Shadow Hand - By: Anne Elisabeth Stengl

I recently received a complimentary copy of Shadow Hand by Anne Elisabeth Stengl from Bethany House. I was super excited to see this book listed as one of the books available for review after I read another book in this series, Dragonwitch  (you can find the review here). This is part of her Tales of Goldstone Wood series. I really love that you don't have to read these books in order to understand them. Now, don't get me wrong, you would probably pickup on the storyline a little easier, if you had read them in order. I personally have only read this book and Dragonwitch, so it took a little more concentration, but they were both worth it!

Once again I have to say, fantasy is not my typical genre of book I like reading, but I have really enjoyed both books I've read by Ms. Stengl. She uses such vivid language in her books that you can see the situations she is writing about. was the attention to detail.  Ms. Stengl is a fantastic writer. Not only does she have the ability to write such a story, she also wrote all the lyric-like poems (also written like a riddle throughout the book).

One big downfall about her books, is that her characters have such extravagent and unusual names and there are soooo many characters in her books, that it can be somewhat hard to keep the characters straight. In similar style to Dragonwitch, she starts the beginning of each chapter with a quick glance into a character's mind, without telling us who/what this character is. This can also make the book a little hard to understand, because you don't get all the facts, and the pieces together until you get right down to the end of the book. 

I enjoyed this book even more than  Dragonwitch. It may have been partly due to the fact that I was more familiar with her style of writing, that it was easier for me to get into this book, or maybe it was just due to this book having more of a romantic feel to it. (I'm a sucker for romance.) I may have even been the fact that it had a stronger Christian undertone to it. The very end of the book really showed Christ in its message, and as a Christian, Christ means everything to me. Whatever it was, I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. 

I also just finished Out of the Depths by: David and Edgar Harrell. Stay tuned for my review!