence in Kelley's bathtub.  Revelations about friends and family soon follow as the world she thought she knew grows stranger.  Her belief in this new worldview, along with her burgeoning power, are sorely tested when the harbingers of the Wild Hunt target her as their quarry.  If Kelley and the Janus can't call of the Wild Hunt before Halloween night, when the Samhain Gate is open at its widest, New York City may not survive.

By the end of this book I did not understand Auberon's personality at all and I thought Mabh could've used a little more face time, Kelley didn't even get to meet her.  Whether you read this book because you love urban fantasy, have a thing for Shakespeare, or have an interest in books drawing from actual myth and folklore you will not be disappointed.  I'm also including links for Herne the Hunter and his Celtic counter-part Cernunnos which should be helpful to anyone not up on the Wild Hunt legends.  There are a lot of YA books out there right now dealing with Faery and the forbidden romance between mortals and immortals, but this is definitely one that shouldn't be missed.

Zhye