Wicked Lil Pixie Reviews

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Price: $7.99
• Publisher: Ace; Original edition (October 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1937007014
• ISBN-13: 978-1937007010
• Sandy Williams website

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There can only be one allegiance.
It’s her time to choose.

Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them, reading the shadows they leave behind. But some shadows lead to danger. Others lead to lies.

A Houston college student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn’t her only secret. For just as long, she’s been in love with Kyol, the king’s sword-master—and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden.

But any hope for a normal life is shattered when she’s captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teaches her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has no choice but to decide once and for all whom to trust and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war.

McKenzie Lewis is a human who can track the fae, and has been working for the fae Court for ten years. The court has been using her to track down rebel fae, because when they leave the human realm using fissures, she is able to see the shadows and draw a map to track them down. During her work for King Atroth she becomes smitten with the king’s sword master Kyol. He has played fae cock tease game (or is that vagina tease?) with McKenzie for a full decade, leading her to believe he loves her, but using the King’s anti fae-human relationship law as the reason for not allowing them to be together. Ten dang years she waits! It seems pretty obvious to everyone that he has been using her, still everything is not as it seems. Especially when she is kidnapped by the bad boy rebel of the fae world, Aren. He is the poster-child for the Rebel side, and he immediately takes a shine to McKenzie. He also urges her to accept that Kyol and the Court are not all sunshine and flowers like they pretend to be.

I enjoyed The Shadow Reader, especially as the first book in a new series. McKenzie is a human lost in the world of fae politics and war due to her special shadow reading gift. And then there is the love triangle aspect of it between her Kyo and Aren, which I am not a huge fan of, but I do like the way it played out. I enjoyed the dialog between Aren and McKenzie greatly, especially his reactions to her constantly trying to escape, and her always ending up on the bad side of busted up. There is some fantastic tension, and awesome tenderness too.

Sadly, the heroine did suffer a few too many really annoyingly dumb moments for me, which knocked my rating down a bit. I understood her loyalty to the Fae Court but it did reach preposterous levels at times. Perhaps I am just not able to empathize greatly with complete and utter blind loyalty, but the blind loyalty McKenzie displayed for a good part of the book – even if it was explained – was a bit much at times. Nevertheless, I did like everything else – the worlds and lore, and the characters. I will definitely be returning to the series for book 2 when The Shattered Dark comes out in November 2012.