“I’m not afraid of kissing him. I’m afraid that I’ll like it.”
– The Shadow Reader by Sandy Williams
2011 has been a phenomenal year for paranormal fantasy – arguably the best year ever – but the one thing that has disappointed me is the decided lack of any real outstanding debuts. Yeah, there have been a few noteworthy releases – Jenn Bennett’s Kindling the Moon; Robyn Bachar’s Blood, Smoke and Mirrors; and Amanda Bonilla’s Shaedes of Gray – but that’s nothing compared to 2009, for example, a watermark year that introduced us to future superstar writers like Seanan McGuire, Nicole Peeler, Jaye Wells, and Marcus Pelegrimas. But with the end of 2011 right around the corner, I’m overjoyed to be able to add another debut author to the list – Sandy Williams.
While Williams’ The Shadow Reader isn’t exactly ground breaking, it is seamlessly written, exceptionally entertaining, and, well, I guess the word is charming.
There are some fantastic fae-powered sagas out there – namely LKH’s Merry Gentry and McGuire’s October Daye – and one of the strengths in both of these series is that dichotomy between the realm of Faerie and the human world. Both Hamilton and McGuire excel at this dual world building – and in The Shadow Reader, Williams does a commendable job of it as well.
But this novel was all about the characters – specifically heroine McKenzie Lewis, a Houston college student (English major) who has been secretly working for the fae king for 10 years, tracking down rebels of the Realm. McKenzie’s ability – she is a shadow reader and can see the “topography of the earth written in the shadows left behind” – isn’t as important as who she is. She is an undeniably vulnerable and endearing character – a loner who has only one real friend, is still a virgin in her mid-20s, and (like McGuire’s Toby Daye) is an outsider in both the human and fae worlds.
Thrown in the middle of a vicious war between the fae of the king’s Court and the false-bloods – and in the middle of two seductive male fae, the king’s sword-master Kyol and Aren, an infamous rebel leader – McKenzie’s innocence and naiveté make for wonderfully dynamic interplay. In many paranormal fantasy novels, the romance element isn’t “pure” – it’s all about the sexual acrobatics – but there was a real emotional sincerity here, a purity, and it was powerful to experience:
“The kiss is possessive, desperate, and delicious. He doesn’t hold back or let it end. He pulls me up in his arms until only the toes of my shoes touch the ground. I hold on, return his kiss and flush with heat as chaos lusters fire through my skin. They coil around us both, melding us together, as the world fades away.”
Paranormal fantasy can be many things to many readers but Williams’ The Shadow Reader is ultimately a supernatural love story – paranormal fantasy fans who gravitate towards more romantic storylines shouldn’t miss this one.
(And readers who become enamored with McKenzie like I did can mark November 2012 on their calendars – that’s when the sequel to The Shadow Reader, tentatively entitled The Shattered Dark, will be released.)
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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