| Number | Call Number | Branch | Status | Volume |
| 1 |
YA F Livingston Lesley |
KL |
Out: Due Jun 4 2013 |
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| 2 |
YA F Livingston Lesley |
MK |
Out: Due Jun 6 2013 |
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| 3 |
YA F Livingston Lesley |
SP |
In at SP (Spencer Road) |
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| This addition to the bevy of books about teenage girls turned faerie princesses stands out with a balanced mix of faerie lore and authorial invention. Kelley, 17, gets her big break when the woman playing Titania in an off-off-Broadway production of A Midsummer Night s Dream is injured. But the world of Faerie becomes too real after Kelley rescues what she thinks is a drowning horse in Central Park Lake only to have it appear later on her balcony and station itself in her bathtub. Suddenly she s caught the eye of Sonny Flannery, a human changeling who guards the Gate between Faerie and Manhattan, and the longer he watches, the more certain he is that she is Auberon s stolen daughter. Kelley is appealingly feisty and stubborn, and her romance with Sonny develops quickly but believably. Some of Livingston s plot twists strain credibility, but the big reveal of Kelley s parentage is well played. With an ending that promises a sequel, this book will capture readers eager for romance, magic, and suspense. | | | |
| Kelley Winslow, a seventeen-year-old actress playing Titania in a NYC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, discovers that she is actually the stolen daughter of the Faerie king Auberon. Naturally, she learns this just when the mortal world is most threatened by a fairy incursion. Kelley's story dovetails with that of Sonny, changeling guard of the gate between mortal and fairy realms; they fall into a star-crossed romance. Puck (now going by "Bob") makes a memorable appearance, as does the treacherous Queen Mab, as Livingston reinterprets Shakespeare's classic comedy, injecting backstory and projecting aftermath. Unfortunately, the romance feels forced, as Kelley barely has time to change her view of Sonny from stalker to savior before they are declaring passion eternal. Still, plentiful action, a complex, slow-to-unravel setup, and humorous plot strands (such as the fairy horse that follows Kelley home to live in her bathroom) ensure that the pages keep turning in this clever debut. Copyright 2009 Horn Book Magazine Reviews. | | | |
| An overwrought, overwritten first-novel fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Kelley has moved to New York City and gotten a theatrical job with the Avalon Grande. While she is only understudy and gofer for A Midsummer Night's Dream, it takes just a few pages before the actress playing Titania breaks her ankle so Kelley can step in. There's more magic afoot. Central Park is the place where the land of the Fae and our world intersect, guarded by the changeling Sonny, adopted son of King Auberon. It turns out the Puck in Kelley's production is the original Robin Goodfellow of Shakespeare's time, Sonny is not only smitten by Kelley but key in saving this world from being overrun by Faerie and Kelley's own gifts are not just mortal. Livingston never uses one clichéd adjective when three will do, and never quite captures NYC in this world or in the Other. Lots of telling rather than showing, lots of Shakespeare quotes and pop-culture references, but even the Central Park carousel exploding into the Wild Hunt can't save this one. (Fantasy. 12 & up) Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. | | | |
It's not just the jacket that's strikingly similar to Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely : debut novelist Livingston, too, delivers a lost-now-found faerie princess; a dark, brooding changeling love interest; faerie royalty and warring faerie courts (summer and winter), with accompanying threats to the human world. As a read-alike, this book inescapably invites comparison, and fans of Marr (or Holly Black) may be disappointed. The author offers a promising variation: she uses Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as a window onto the faerie world (17-year-old heroine Kelley Winston, an aspiring actress, steps from understudy into the role of Titania). But the Shakespeare device will also be familiar to many YA readers, and it embellishes rather than advances the plot. The shining performance belongs to Sonny Flannery—neither human nor faerie, he is a member of the changeling guard that watches the gates between the human and the fey realms. Sonny is detailed to the gate in Manhattan's Central Park, where he and Kelley meet. Readers may want less Kelley, who comes across as nave, and more Sonny, finding in him a worthy hero and romantic interest. Ages 12–up. (Dec.) [Page 54]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. | | | |
Gr 7–10—When Kelley moves to New York to pursue her dreams of theatrical success, she expects that her only encounters with mythical beings will be confined to the stage, in the Avalon Grande Theatre's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. All of that changes when she meets Sonny Flannery, who introduces Kelley to a world she never knew existed. A member of Auberon's Janus Guard, he patrols the portal (in Central Park) between the human and faerie worlds on the few dangerous nights when it opens and members of the Unseelie Court can pass into the mortal realm. He is strangely drawn to Kelley, and as he gets to know her, he begins to suspect that there is more to her history than either of them know. Through encounters with sirens, hellhounds, and kelpies, Kelley and Sonny are drawn irrevocably into a battle among the Fey. Despite the budding attraction between them, forces they can hardly understand seek to keep them apart. Set against the backdrop of present-day New York City, this enchanting first novel weaves together the worlds of theater and magic in a way that is sure to please fans of both. Readers will revel in the hints of Shakespeare within the text as they are introduced to faerie creatures both familiar and "wondrous strange."—Misti Tidman, Boyd County Public Library, Ashland, KY [Page 108]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. | | | |
| Having convinced her Aunt Emma to let her move to Manhattan to work as an actress, seventeen-year-old Kelley is thrilled when her understudy role suddenly becomes the lead role of Titania, Queen of Faeries, in the Avalon Player's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. With two weeks until opening night, Kelley wants only to focus on her performance. Practicing her lines in a quiet clearing in Central Park, she impresses a "Handsome Stranger," who presents her with a rose—and disappears. The stranger is Sonny Flannery, a Janus guard, bound to serving Auberon, King of the Unseelie Court, and a changeling, a human stolen as a child from the mortal realm and raised in Faerie. During the annual opening of the Samhain Gate, inside what is now Central Park, the thirteen Janus guards are all that stand between the Otherworld and the mortal realm. This year, the intrigues of the Court of Faerie aim to wake the Wild Hunt, and loose the death-mad Faerie war band to wreak unspeakable carnage on unsuspecting mortals. Kelley and Sonny's destinies are inextricably linked, and the survival of the mortal world is dependent upon their courage and fortitudePresenting a rich tapestry of the powerful forces of both faerie and mortal desires against the backdrop of Shakespearian theater, this novel parts the thin veil between modern-day Manhattan and the timeless realm of faerie, offering an action-packed urban fantasy romance in the best tradition of Charles de Lint and Will Shetterly.—Kim Carter 4Q 4P M J S Copyright 2009 Voya Reviews. | | |
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