Review: Fractured

Book Two of the Guards of the Shadowlands
By Sarah Fine
Available now from Skyscape (Amazon Publishing)
Review copy

When tons of bloggers I trust, like Wendy Darling, were going crazy over SANCTUM last year, I knew I had to read it.  I agreed that it was one to love.  The writing was excellent and the plot a roller coaster.  Lela Santos was a fantastic heroine, devoted to her best friend and willing to go to great lengths to achieve her goals.  And the world was fantastic, an utterly believable afterlife.  FRACTURED takes the action back to our world, where the villainous Mazikin have started to recruit.

Lela's now in charge and trying to get used to setting the strategy.  She and her beau Malachi are joined by two new guards who were in a different afterlife.  All three of the boys are having trouble adjusting.  Malachi, for instance, has a great deal of fighting Mazikin, but not in the real world.  He's never had to worry about cops or killing people who weren't already dead.  Meanwhile Lela has to get back into the swing of being a regular high school student.  Due to the events of SANCTUM, she's a bit more popular now and unused to interacting that much with other people.  At the same time she's making friends - friends who can be used against her.

I thought I knew what to expect when I picked up FRACTURED, but I was wrong.  Sarah Fine takes the sequel in several unexpected directions.  Of course, the characters don't anticipate what's going to happen to them either, and it's terrific.  There was one twist I really didn't like that thankfully resolved before the novel was over.  Unfortunately, I think Fine was buttering me up for the shocking ending.  Lela's journey definitely isn't over.

I absolutely cannot wait for the third book.  I have no idea how Fine is going to resolve the mess her characters are in, but I have no doubt she's going to do it with flair.  I just adore her characters, and I really hope Lela and Malachi somehow manage to live happily ever after.  SANCTUM and FRACTURED are true underrated gems.  I know most bookstores don't carry Amazon Publishing books, but this is one worth asking to get special ordered.