"Jenna Black puts a new twist on Avalon and brings to life an exciting story about Faes and humans."
Reviewed by Rosie B
Posted August 19, 2010
Young Adult Paranormal
For sixteen year old Dana Hathaway, having her mother show
up at her voice recital drunk, again, is the last straw.
Tired of always having to be the adult, Dana longs to be the
child she is and runs away to Avalon to find the father
she's never known. Avalon is the gateway between Earth and
the Faerie world where humans and Fae can interact together. Thinking nothing could be as bad as having to live with an
alcoholic mother, Dana discovers the world is an entirely
different place when you're dealing with the Fae. Even your
own relatives cannot be trusted to keep you safe. Stuck in a
dangerous political plot from the moment she arrives in
Avalon, Dana quickly learns the grass is not always greener
on the other side. Perhaps her mother really was telling the
truth when she said she left Avalon for Dana's own good. With the discovery that she's no mere half human, half Fae
offspring, but a Faeriewalker, things in Dana's life get
even more complicated. A Faeriewalker is a rare individual
who can walk between the human world and the Fae world.
This person is also the only one who can bring magic into
the human world and technology to the Faerie world. No
matter where she turns, it seems someone wants something
from Dana: the aunt who kidnaps her as soon as she sets foot
into Avalon, the brother/sister duo who rescue her for
unknown reasons, even her father. All she wants is
for things to go back to normal, but with the discovery that
she is a Faeriewalker, normal is something Dana can never
have again. I have always been adamant about not reading young adult
books. No matter how good someone said a book was, if it was
a so-called teen book, I just wasn't interested in checking
it out. So you can imagine my surprise when I received Jenna
Black's GLIMMERGLASS for review and realized it was a young
adult book. Though reluctant to read the book, I soon found
myself so absorbed in the story, I never wanted it to end.
Jenna Black has altered my definition of a young adult book.
With a plot more engrossing than a lot of adult books I have
read over the years, GLIMMERGLASS is an intriguing tale of
adventure and discovery. The tightly woven plot takes you on
a journey of romance, betrayal, revelations and family
secrets. My only complaint is that the sequel,
Shadowspell,
doesn't come out until January 2011. That is entirely too
long of a wait to see what happens to Dana and how things
progress with her two potential love interests, Ethan and
Keane. I can't wait!
SUMMARY
Dana Hathaway doesn’t know it yet, but she’s in big
trouble. When her alcoholic mom shows up at her voice
recital drunk, again, Dana decides she’s had enough
and runs away to find her mysterious father in Avalon: the
only place on Earth where the regular, everyday world and
the captivating, magical world of Faerie intersect. But
from the moment Dana sets foot in Avalon, everything goes
wrong, for it turns out she isn't just an ordinary teenage
girl—she's a Faeriewalker, a rare individual who can travel
between both worlds, and the only person who can bring magic
into the human world and technology into
Faerie. Soon, Dana finds
herself tangled up in a cutthroat game of Fae politics.
Someone's trying to kill her, and everyone seems to want
something from her, from her newfound friends and family to
Ethan, the hot Fae guy Dana figures she’ll never have a
chance with… until she does. Caught between two
worlds, Dana isn’t sure where she’ll ever fit in and who can
be trusted, not to mention if her world will ever be normal
again...
ExcerptPrologue
The absolute last straw was when my mom showed
up at my
recital drunk. I don't mean tipsy—I mean staggering,
slurring,
everyone-knows drunk. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she
was late,
too, so that when she pushed through the doors and
practically fell into
a metal folding chair at the back, everyone turned to
glare at her for
interrupting the performance.
Standing in the wings, I wanted to sink
through the floor
in embarrassment. Ms. Morris, my voice teacher, was the
only one in the
room who realized the person causing the disruption was my
mother. I'd
very carefully avoided any contact between my mom and the
students of
this, my newest school, and the one I hoped I'd graduate
from—if we
could manage two full years in the same location, just this
once.
When it was my turn to perform, Ms. Morris
gave me a
sympathetic look before she put her hands on the piano. My
face felt hot
with embarrassment, and my throat was so tight I worried
my voice would
crack the moment I opened my mouth.
My voice is naturally pretty—a result of
my ultra-secret,
hush-hush Fae heritage. Truthfully, I didn't need the voice
lessons, but
summer vacation was going to start in a few weeks, and I'd
wanted an
excuse that would get me out of the house now and then but
wouldn't
require a huge time commitment. Voice lessons had fit the
bill. And I
enjoyed them.
My heart beat hard against my chest, and my
palms sweated
as Ms. Morris played the introduction. I tried to
concentrate on the
music. If I could just get through the song and act normal,
no one in
the audience had to know that the drunken idiot in the back
was related
to me.
Finally, the intro was over, and it was time
for me to
start. Despite my less-than-optimal state of mind, the
music took over
for a while, and I let the beauty of "Voi Che Sapete," one
of my
favorite Mozart arias, wash over me. Traditionally sung by
a woman
pretending to be a young boy, it was perfect for my clear
soprano, with
the hint of vibrato that added a human touch to my
otherwise Fae voice.
I hit every note spot on, and didn't forget
any of my
lyrics. Ms. Morris nodded in approval a couple times when I
got the
phrasing just the way she wanted it. But I knew I could
have done
better, put more feeling into it, if I hadn't been so
morbidly aware of
my mom's presence.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I was done.
Until the
applause started, that is. Most of the parents and other
students gave a
polite, if heartfelt, round of applause. My mom, on the
other hand,
gave me a standing ovation, once more drawing all eyes to
her. And, of
course, revealing that she was with me.
If lightning had shot from the heavens and
struck me dead at that moment, I might have welcomed it.
I shouldn't have told her about the recital,
but despite
the fact that I knew better, there'd been some part of me
that wished
she would show up to hear me sing, wished she'd applaud me
and be proud
like a normal mother. I'm such a moron!
I wondered how long it would take the story to
make the rounds of this
school. At my previous school, when one of the bitchy
cheerleader types
had run into me and my mom when we were shopping—a
task she was barely
sober enough to manage—it had taken all of one day
for the entire school
to know my mom was a drunk. I hadn't exactly been part of
the popular
crowd even before, but after that . . . Well, let's just
say that for
once I was glad we were moving yet again.
I was sixteen years old, and we'd lived in ten
different
cities that I could remember. We moved around so much
because my mom
didn't want my dad to find me. She was afraid he'd try to
take me away
from her, and considering she isn't exactly a study in
parental
perfection, he just might be able to do it.
I'd never met my dad, but my mom had told me
all about him.
The story varied depending on how drunk and/or depressed
she was
feeling at the time. What I'm pretty sure is true is that
my mom was
born in Avalon and lived there most of her life, and that
my dad is some
kind of big-deal Fae there. Only my mom hadn't realized
who he was when
she started messing around with him. She found out right
about the time
she got pregnant with me, and she left home before anyone
knew.
Sometimes, my mom said she'd run away from
Avalon because
my dad was such a terrible, evil man that he'd be sure to
abuse me in
horrible ways if I lived with him. That was the story she
told when she
was sober, the story she built to make sure I was never
interested in
meeting him. "He's a monster, Dana," she'd say, explaining
why we had to
move yet again. "I can't let him find you."
But when she was drunk out of her gourd and
babbling at me
about whatever entered her mind at the moment, she'd say
she'd left
Avalon because if I'd stayed there, I'd have been caught up
in some kind
of nasty political intrigue, me being the daughter of a
high
muckety-muck Fae and all. When she was in one of these
moods, she'd go
on and on about how great a guy my dad was, how she'd loved
him more
than life itself, but how her duty as a mother had to come
first. Gag!
I wanted to slink away from the recital before
it was even
over, but I didn't dare. It was possible my mom was dumb
enough to have
actually driven here, and there was no way I could let her
drive back
home in the state she was in. I had the guilty
thought—not for the first
time—that my life might improve if she got herself
killed in a car
wreck. I was ashamed of myself for letting the thought
enter my head. Of course I didn't want my mother
to die. I just wanted her not to be an alcoholic.
Ms. Morris took me aside as soon as everyone
was done, and
the sympathy in her eyes was almost too much to bear. "Do
you need any
help, Dana?" she asked me quietly.
I shook my head and refused to meet her
gaze. "No. Thank
you. I'll . . . take care of her." My face was hot again,
so I made my
escape as quickly as possible, avoiding the other students
who wanted to
either congratulate me on my brilliant performance (yeah,
right!) or
try to get the full scoop on my mom so they could tell all
their
friends.
Mom was trying to mingle with the other
parents when I
walked up to her. She was too out of it to pick up on the
subtle
you're-a-drunk-leave-me-alone vibes they were giving her.
Still feeling
like everyone was staring at me, I took hold of her arm.
"Come on, let's get you home," I said through
gritted teeth.
"Dana!" she practically shouted. "You were
wonderful!" She threw her arms around me like she
hadn't seen me in three years and gave me a smothering
hug.
"Glad you enjoyed it," I forced myself to say
as I wriggled
out of her hug and began heading for the door with her in
tow. She
didn't seem to mind being dragged across the room, so at
least that was a
plus. This could have been worse, I tried to tell
myself.
I didn't have to ask Mom whether she'd driven,
because the
minute we stepped outside, I could see our car, parked so
crookedly it
had taken up about three spaces. I said a silent prayer of
thanks that
she hadn't managed to kill anyone.
I held out my hand to her. "Keys."
She sniffed and tried to look dignified. Hard
to do when
she had to clutch the railing to keep from falling
headfirst down the
steps that led to the parking lot. "I am perfectly capable
of driving,"
she informed me.
Anger burned in my chest, but I knew exactly
how much good
it would do me to explode, no matter how much I wanted to.
If I could
just keep pretending to be calm and reasonable, I would get
her into the
passenger seat and out of the public eye much faster. The
last thing I
wanted was to have a big shouting fight scene right here in
front of
everybody. Mom had given them enough to talk about
already.
"Let me drive anyway," I said. "I need the
practice." If
she'd been even marginally sober, she'd have heard the
banked fury in my
voice, but as it was, she was oblivious. But she handed
over the keys,
which was a relief.
I drove home, my hands clutching the wheel
with a
white-knuckled grip as I fought to hold myself together. My
mom was in
the middle of gushing over my performance when the booze
finally got the
best of her and she conked out. I was grateful for the
silence, though I
knew from experience it would be quite a production to get
her out of
the car and into the house in her condition.
When I pulled into our driveway and
contemplated the task
ahead, I realized that I couldn't live like this any
longer. Nothing
could possibly be worse than living with my mother,
constantly lying for
her, trying to cover up that she was passed out drunk when
she was
supposed to be meeting with my teachers or driving me to
some off-campus
event. Ever since I could remember, I'd lived in mortal
fear that my
friends at school—what friends I managed to have when
we moved around so
much, that is—would find out about her and decide I
was some kind of
freak-by-association. A fear that, unfortunately, I'd found
out the hard
way was not unfounded.
I'd been the adult in this family since I was
about five,
and now it was time for me to take my life into my own
hands. I was
going to contact my father and, unless I got some kind of
vibe that said
he really was an abusive pervert, I was going to
go live with
him. In Avalon. In the Wild City that was the crossroads
between our
world and Faerie, the city where magic and technology co-
existed in
something resembling peace. Even in Avalon, I figured, I'd
have a
better, more normal life than I had now with my mom.
I've never been so wrong about anything in my
life.
Chapter 1
My palms were sweaty and my heart was in my
throat as my
plane made its descent into London. I could hardly believe
I was really
doing this, hardly believe I had found the courage to run
away from
home. I wiped my palms on the legs of my jeans and wondered
if Mom had
figured out I was gone yet. She'd been sleeping off one
hell of a binge
when I'd left the house, and sometimes she could sleep for
twenty-four
hours straight at times like that. I wished I could be a
fly on the wall
when she found the note I'd left her. Maybe losing me
would finally
turn on the lightbulb over her head and she'd stop
drinking. But I
wasn't holding my breath.
I'd had no trouble finding and contacting my
father. Mom
would never have dreamed of telling me his name when she
was sober, and
he wasn't listed on my birth certificate, but all it had
taken were a
couple of probing questions when she was in one of her
drunk, chatty
moods to find out his name was Seamus Stuart. The Fae, she
confided,
didn't use last names in Faerie, but those who lived in
Avalon had
adopted the practice for the convenience of the human
population.
In the grand scheme of things, Avalon is tiny,
its
population less than 10,000, so when I'd gone online and
brought up the
Avalon phone book, I'd had no trouble finding my
father—he was the only
Seamus Stuart listed. And when I called and asked him if he
knew anyone
by my mother's name, he readily admitted he'd had a
girlfriend of that
name once, so I knew that I'd found the right guy.
Before that first conversation was over, he
had already
asked me to come to Avalon for a visit. He'd even sprung
for a
first-class plane ticket into London. And never once had he
asked to
talk to my mom, nor had he asked if I had her permission to
come visit
him. I'd been surprised by that at first, but then I
figured she'd been
right that if he could have found me, he'd have spirited me
away to
Avalon without a second thought. Don't look the gift
horse in the mouth, I reminded myself.
The plane hit the tarmac with a jarring thud.
I took a deep
breath to calm myself. It would be hours still before I
would actually
meet my father. Being a native of Faerie, he couldn't set
foot in the
mortal world. (If he'd decided to kidnap me, he'd have had
to use human
accomplices to do it.) The unique magic of Avalon is that
the city
exists both in Faerie and in the mortal world—the
only place where the
two planes of existence overlap. When my father stood at
the border of
the city and looked out, all he could see was Faerie, and
if he crossed
the border, those of us in the mortal world wouldn't be
able to see him
anymore.
He'd arranged to have a human friend of his
meet me at the
London airport and take me to Avalon. Only when I got
through Avalon
immigration would I be able to meet him.
I went through the immigration and customs
process in
London in something of a daze. I'd been too excited and
nervous to sleep
on the plane, and it was definitely catching up with me
now. I followed
the herd to the ground transportation area and started
searching the
sea of placards for my own name.
I didn't see it.
I looked again, examining each sign carefully,
in case my
name was misspelled and that's why I'd missed it. But the
crowd of
drivers steadily thinned, and nowhere did I see anyone
holding up my
name. I bit my lip and examined my watch, which I'd
adjusted to London
time. It was 8:23 AM, and when I'd last talked to my dad,
he'd estimated
that if the plane was on time, I'd get through customs
somewhere around
8:15. His friend should be here by now.
I took another one of those deep breaths,
reminding myself
to calm down. Dad's friend was only eight minutes late.
Hardly worth
panicking about. I found a comfortable chair near the
doors, my gaze
darting this way and that as I looked for someone hurrying
into the
terminal like they were late. I saw plenty of those, but
none of them
carried a sign with my name on it.
When 8:45 rolled around and still there was no
sign of my
ride, I decided it was okay to get a little bit panicky. I
turned on my
cell phone, meaning to give Dad a call, only to discover I
couldn't get a
signal. Belatedly, I wondered if American cell phones
worked in London.
I swallowed another wave of nerves. Dad had sent me a
lovely
getting-to-know-you gift, a white rose cameo, and I found
myself
fingering it anxiously.
I'd been in and out of a lot of airports in my
life, and if
the flight was long enough, my mom was invariably sloshed
by the time
we landed. Even when I was like eight years old, I'd been
capable of
steering my mom through the airport, finding our baggage,
and arranging a
taxi to take us to wherever we needed to be. Granted, the
most exotic
place I'd ever had to do it was Canada, but heck, this was
England, not
India.
Telling myself not to sweat it, I found a bank
of pay
phones. Because my mom couldn't be trusted to keep track of
bills or
anything, we'd arranged for me to have my own credit card,
which I
promptly used to make the long-distance call to Avalon.
I let the phone at my dad's house ring about
ten times, but no one answered. I hung up and bit my
lip.
I'd been nervous enough about this whole
adventure. Now I
was stranded at Heathrow airport and my dad wasn't
answering his phone.
Add to that a crushing case of jet lag, and all I wanted to
do at the
moment was curl up in a snug, comfy bed and go to sleep. I
swallowed a
yawn—if I let myself get started, I'd never stop.
At 9:15, I had to admit that the chances of my
dad's friend
showing up were slim and none. My dad probably wasn't
answering his
phone because he was waiting for me at the Avalon border,
as he'd
promised. So okay, all I had to do was get a cab to take me
to the
border. It was only about twenty-five miles out of London.
No big deal,
right?
I exchanged some money, then got in one of
those enormous
black cabs they have in England. It felt really weird to
see the driver
on the wrong side of the car, and even weirder to be
driving on the
wrong side of the road.
My driver drove like a maniac and talked
nonstop the entire
way to Avalon's Southern Gate. I don't know what his
accent was, maybe
Cockney, but I only understood about a third of what he
said. Luckily,
he never seemed to require a response aside from the
occasional smile
and nod. I hoped he didn't see me flinching and wincing
every time it
seemed like he was about to squash someone into road
kill.
Like everyone else in the universe, I'd seen
lots of
pictures of Avalon. You could find about a thousand guide
books
dedicated to the city—I had two in my
luggage—and just about every
fantasy movie ever made has at least one or two scenes that
were filmed
on location in Avalon, it being the only place in the
mortal world where
magic actually works. But seeing Avalon in person kind of
reminded me
of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time: no
photograph on earth
could do it justice.
Avalon is situated on a mountain. Yes, a real,
honest-to-goodness mountain. The thing juts up into the sky
out of the
flat, green, sheep-dotted countryside, and it looks like
someone grabbed
one of the Alps and haphazardly dropped it where it most
definitely did
not belong.
Houses and shops and office buildings had been
built into
every square inch of the mountain's slopes, and a single
paved road
spiraled from the base to the castle-like structure that
dominated the
summit. There were lots of lesser cobblestone roads that
led off that
main one, but the main road was the only one big enough for
cars.
The base of the mountain is completely
surrounded by a
thick, murky moat, the moat surrounded by a high,
electrified fence.
There are only four entrances to the city itself, one at
each point of
the compass. My dad was supposed to meet me at the Southern
Gate. The
taxi driver dropped me off at the gatehouse—a three-
story building about
a half a block long—and I felt another pang of
apprehension as I
watched him drive off. It was possible for cars to pass
through the
gates into Avalon, but the driver would have to have an
Avalon visa to
be allowed through, so the best he could do was drop me.
Backpack over
one shoulder, I dragged my suitcase through a series of rat
mazes,
following the signs for visitors. Naturally, the lines for
residents
were all much shorter.
By the time I got to the head of the line, I
was
practically asleep on my feet, despite the anxiety. There
was a small
parking lot just past the checkpoint, and like at the
airport, I could
see people standing around there with placards. But as I
waited for the
customs official to stamp my passport, I still didn't see
my name on any
of them.
"One moment, miss," the customs official said,
after having
examined my passport for what seemed like about ten years.
I blinked in
confusion as he then walked away from his post, carrying
my passport.
My throat went dry as I saw him talk to a
tall, imposing
woman who wore a navy-blue uniform—and a gun and
handcuffs on her belt.
It went even drier when the official gestured at me and the
woman looked
in my direction. Sure enough, she started heading my way.
I saw that
the official had handed her my passport. This didn't seem
like a good
sign.
"Please come with me, Miss . . ." She opened
the passport
to check. "Hathaway." She had a weird accent, sort of
British, but not
quite. Meanwhile, the customs official gestured for the
next person in
line.
I had to step closer to the woman to avoid
getting trampled by the family of five that came up to the
desk behind me.
"Is there a problem?" I asked, and though I
tried to sound nonchalant, I think my voice shook.
She smiled, though the expression didn't reach
her eyes.
She also reached out and put her hand on my arm, leading me
toward a
key-carded door in the side of the building.
I tried to reach for the handle of my luggage,
but some guy
in a coverall got there before me. He slapped a neon
orange tag on it,
then hauled it off behind the official's desk.
I wondered if I should be making a scene. But
I decided that would just dig whatever hole I was in
deeper.
"Don't be afraid," the woman said, still
towing me toward the door. Well, I suppose she wasn't
really towing
me. Her touch on my arm was light, and it was more like
she was guiding
me. But I had the feeling that if I slowed down, it
wouldn't feel like
guiding anymore. "It's standard procedure here to conduct
interviews
with a certain percentage of our visitors." Her smile
broadened as she
swiped her key card. "It's just your lucky day."
I was now hitting stress and sleep-deprivation
overload,
and my eyes stung with tears. I bit the inside of my cheek
to try to
keep them contained. If this was just some kind of random
selection,
then why had the official looked at my passport for so
long? And why
hadn't my dad told me it was a possibility? I certainly
hadn't read
anything about it in the guide books.
I was led into a sterile gray office with
furniture that
looked like rejects from a college dorm and a funky smell
like wet wool.
The imposing woman gestured me into a metal folding chair,
then pulled a
much more comfortable-looking rolling chair out from
behind the desk.
She smiled at me again.
"My name's Grace," she said. I wasn't sure if
that was a
first or a last name. "I'm captain of the border patrol,
and I just need
to ask you a few questions about your visit to Avalon;
then you can be
on your way."
I swallowed hard. "Okay," I said. Like I had a
choice.
Grace leaned over and pulled a little spiral-
bound notebook
from one of the desk drawers, then readied an intricately
carved silver
pen over the paper. I guess the Fae aren't big on using
Bics.
"What is the purpose of your visit to Avalon?"
she asked.
Well, duh. I'm sixteen years old—I'm not
here on a business trip. "I'm here to visit with
family."
She jotted that down, then looked at me over
the top of the notebook. "Aren't you a little young to be
traveling unaccompanied?"
I sat up straighter in my chair. Yeah, okay, I
was only sixteen, but that's not that
young. I was old enough to balance the checkbook, pay the
bills, and
drive my mother around when she was too drunk to be allowed
behind the
wheel. Grace's eyes flashed with amusement as I bristled,
and I managed
to tamp down my reaction before I spoke.
"Someone was supposed to meet me at the
airport," I said,
though that wasn't really an answer to her question. "No
one showed up,
so I just took a taxi. My father's supposed to meet me when
I get
through customs."
Grace nodded thoughtfully, scribbling
away. "What is your father's name?"
"Seamus Stuart."
"Address?"
"Er, 25 Ashley Lane." I was glad I'd bothered
to ask for his address before showing up. I hadn't really
known I'd need it.
"Was he in the parking area? I can ask him to
come in if you'd like."
"Um, I've actually never met him, so I don't
know if he was
there or not." I hoped I wasn't blushing. I don't know why
I found the
fact that I'd never met my father embarrassing, but I
did.
She scribbled some more. I wondered how she
could possibly
be writing so much. It wasn't like I was telling her my
life's history.
And why would the border patrol need to know all this crap?
I'd had to
answer most of these questions when I'd applied for my
visa.
"Am I going to get my luggage back?" I asked,
too nervous to sit there and be quiet.
"Of course, dear," she said with another of
those insincere smiles.
Just then, the door to the office opened. The
guy in the
coverall who'd taken my luggage popped his head in and
waited for
Grace's attention. She looked up at him with an arched
eyebrow.
"It's confirmed," he said.
For the first time, Grace's smile looked
entirely genuine.
"What's confirmed?" I asked, the genuine smile
for some reason freaking me out even more than the fake
one.
"Why, your identity, dear. It seems you really
are Seamus Stuart's daughter."
My jaw dropped. "How did you confirm
that?"
"Allow me to introduce myself properly," she
said instead
of answering. "My full name is Grace Stuart." Her smile
turned
positively impish. "But you may call me 'Aunt Grace.'"
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