Girl in the Shadows
Gwenda Bond
(Girl on a Wire #2)
Published by: Skyscape
Publication date: July 5th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Eighteen-year-old Moira Mitchell grew up in the shadows of Vegas’s stage lights while her father’s career as a magician soared. More than anything, Moira wants to be a magician too, but her father is dead set against her pursuing magic.
When an invitation to join the Cirque American mistakenly falls into Moira’s possession, she takes action. Instead of giving the highly coveted invitation to its intended recipient, Raleigh, her father’s handsome and worldly former apprentice, Moira takes off to join the Cirque. If she can perform alongside its world-famous acts, she knows she’ll be able to convince her dad that magic is her future.
But when Moira arrives, things take on an intensity she can’t control as her stage magic suddenly feels like…real magic. To further distract her, Raleigh shows up none too pleased at Moira’s presence, all while the Cirque’s cocky and intriguing knife thrower, Dez, seems to have it out for her. As tensions mount and Moira’s abilities come into question, she must decide what’s real and what’s an illusion. If she doesn’t sort it out in time, she may forever remain a girl in the shadows.
My Review:
I am so glad to get to be a part of this tour. I have been a huge fan of Gwenda Bond since the first book of hers that I read, Blackwood. And when I read the first book in her circus series, Girl on a Wire, I couldn't wait to get back to this world. I don't know if there will be any more books in this series, but I can only say that I really hope so. I love all the characters, both from the first book, who we get to see again in this book, as well as the new ones we follow in this one. Now, you don't have to read the first one in order to read this one, but having read it, you will be really excited to see where those characters have gone on in this world.
What's great about this book is that the main character, Moira, is into magic, a part that you don't normally see women big in. But having been raised by a single father who is a magician, it is all she has known, and she has fallen in love with it. When she runs off to try out for the circus with a stolen invitation, she tells her father she is checking out colleges. Once at the circus, something strange happens. Her magic tricks/sleights of hand, don't quite seem to go the way she wants them to. But as she was doing them, there was a strange heat/power that she felt in her hands. And all of a sudden it seems that there might be actual magic, as the deck of cards have changed. As she talked about them being a rainbow, or saw them as a rainbow in her mind, the backs of the cards change to rainbows. One of the members of the circus, Nan Maroni, notices that there is actual magic. And she speaks up for Moira, and then pulls her aside and fills her in on what Moira was never aware of before.
So we get real magic, the coin is back from the last book in a new way. I loved getting to spend time with Remy and Jules again. And I kinda liked Dez, the love interest for Moira, even though there were times you weren't sure whether to trust him. And his friend Brandon, man, I'd like to smack him. Moira will also find out that she needs to find her mother, it's the only way she can figure out what is going on with these magic powers she's developing. But it will turn out that her mother may not be quite who she thought she was, and it may have been a good thing that her mother left.
Another great story, great characters, and some incredible magic tricks. Especially the big one at the very end! All I can say is if the author just happens to read my review, please, please, please give me more of this world! Give Dita her own story maybe! Or maybe Brandon could get a story so that I can like him a little better. Oh yeah, and I love that the author had them stop in Kansas City for one of the stops. If only a real circus like this would come here, I'd be there for sure!
Author Bio:
Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Lois Lane: Fallout and Girl on a Wire, among others. Lois Lane: Double Down and Girl in the Shadows, a companion novel to Girl on a Wire set in the Cirque American, are next up in 2016. She’s also hard at work on some secret projects you don’t know about yet.
Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe. There are rumors she escaped from a screwball comedy, and she might have a journalism degree because of her childhood love of Lois Lane. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.
