Book Review: Sparks and Shadow, Rising Elements Book 1, Ceara Nobles
Fantasy: Sparks and Shadow, Rising Elements Book 1, Ceara Nobles
Everly knows better. Living rough on the streets of Seattle, she knows that it is everyone for themselves. She knows that Pete is a jerk who got himself into trouble. She doesn’t even like Pete. She calls him her “arch-nemesis.” When she sees Pete being captured by monsters in a warehouse full of them, though, she charges right in.
Like I said, she knew better.
Pete, being Pete, runs away and leaves Everly behind. In fairness, Pete thinks he was being abducted by humans, not monsters. Everly is possibly the only one who can see the monsters wandering around Seattle. The few she tried to tell dismissed her as crazy. The monsters are able to disguise themselves as humans and no one other than Everly realizes they are there.
As if being extremely large and covered with scales or fur or multicolored skin weren’t enough, if having long claws or large teeth/fangs or sporting horns or antlers weren’t enough, Everly discovers to her dismay that the monsters can also perform magic. Not “rabbit in a hat” magic, but “did you know there is a ball of fire in your hand” magic. Before she can come to grips with all of this, the monsters take her through a portal to another world, the world of the Fae, a world of monsters.
In that world her fortune begins to take surprising turns. On the other side, a man is waiting. He challenges Everly’s captor, a battle that seems very one-sided until the man turns into a wolf and, well, wins. Everly is then taken to a village where she is introduced to the monsters–err, people–who live there. They still look extraordinary to her human eyes, but she learns that they are as complicated and conflicted, as nice and as nasty, as loyal and as lawless as humans are. She falls into the midst of a developing civil war, meets the evil queen, and really just wants to go back home.
Ceara Nobles’ has created a protagonist who is described even by the other characters in the book as “bad-ass.” Everly is a young woman, barely more than a child, but she has a knack for finding trouble and a heart for finding lost souls. Familiar with the hardships of being a street kid, she rescues some of the street kids in this new world. Distinctly unimpressed with the queen, she tries to help in the rebellion. She sees people who are not usually seen: an airship captain, a human-loving woman who cooks and invents and wears human band t-shirts, the aforementioned street children. She listens, and hears, and understands, and grows. By the end of the book (which is the beginning of a series), Everly is a different woman.
Which is good, because I have a feeling that Nobles is far from done with her.
Our thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for our copy of Sparks and Shadow, provided so we could participate in this blog tour. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla. For other perspectives on this book, check out the other bloggers on this tour.
Book Review: Sparks and Shadow, Rising Elements Book 1, Ceara Nobles
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