Sorrow’s Son (Crossroads of Worlds #2)

The second installment to Sears’s Crossroads of Worlds contemporary fantasy series (after Strangehold) is just as enjoyable as the first. After the events of Strangehold, in which the Savannah Flu devastated the human spellcaster population, Javier, an orphaned 16-year-old spellcaster, searches for fellow human magicians, but he’s afraid of encountering the faeries his dead father loathed. Javier’s loneliness is intensified by the loss of most of the other spellcasters in the world, but he’s befriended by spellcasters Morgan Tenpenny and her teenage twin nieces Igraine and Iliesa. The twins’ father is missing and Javier decides to help them look for him in the faery world, despite his father’s warnings about the unpredictability of faeries. Sears’s prose can capture the imagination (one creature has “a great silver eye whirling gently, faintly chased with blue”), and the unusual settings, such as the ethereal Strangehold, add to an already rich world. Readers will look forward to the next book in the series. (BookLife)