REVIEW: Fairy RIng (Shards Of Janderelle) By Jacque Stevens

#1 New Release in Teen & Young Adult Depression Fiction eBooks (Sept 2017)

Fourteen-year-old Livy’s best friends just happen to be fairies.

With them, she defeats snow monsters and discovers lost treasure, running wild through her apartment complex. Game after endless game. That’s how it works with fairies. They might be illusions, but they helped her cope when her father walked out, leaving her to care for her drug-addicted mother alone.

Then Child Protective Services swoops in, sending Livy to live with her father, but that doesn’t stop the fairies from tagging along. The illusions that helped her in the past now cause nothing but trouble—preluding fires in chemistry and sword fights in gym. It isn’t any wonder her stepmother thinks she’s crazy, maybe even on drugs like her mother. Forced into therapy, Livy tries to conform to her new life. But when the military precision of her stepmother’s household becomes too much, she crosses the fairy ring to a dream world where her imagination can run free again.

Her scars transfer from one world to the other. So does a death. With her family ready to have her committed, Livy must unravel the truth behind her so-called schizophrenic delusions before they take another life—hers.

Fairy Ring: Shards of Janderelle is a darkly humorous and magical tale with elements of A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness), Calvin: A Novel (Martine Leavitt), and other young adult stories that blend the borders of contemporary fantasy and psychology. It explores teenage/family drama, mental illness, and a fantasy world that might be too good to be true.

Clean Read. References to mental illness, substance abuse, and other more serious issues. Recommended for young adults and teens twelve and up.

Other Books by Jacque Stevens:

Stone Bearers:
0.The Stone Bearers (2016)
0.5. The Frog’s Princess (2016)
1.The Queen’s Opal (2017)
2.The Queen’s Gift (Coming 2018)
3.The Queen’s Heir (Coming 2018)

Please Note: The Queen’s Opal is Book One. The Stone Bearers is a standalone novel that can be read before or after the full series.
The short story, The Frog’s Princess, can also be read in any order. Find it in The Fantastic Worlds Anthology (2016) or have a free digital copy delivered to you after signing up for my email list at sjacquebooks.com. Those on my email list will receive monthly emails with updates on deals, review opportunities for new releases, and other exclusive content.

Fairy Ring:
1.Fairy Ring: Shards of Janderelle (2017)
2.Fairy Ring: Changeling of Janderelle (Coming 2018)

Others:
Winter Falls: A Tale of the Snow Queen (2017)

This is one amazing author. I have read several of her books and I have read every single one always loving them. She creates this amazing world in each of her books and it just pulls you in and you cant stop reading them.

This is a wonderful empathetic adventure, following the way Livy copes with her hard life. It's great to see how Livy grows up, learns to stand up for herself, and learns to see outside of herself to help others. There are some tough ideas (divorce, mental illness, suspicion of drug use) that are covered, but they are handled with care.

Even though they are pretty weighty topics, I feel this is a great book for teens to be introduced to the idea that some of their peers might be struggling with some hard things in life.

This book is extremely well written, to the extent that the reader often wonders what is reality and what is fantasy and if the fantasy is really fantasy. It is also the type of book that makes you dwell on it long after it is finished. It highlights important issues and would be a great bookclub book for teenagers.

5 stars

Jacque Stevens wrote her first novel as a stress relief activity during nursing school. Now as a fulltime nurse working in mental and developmental health, she continues to write stories filled with elves, fairies, and all things awesome.

Jacque lives in Utah, so yes, she has a huge extended family and occasionally eats green jello, but does not yet own a minivan.

New friends, enemies, and wandering visitors from cyberspace can contact Jacque here:

sjacquebooks.com or sjacquebooks(at)gmail.com