She couldn't fly, and she was no warrior - she had no weapon, and she wasn't even brave. Where could she go? She knew nothing of the world beyond her island. What would she do? She couldn't go home - the devils had found them there. It didn't look like much, a small seed of fire, but devils would kill for it, her grandparents had died for it, and the world depended on it. The teakettle had rolled onto its side in the sand and she stared at it, unblinking. Tears glistened in Whisper's lashes but didn't fall, and ashes caught there and clumped. (And the romance between them is so gently done!) The book opens with Magpie taking on a challenge. Magpie is back, the feisty champion from the first book, with her friend Talon. We meet new fairies with wonderful new magical abilities, whose clans have long and storied histories, all wound and interwoven together. Not that she doesn't show us more surprising and imaginative details of that world. The world is already built (Yes, I think you should read Blackbringer first.), so now she can get down to the business of weaving a glorious tale. In this book, Laini Taylor weaves together six or seven different plotlines in a beautiful tapestry rivaling the carpets of the Silksingers.

Laini Taylor built an intricate world of feisty fairies and told a tale of a young fairy becoming a champion and saving the world.

I thought that the first Dreamdark book, Blackbringer, was excellent. Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #6 Fantasy Teen Fiction Putnam's Sons, Penguin Young Readers Group, September 2009.

Faeries of dreamdark