Gossamyr by Michele Hauf

DH has generously stepped in today, and offed to be a guest blogger on another one of his latest reads, so I can get a little post Christmas stuff done...



Plot Synopsis: This is the tale of Gossamyr, the half-faery daughter of the King of a tribe of Faeries. She must travel to the mortal world to save all of Faery (the name of the plane) from the danger of the Red Lady, who is luring faeries in Paris and draining them of there essences to keep herself enchanted. Gossamyr travels the mortal world with her human companion Ulrich and must face magical dangers as well as warring soldiers. The greatest danger, though, may be to her heart.

Opinion: This is the second novel by Michele Hauf set in a fantastic version of 1400s France. The story itself starts out very strong. We are introduced to Gossamyr and her father Shinn, a seemingly cold and slightly cruel faery king. We learn the danger to Faery, the Red Lady. A faery banished to the mortal world who has managed to keep her enchantment (faeries lose their enchantment if they stay to long in the mortal world, especially more urban places) by stealing the essences (souls) of recently arrived faeries. Each time she steals one of these essences a revenant (a viscous, skeletal faery) returns to Faery and runs amuck until it is destroyed or kills a faerie stealing its essence and thereby creating a new revenant. Gossamyr is selected for the task as both a woman and only half-faery she should be immune to the Red Ladies powers.


The ending is manic and exciting. Definitely, things end on an up note. The only disappointment here is the brief cameo for Dominic San Juste. Dominic is a fantastic character from Seraphim and I won’t go into a lot detail here on that, but his brief appearance here is just a tease because he is a tool to bridge the two stories, but one that doesn’t stand on its own. If you don’t know Seraphim, the character is a throw away and not really needed. If you do know Seraphim you’ll be disappointed at his use. Still besides a couple of small annoyances and a slightly weak middle this is a great story I would recommend.

Guest review done by Blair. =D