The Shadow Reader (McKenzie Lewis #1)- Sandy Williams

McKenzie Lewis has an ability sought by both the Court Fae (variation spelling on 'fey' used in this book) and the Rebels: she can track fey based on the 'shadows' they leave behind. In the human world, McKenzie is trying to finish her English degree and get on with her life, but the fae have other plans for her. She has been working for the fae king for years and has been in love with his sword master, Kyol, for just as long. However, she is tracked down and kidnapped by the rebel fae who want to unseat the corrupt king and put one of their own on the throne. To do this, they need McKenzie's talents to find and gain control over the hidden portals in their world. McKenzie must decide who she can trust and whether or not her affections for Kyol can be replaced by the rugged rebel leader, Aren. Aren teaches her the forbidden fae language and opens her eyes to the corruption of the Court. The fighting begins to claim lives, both mortal and fae and McKenzie's decision could be the single thing that decides the outcome of the war.

Overall Merit: Let me start by saying, this is the perfect example of a misleading cover. I don't think McKenzie so much as touches a sword in the entire novel, in fact she spends most of her time getting injured and rescued by people who can actually use a weapon properly. This book did not gain points with me because to be honest, I didn't understand McKenzie's powers very well and from what I saw of them, they didn't seem very useful. The story was not that interesting or well thought out. Plus, it was totally predictable. I mean it wasn't an awful book or anything, but there wasn't even any good romance to make it better. Score- 6

Characters: I apologize in advance because this is going to turn into a rant about character names. McKenzie. What the bloody hell? If you must use a horrible spelling of the name, don't put random capitals in the  middle of it, it's distracting. What's wrong with Mckenzie, or Mackenzie? Personally, I prefer the vowel before the 'ck' it looks prettier and makes the name less irritating. McKenzie is a bad name in general, but Williams makes it worse with the pretentious spelling. I mean I've seen much worse names, but that's only because I can't pronounce them. To add to that, I didn't really like McKenzie very much, she didn't have much of a personality. Sure, she kept trying to escape from the Rebels and blah, blah, blah, but she didn't do all that much. She was a space filler, not a character. The two love interests weren't interesting either, Aren was ok, but Kyol was meh. I mean all the characters were just kind of flat. Score- 5

Blush Factor: I don't like love triangles at the best of times, however this one didn't bother me so much. Then again, that might have to do with the fact that the characters were all way too boring for me to care what happened to/with them. Aren was a bad boy, but not really and then Kyol was supposed to be a stoic, deadly swordsman, but again not really. McKenzie eventually chooses Aren, sorry to spoil it, but it was pretty predictable. Score- 6

Structure: This was actually a first person novel, which was somewhat surprising since that doesn't show up often in this genre. Nonetheless, the narrator (McKenzie) was not interesting enough to make me enjoy her perspective. It followed linear story structure and well there were virtually no plot twists. Then there was some weird stuff going on with humans who hunted faeries and I got confused. The weird relationship with technology didn't fly that well for me either. I wasn't convinced that the fae were actually fae, there wasn't anything very faerie-like about them at all. Williams did not ground her mythos well enough for the world. Also, what the hell are the weird electrical impulses that seem to run through fae skin? I was confused and not very pleased with the structure of this world. Score- 4

Plot: In one word: predictable. There wasn't much of a plot and the plot that was there wasn't interesting. I was pretty bored throughout the novel--thank Rhiannon it was short. Seriously though, nothing new happened here. McKenzie was kidnapped a bunch of times, there was a pathetic attempt at a battle at the end. Some sort of convoluted plot was concocted. Even the romantic tension fell flat. This book sort of had potential, but it definitely wasn't worth the money I spent buying it. Score- 4

Vervain says: "Human technology weakens fae magic."