Faerie Winter

By: Janni Lee Simner
Publisher: Random House (Books For Young Readers)
Publication Date: April 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86671-5
Reviewed by: Amy Lignor 
Review Date: April 23, 2011 

For anyone who hasn’t read Bones of Faerie, this is the amazing sequel to that masterpiece of Young Adult fiction.

To give a little background information, there was once a war between two nations - human and faerie. Three people began this war - the children of some extremely powerful people. Caleb, Karin, and Liza’s mom, Tara, were the ones who brought about the fight between human and non-human. And, out of it, came a true love story between Caleb, the faerie, who released Tara, the human, from the ‘spell’ he had her under and let her return home. But, you see, Tara never forgot Caleb, and has always harbored a love for him that goes far beyond human/faerie uprisings.

In this book, the war is over. The humans are living in a dark, gray winter where even the trees can’t seem to come back to life. The souls of everything are dying. Plants, animals…everything will slowly come to an end if something can’t be done. Enter…Liza. Liza was a heroine in the first book because she saved her mother from the Faerielands. She is a magical girl - a summoner to be exact - who, at will, can command others to stop, leave, sit, anything she wants to.

Liza’s true love is Matthew; Matthew is a gray wolf who stands by Liza’s side and protects her when she goes out in the woods to look over their lands. There are other magical humans such as Johnny, who can ‘appear’ out of nowhere and scare everybody to death, and his younger brother Kyle - an animal speaker, who can save lives by turning animals away from their prey.

One day, while out in the woods, Liza and Matthew come across a young boy who met his fate by fire, and another boy by the name of Ethan, who is a firestarter that seems to be the cause of a whole village losing their lives. Liza brings Ethan home with her to try to get him healed and find out what happened. But by taking the firestarter, Liza opens a whole new chapter in the War that’s supposedly over.

The Lady - the Queen of the Faerie’s - and her minions, come to the human world to find Liza’s mother, and kill the rest of the humans who need killing. The Lady has powers that Liza has never been up against; powers that lead Matthew away from the woman he loves, and sets Liza on a path where she must rescue young Kyle from a magic hawk who refuses to stop hunting the boy.

As good as the first, if not better, this author has done another wonderful job of telling a very creative - one-of-a-kind - story. The strength, courage, battle-scenes, undercurrent of romance - Ms. Simner has left absolutely nothing out of her amazing “faerie” stories and, frankly, there should be a Book III.

Quill Says: Although there are many fantasy YA’s on the market, this author is one who has created not only a book, but a ‘gift’ for readers everywhere.