Shadow Hand ~ Review

Shadow Hand
Tales of the Goldstone Wood #6
By Anne Elisabeth Stengl

In a word WOW!  To fully appreciate this book you should first read Heartless, Veiled Rose, and Moonblood if you have never picked up one of Anne Elisabeth Stengl's books before.  And believe me if you've read one you just are drawn into this world Between the Woods.  Anne Elisabeth weaves her stories so that they all flow together.  They intersect and and cross each other in the most unexpected ways.

Shadow Hand is a story out of time.  And Foxbrush and Daylily have unwittingly entered into it and are about to become an integral part of Southlands legend or are they?  These two characters are about to become more complete in fulfilling the destiny that has been theirs before time knew them.

Southlands is yet again to have a royal wedding and Lady Daylily is again to have the starring role, but her intended has changed.  Instead of Prince Lionheart she is instead to marry his cousin Crown Prince Foxbrush.  Both are pawns caught in a web not of their own making, until the letter.

A letter has sent the two into the Woods and their lives are never to be the same.  But during their absence, someone seeks to claim the throne for his own.  Can the path that Daylily and Foxbrush follow help them discover who they really are before it is too late?

If you've read the previous 5 Goldstone Wood books, you'll be happy to see some of your favorite characters are back including Prince Felix, Lionheart, Eanrin, Imraldera, and the Prince of Fartheststone.

At the very beginning I found the story a little confusing, but it all makes sense in the end and is well worth the time spent in the reading.  Shadow Hand is an intriguing and interesting book that will take you in a circle. (If I say more I'll give the story away and disrupt time!)

I just love this cover and this book has been on my wish list since I learned of it.  And reading it was not a disappointment.  Can't wait for book 7 The Golden Daughter coming November 2014!

I was provided a review copy of this book by the author, publisher and Bookfun.org in exchange for my honest review.





About the Book:

This is a story about blood.

And love.

And the many things that lie between.

By her father's wish, Lady Daylily is betrothed to the Prince of Southlands. Not the prince she loves, handsome and dispossessed Lionheart, but his cousin, the awkward and foolish Prince Foxbrush. As her wedding day dawns, Daylily flees into the dangerous Wilderlands, her only desire to vanish from living memory.

But Foxbrush, determined to rescue his betrothed, pursues Daylily into a new world of magic and peril, a world where vicious Faerie beasts hold sway, a world invaded by a lethal parasite. 

A world that is hauntingly familiar.

Author Bio:

Anne Elisabeth Stengl makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering dog. When she's not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and studies piano, painting, and pastry baking. She studied illustration at Grace College and English literature at Campbell University. She is the author of the award-winning Tales of Goldstone Woods series, an ever-growing world of knights and dragons, mystical forests and hidden demesnes, unspeakable evil and boundless grace.

Her first novel, Heartless, won the Christy award for best debut in 2011, followed by an unprecedented consecutive win the next year for Veiled Rose, in its own category, and Starflower was most recently honored with the Clive Staples Award for 2013.