Ellen Guon

I adored Mercedes Lackey when I was in high school, and this was one I never quite got around to. But since I had it on my shelf and had been meaning to revisit Lackey...well, here I found myself. And...it's fine? Amusing? I'm not familiar with Ellen Guon, but I have to think she may have had a heavier hand in this one, as it's nothing that would have driven me to pick up more work by the author. The plot is a bit too simple, and also too simply resolved. It actually feels like romantic show more angst takes up far too much space, and is somehow both overly casual and over-the-top, to the extent that it sometimes feels like all of the main characters are just horny teenagers. That sounds flippant, but then again, the book itself is rather flippant. There are also endless, endless italics. So much of this book is spent in italicized first-person thought! I wish an editor had pointed out that the authors could either have gotten the same content across without pages upon pages of italics or else changed to first person, and either option would have been better. I don't know. The whole thing felt rather sit-com-like in an odd way, and while it had its moments and I enjoyed the focus on music, it wasn't my cup of tea.

I'm anxious to try Lackey again, as I'd been meaning to do before picking this up. But I won't be continuing with this series or dipping into anything else Guon has written. show less

I need to stop trying to read urban fantasy, it's clearly not my thing. This one wasn't helped by being (as blazoned on the cover) a prequel, and therefore trying to set up All The Things. Both the LA street gangs and the fae courts felt stereotyped to me, and much of the plot seemed repetitive: Our Heroine is kidnapped by one of the groups vying to use her; refuses to believe in magic even as she's using it to heal elves; is left alone to recuperate and decides to have a quick rest before show more escaping; is woken hours later by more drama; takes advantage of chaos to escape; is immediately captured again by either the same or a different group; rinse and repeat until she's met all the players and we can have the big showdown.

Also along the way she falls in love with one of her kidnappers and by the way she's fifteen and apparently this is very romantic.

But as I say, it may be enjoyed more by people who enjoy urban fantasy. show less

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon . Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

Kayla has run away from home. It's not great, but at least she hasn't gotten into being pimped out yet and she has a home. Kayla has been having increasingly worse headaches though, and when confronted with a bullet wound she discovers that she can heal it. It's a valuble talent in the gang ridden LA district, and Kayla is suddenly hot show more property.

Kayla isn't really sure what she is doing, except when she is doing it! Kayla quickly has to adapt (yay, character progression) to being able to heal. She has to stop herself healing eventually or she will burn out. I find it fascinating that she is able to sap energy from Ramon. How awesome would it be if healing actually worked like that?

The elves in this series, as well as Kayla, feed very nicely into the other books in the Bedlam's Bard series. This book was actually written after Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. Ria and Kayla are both reoccurring characters, although this is the book that really offers the most insight into Kayla's character.

I wasn't convinced that the Unseelie elven queen would have let her go just like that, or that Kayla could have picked up that she was being poisoned from such a long way away. I would have liked a little more depth there, particularly into the Unseelie world. I wanted to know exactly why it was decaying! And why they didn't make more of an effort to save themselves. I'm not sure if these exact eleves appear in the other novels.

This book lacks some of the polish that is seen in other books of this series, perhaps because it is not coauthored by Mercedes Lackey. It's an enjoyable read, even if I found myself skipping over some of the gang perspective parts in favour of Kayla's storyline. I'm disappointed that Guon has not written more novels, but apparently she is quite a weighty force in computer game design, which takes up most of her time.

I'd recommend this book for teens and adults alike. Yes, it has lots of blood, drugs and death, but that is equally weighted against healing and understanding. For someone like me who has never been a runaway, nor considered it (it's a bit harder to do successfully in Australia), it is an eyeopening account for me into some of the US society's flaws.

This book is out of print! I was going to snaffle a hardcopy on ebay, but forgot to bid and then someone else got it. I have a pounce set up on ebay to try grab it - so don't even think about getting my copy! It's probably available from ABbooks if you are from the US or UK, but shipping tends to be prohibitavely expensive to Australia. I've given links for Amazon and The Book Depository, but I don't think they will have them in stock (except as second hand). show less

I am vacillating between two stars and three, so I'm going for 2.5. On the one hand, this was a nice and light read, with nice magic and ok characters. On the other hand, the main character has a serious case of Stockholm syndrome when she gets kidnapped by a drugs gang (they know she can heal people and want to use this to their advantage). I found that seriously annoying, to fall in love with someone who is going along with you being held against your will and being forced to heal people show more even though it is clearly detrimental to your health. Also, I wasn't too fond of the fairies. Oh, and there were really quite a few shootouts, I could have done with a few less. Other than that, it was fine, though. Entertaining, and it had a cool grandma-ghost. show less