Young Adult Urban Fantasy Author
Jenine Wilson
THE SHADOW WITHIN
Book Description
Life is never simple...I should know My name is Jessie Connor and I'm a Senior at Leeland High School. Before, things may not have been simple, but they were predictable. The bullies were bullies. My parents, dysfunctional. My best friend, the goth who lived to shock. I learned to deal with them all. Then I met the new student from France, and my life turned upside down. I think he may even be responsible for the totally bizarre deaths that have been happening. I would turn him in, if only I didn't like him so much.
Review
Jessie Connor is a senior, and not a very popular one at that. Reece and Amber are the two that give her the most trouble. They constantly call her names, prevent her from opening her locker when she does go, and basically makes her life at school miserable. Luckily she has one true friend that makes school manageable. Annie and Jessie have been friends since the fifth grade even though they are complete opposites. Where Jessie is plain with untreated brown hair, Annie has a pierced lip and short, spiky, purple hair.
Jessie's uneventful life gets turned upside down when she clumsily falls into the arms of Wesley Peterson. Even though he has attended the school for months, Jessie can't recall ever seeing him. Once she officially meets him she can't take her eyes off of him. She notices he even sits across from her in science class. Eventually, they start eating lunch together and become much closer. The one strange thing she notices about him is that no one seems to remember who he is. Teachers in the classroom don't remember if he was in class and students don't remember him after he has walked away. Jessie is the only one who seems to remember him from day to day.
Once Wesley realizes that Jessie is special, he decides to tell her the truth about himself and introduce her to his brother. It turns out Wesley and his brother Brian are from another dimension. They were sent to Earth by their mother to avoid the dangers of their world. The problem is, some of the danger has followed them to Earth. Jessie, Wesley, and Brian will have to work together in order to survive.
THE SHADOW WITHIN is a real page-turner. Jenine Wilson does a spectacular job writing about high school life. The way she blends fantasy with the real world is done so smoothly that you can almost believe there are good-looking guys from other dimensions walking around on this planet. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down--and when you are finished, you'll be asking for more.
MY FAMILIAR Book Description 16 year old Nikki Blake is looking forward to the end of her Sophmore year, except for a few problems. The Prom Night Car Jacking has made all the parents freakishly overprotective, and there is the slight problem Nikki has had since her birthday being around boys. But, the biggest problem for Nikki is that her best friend, the pragmatic down to earth Robert Weston, is suddenly eating flies and spouting nonsense about her sister's new boyfriend that belongs in a fairy tale novel. Nikki has always trusted Robert, but it seems as though that trust may have been mistakenly placed. And this mistake may be the last one she makes. Review Nikki has a good life. She has a supportive group of friends, there are only a couple of days left in the school year, and the guy she has been crushing on forever has just asked her out. Nothing she has ever experienced has prepared her for an encounter with an evil sorcerer or for the knowledge that her best friend, Robert, is involved in, what Nikki can only describe as, a nightmare. Even though things are going good for Nikki, there are some problems she is dealing with. The biggest and most important problem she has is that any time a person of the opposite sex touches her, even if it is only her little finger, she feels excruciating pain and nausea. This is causing her some concern since she is supposed to be going out with Dale, the object of her longtime crush, to an end-of-the-school-year bash. How can you go to a party where dancing will probably be expected when you can't even touch your date without the fear of getting sick all over him? The second issue she has started dealing with recently is the fact that she's been thinking about Robert, her best friend since seventh grade, in ways that friends don't think of each other. For instance, how good he looks without a shirt on, or the way his hair looks when it sticks up in the front, or how his sparkling green eyes look so bright. This problem only gets worse when she accidentally touches Robert one day at school and realizes that she doesn't feel pain when he touches her. Her life gets even more complicated when her older sister, Andrea, invites her new boyfriend over to their house for dinner to meet the family. Alerro is captivating and seems to have a magical way of holding everyone's attention. When dinner is over and he starts to leave after a wonderful evening with the family, he stops to touch everyone briefly on the cheek as a farewell. Nikki was so entranced she couldn't stop him if she wanted to, but once his hand was on her face, she felt a slight tingle, but nothing like the pain that should have been running through her body. Jenine Wilson tells a wonderful story. Nikki is a believable character that the reader falls in love with right away. MY FAMILIAR has a great balance of reality and fantasy that will appeal to anyone, even if they aren't a huge fantasy fan. Realistic teen issues like dating and social acceptance are intermingled with the larger problem of saving the world from total destruction. MY FAMILIAR wraps up nicely, leaving the reader satisfied with the ending. However, a case could be made for a sequel, but it definitely isn't necessary for the completion of this story.
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