Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy
Reviewer: Lucy
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About The Book
Allison Lee wilts under the bright light of celebrity after being exposed as a shape-shifting monster. She’d rather be behind the camera than in front of it. Being under the tooth and claw of her monstrous mother is even less enjoyable. All she desires is for everything to go back to the way things were before she discovered her true nature.
But, after she accidentally kills a mysterious man sent to kidnap her, she realizes piecing her old life back together is one gnarly jigsaw puzzle. When Allison’s sometimes boyfriend Haji goes missing, Allison and her squad suspect his unhealthy interest in magic led to his disappearance. Their quest to find Haji brings them face-to-face with beings thought long ago extinct whose agenda remains an enigma.
The Review
The Blood of Faeries is the fast-paced second installment in Dan Rice’s Allison Lee Chronicles. Allison and her friends try to adjust to their new reality in which dragons and skaags exist, and not everything is as it seems.
Allison is navigating the life of a celebrity—unwanted photos, security details following her constantly, protestors outside her house—while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. She is feeling the pressures brought on by the fame and notoriety of being ‘monster girl’ while dealing with the physical changes and the emotional upheaval. The author does a fantastic job of letting us feel Allison’s anxieties, doubts, and fears as she faces increasing danger from various sources.
This was a fabulous continuation of this Young Adult series. We get to see Allison navigate the changes in her relationships while figuring out her place in the new reality. As the danger to Allison and her friends increases, there is more on-page violence than was in the previous book, but it is germane to the story rather than gratuitous. And Allison has to grapple with the guilt of harming others while she protects herself and her friends.
The author has done an amazing job of world building. The story combines magic, science, and fantastical creatures unlike the familiar fairytales. The story twists and turns while you try to figure out who Allison can trust and who means her harm. This isn’t a book you’ll be able to put down easily. It will grip you and carry you along until the end.
This is definitely not a stand-alone story. So much of what we know about Allison, the dragons, and the skaags comes from the first book, Dragons Walk Among Us, that it is best to read the series in order. And, when you get to the end of The Blood of Faeries, you will, like me, be waiting anxiously for the next installment.
The Reviewer
I’m an avid reader who loves pretty much all genres except math textbooks. As a kid, my parents exposed me to everything from fairies, hobbits, and dragons to the biographies of interesting people around the world, interspersed with poetry, plays, and music. Into adulthood, I spent a lot of years with my nose buried in various textbooks. Now, I read whatever grabs my fancy.
