Dana never asks what her father was in jail for and just accepts that he will be there a couple of days.

When Dana arrives, she find out that her father is in jail. I found myself repeatedly wondering why she didn’t ask more questions! First, Dana decides to run away from home, but doesn’t question why her father was OK with her going to Avalon without knowing how Dana’s mother felt about it. The biggest issue I had was with Dana herself.

That’s unfortunate, because I found the second half much better. It’s in the first half of the book that I hit most of my problems with the story. I was surprised by how quickly I got through this one during the readathon. It’s only 294 pages but it moves quickly. Although Dana’s mom told Dana that her father was something of a bigwig, Dana doesn’t realize how big or that her arrival in Avalon would make her the target of political manipulations from pretty much every faction you could think of. Dana calls him and before long she’s running away to Avalon to stay with her father. She knows that her father, Seamus Stuart, is Fae and lives in Avalon, an independent city-state in England. When her mom arrives at her recital sloppy drunk, Dana has finally had it. The Premise: The narrator of this young adult paranormal is Dana Hathaway, a teen who is sick of dealing with her alcoholic mom. The cover for the second book looks equally dreamlike and lovely. I love this cover design – the pale colors against the black, the gray spots, even the font of the title and author’s name.

I read this during the 24 hour readathon this past weekend. This was a book that calico_reaction was kind enough to pass along to me earlier this year (I’d like to pay it forward and pass it along to someone else, but more on that later).

Shadowspell by Jenna Black