Wondrous Strange

by Lesley Livingston Narrated by Lesley Livingston

Overview

Since the dawn of time, the Faerie have taken. . . .

For seventeen-year-old actress Kelley Winslow, faeries are just something from childhood stories. Then she meets Sonny Flannery, whose steel-gray eyes mask an equally steely determination to protect her.

Sonny guards the Samhain Gate, which connects the mortal realm with the Faerie's enchanted, dangerous Otherworld. Usually kept shut by order of icy King Auberon, the Gate stands open but once a year.

This year, as the time approaches when the Samhain Gate will swing wide and nightmarish Fae will fight their way into an unsuspecting human world, something different is happening . . . something wondrous and strange. And Kelley's eyes are opening not just to the Faerie that surround her but to the heritage that awaits her.

Now Kelley must navigate deadly Faerie treachery-and her growing feelings for Sonny-in this dazzling page-turner filled with luminous romance.

Wondrous Strange is a richly layered tale of love between faerie and mortal, betrayal between kings and queens, and magic . . . between author and reader.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

An overwrought, overwritten first-novel fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Kelley has moved to New York City and gotten a theatrical job with the Avalon Grande. While she is only understudy and gofer for A Midsummer Night's Dream, it takes just a few pages before the actress playing Titania breaks her ankle so Kelley can step in. There's more magic afoot. Central Park is the place where the land of the Fae and our world intersect, guarded by the changeling Sonny, adopted son of King Auberon. It turns out the Puck in Kelley's production is the original Robin Goodfellow of Shakespeare's time, Sonny is not only smitten by Kelley but key in saving this world from being overrun by Faerie and Kelley's own gifts are not just mortal. Livingston never uses one cliched adjective when three will do, and never quite captures NYC in this world or in the Other. Lots of telling rather than showing, lots of Shakespeare quotes and pop-culture references, but even the Central Park carousel exploding into the Wild Hunt can't save this one. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

ALA Booklist

Kelley is appealingly feisty and stubborn, and her romance with Sonny develops quickly but believably. ... With an ending that promises a sequel, this book will capture readers eager for romance, magic, and suspense.

The Horn Book

Plentiful action, a complex, slow-to-unravel setup, and humorous plot strands (such as the fairy horse that follows Kelley home to live in her bathroom) ensure that the pages keep turning in this clever debut.

Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Oh, bestselling Twilight, thou hast a strong contender...this book has it all.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173499387
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/16/2009
Series:	Wondrous Strange Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Wondrous Strange

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By Lesley Livingston
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2008

Lesley Livingston
All right reserved.


ISBN: 978-0-06-157537-2

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Chapter One What do you mean, 'promoted'?" Kelley Winslow felt her pulse quicken.

It was the fifth week of rehearsals for the Avalon Grande's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Never mind that the Avalon Players-a third-tier repertory company so far off Broadway it might as well have been in Hoboken-had only hired Kelley as an understudy, which really meant glorified stagehand. It was her first real job as an actress after a disastrous stint in theater school, and, at only seventeen, Kelley had been grateful for the résumé builder. But today, three steps into the theater, Mindi the stage manager had waylaid her.

Kelley was carrying a box of props she'd gone to fetch from the company van parked outside, and she had a pair of fairy wings strapped to her shoulders-the only way she could carry them without crushing the wire frames. "Mindi?" she asked again. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, don't bother taking off the wings, kid." Mindi took the box of props from her hands. "Our darling Diva deWinter just busted her ankle. She is out of commission, and that means you, little understudy, will be stepping into the lead role of Titania, the fairy queen, for the run of this show."

Kelley was speechless. She'd dreamed of this-although however many times she'd sat through rehearsals, watching Barbara deWinter overact and undercharm her way through her scenes, she'd never wished anything bad upon her. But Kelley guiltily felt a rising sense of glee. This is it. This is my big break!

"Hey!" Mindi gave her a friendly shove. "Enough day-dreaming. We open in ten days and Quentin is-well, to put it mildly, our esteemed director is now freaking out. So I suggest you go slip into a rehearsal skirt and haul your understudy butt onstage so that the Mighty Q can run you through your scenes. Good luck."

My scenes. My scenes ...

Thoughts in a whirl, Kelley almost ran down the actor playing Puck as he swung himself gracefully off the set scaffolding, singing "Am I blue?" Funny, because he was actually green, a pale iridescent shade head to toe-hair, skin, eyes-right down to his leafy tunic. Kelley had been told by one of the other actors that his name was Bob but that he was something of an extreme Method actor and had demanded he be referred to only by his character name while in costume and makeup-on threat of quitting the production otherwise.

Lunatic actors.

Between him and the equally demanding and very English director Quentin St. John Smyth, Kelley was beginning to think she'd fallen in with a real asylumful at the Avalon Grande. She threw open the doors to the wardrobe storage and fumbled with the rack of rehearsal skirts, slipping one over her jeans and buttoning it as best she could with trembling fingers. "'Fairies, skip hence,'" she muttered aloud. "No-

that's wrong...."

Oh, God-what's my first line? Kelley thought frantically.

"'These are the forgeries of jealousy.' Aw, crap!" She was blanking. "That's not even the right speech!" Her heart pounded in her chest, and she leaned her head on the door frame.

This is what you've wanted your whole life, she told herself sternly. All those years of putting on one-woman shows for the household pets, and all the months of begging Aunt Emma to let her move to Manhattan to try to make a go of it. This is it. Get out there and show them what you've got!

Feeling marginally more confident, Kelley took a deep breath and dashed down the hallway and through the backstage area-at the exact moment that "Puck" launched a handful of glitter into the air. Kelley gasped, startled, as the cloud of sparkles settled on her hair, face, and shoulders.

"Oh-thanks a lot, Bob," Kelley muttered, brushing at the shimmering dust as the eccentric actor laughed wickedly and darted toward the stage-left wings. It was futile-she was coated in glitter. "That's just super. I look like a disco ball." At least it matched her vintage My Little Pony Princess glitter T-shirt.

"Is she coming sometime today?" Kelley heard Quentin's irate tones echo through the theater and felt her nervousness come flooding back as she picked up her skirt and ran toward the stage.

Once there, Kelley discovered that under the lights the fairy dust was shiny to the point of blinding. Distracted, she found herself tripping over both the hem of her skirt and her lines. Her heart began to flutter in her chest as she heard the exaggerated groans and sighs of frustration coming from the darkened rows of seats, where the director sat watching her stumble around like an idiot.

After forty-five minutes they'd progressed only a little over a page into Titania's first appearance. Kelley had already managed to butcher half her lines, trip over a bench, and step on Oberon's foot. When she almost toppled off the stage and into the orchestra pit, Quentin called a merciful halt to the proceedings.

"Kelley. Your name is Kelley, isn't it?" He didn't wait for her confirmation. "Yes. Well. Tell me ... that bit just now ... was that from Dante's Inferno?"

"Uh ... no," Kelley stammered. Her face felt hot.

"Really?"

I'm in for it.

"Are you sure?" he continued. "Because it most certainly wasn't from this play. And it bloody well sounded like hell."

"I-"

"You know ... as-well, let's face it, shall we?-as completely incompetent as our former diva may have been in this part"-Quentin sauntered up onto the stage, where he circled Kelley like a shark-"she did still have one tiny advantage over you, luv."

"She ... she did?"

"Of course she did. She knew the bloody lines!"

The entire cast took a step back to avoid the leading edge of Quentin's immediate blast radius.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston Copyright © 2008 by Lesley Livingston . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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