Reviewer's purchased copy.
Elfland
by Feda Warrington
Tor Books
Urban Fantasy
Kindle Edition
Hardcover
Book Blurb:
Auberon Fox is the warm heart of the English village of Cloudcroft and father of a happy family including his daughter, Rosie. But on the hill lives the mysterious, aloof Lawrence Wilder, Gatekeeper to the inner realms of the Spiral. Tortured by personal demons, Lawrence is beset by trouble on all sides. His wife has left him; his sons Jon and Sam are angry and damaged, and when he refuses to open the Great Gates, preventing access to the Otherworld, the Aetherial community is outraged. What will become of them, deprived of the home realm from which their essential life-force flows?
Rosie, an Aetherial among mortals, knows the Wilders are trouble, but she and her gentle brother Lucas can’t seem to keep away. She falls in love with the alluring Jon Wilder; she is tormented by his notorious brother Sam, who is always in trouble. Rosie becomes caught in a classic conflict between trying to live a ‘normal’, hard-working human life, or surrendering to her wild, Aetherial instincts. Ultimately she makes a disastrous choice that leads to tragedy…
Journeying deep into the Spiral as she tries to pick up the pieces, Rosie can’t escape her destiny as she learns about life, love… and her role in the terrifying conflict to come.
Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Drowning Rapunzel and The Chosen
Elfland is a faerie tale for adults, a true faerie tale in that the book deals with a race of beings called Aetherials, who were what the humans thought were faeries; angels, vampires or demons. The mythology is great, but it is also an all too human tale of love, loss, fear and courage.
I can't condense the plot too much; it is too epic to even try, and this is only one of the first books in this new series. The story mainly concerns two families, the Foxes and the Wilders who live on earth but are Aetherial in nature and desire. Lawrence Wilder is the Gatekeeper; mad as a hatter living in the fortress-like house of Stonegate. The Aetherials can move between worlds on the night of the Summer Stars when the Gatekeeper opens the portal between the worlds; but one night he refuses to do so, spouting out about a great danger that awaits if he even tries. But is he just delusional or is there really something out to get them?
This book was a joy to read. I'm not normally a fan of urban fantasy, but for some reason this one drew me in and I felt like I was in the book with the characters and all the strange and wondrous places they visited. The romance flowed with the story, it didn't just suddenly apppear out of nowhere as if the author just wanted to put the romance in. The romance was part of it from the beginning. The book draws you in and by the end you feel you too have gone on a strange quest and come out relatively unscathed.
A keeper.
***
About the Reviewer
Annette Gisby writes in multiple styles and genres from horror to sci-fi, from fantasy to romance. Her latest novel, The Chosen, will be released by Lyrical Press.
Author website: www.annettegisby.n3.net
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