I really like Shinn's Samaria series, so I had high hopes, perhaps too high, for her new young adult novels. ( )

YA - wise woman fantasy, to oversimplify - original - I'm not actually a fantasy fan but picked these up in the library because they looked more like fairy tales but I was blown away. ( )

Cute YA, faux-medieval coming of age story. ( )

Highly recommended for anyone who loves mythic fiction and fairy tales. Like many books in this genre, this was marketed as YA, but is really a book for all ages - at no point did I feel that it was 'juvenile' in any way, although it does have a definite 'coming-of-age' theme.

Set in a rural (English? Medieval?) village, it posits a world where each village has a Safe-Keeper and a Truth-Teller, and somewhere, in the world, there is a Dream-Maker.
Fiona's mother is a Safe-Keeper - a person whom everyone entrusts with their secrets, who is bound never to tell them, no matter what - and Fiona desires nothing more than to follow in her footsteps. However, the local Truth-Teller - a person who is similarly honor-bound to say nothing but the truth, and to tell even the hard and difficult truths - tells her that such is not her destiny.

Beautifully written and emotionally satisfying, the novel follows Fiona and her family through hard times and hard decisions.

There are two sequels to this book, but this works as a stand-alone novel, complete in itself. ( )

This was a quick, fun read. I enjoyed the book from page 1. ( )