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Previous SFF Author: Ralston Shields

SFF Author: Sharon Shinn

book review Sharon Shinn(1957- )
Sharon Shinn is a journalist who has written for The Professional Photographer, DECOR, and BizEd. She writes fantasy in the evenings and on weekends and has won numerous awards for her novels. Learn more at Sharon Shinn’s website.


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The Shape-Changer’s Wife: A beautiful fairytale romance

The Shape-Changer’s Wife by Sharon Shinn

Aubrey is a young wizard, apprenticed to Glynrenden, the most powerful shape-changer in the land. Aubrey wants to learn all of his magical secrets, but instead discovers a mystery surrounding the shape-changer’s wife, Lilith, which may change everything Aubrey has ever known.

The Shape-Changer’s Wife is a beautiful fairytale romance, with a haunting, slightly creepy undertone. Glynrenden is a menacing character, and Shinn does a wonderful job of eliciting a sense of dread during his interactions with the other characters.


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Archangel: A grand sweeping love story

Archangel by Sharon Shinn

Gabriel is about to become Archangel. He is required to lead the annual singing of the Gloria on the Plains of Sharon in just a few months with his wife, the angelica, at his side. There is just one problem: Gabriel isn’t married. Faced with this dilemma, he goes to the oracle to find out who he is supposed to marry, and is given the name of a woman, Rachel, but he has no idea where to find her. With the months slipping away before his voice raised in song is the only thing that can turn away the wrath of the god Jovah,


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and ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

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Jovah’s Angel: Intelligent character-driven fantasy

Jovah’s Angel by Sharon Shinn

Set about 150 years after Archangel, Jovah’s Angel returns to the world of the Samaria books to find a new set of problems besieging the land. Terribly destructive storms are wracking the land, and the angels, who for hundreds of years have been able to intercede with the god Jovah for protection, can no longer work their magic. When one particularly bad storm hurls the Archangel Delilah to the ground, breaking her wing and leaving her no longer capable of flight,


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The Alleluia Files: Beautifully written, emotionally compelling

The Alleluia Files by Sharon Shinn

Set one hundred years after Jovah’s Angel, rumors are abounding that Alleluia had discovered the truth about the god Jovah — that he is actually a large spaceship orbiting the planet. While these ideas are declared heretical, a small cult has sprung up around finding the files Alleluia is said to have left behind. The Jacobites are declared criminals, and the Archangel Bael brutally suppresses their existence. But there are enough people believing the rumors that Bael can’t stop them all,


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Angelica: SFF with a strong romantic streak

Angelica by Sharon Shinn

The settlers of Samaria were brought there from a distant world, cupped in the hands of their God. Jovah settled them on this harsh land where they could find a new start far away the technology that had torn their old war apart, and then blessed them with angels — winged messengers to intercede with Jovah on the mortals’ behalf. Now, a few hundred years after settlement, the Archangel Gaaron has three problems.

First, he has to convince the Edori woman Susannah to be his bride and the titular Angelica,


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Summers at Castle Auburn: A lovely YA romance

Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn

Summers at Castle Auburn (2001) was my first exposure to Sharon Shinn‘s fantasies, and it was pretty much insta-love for me (I like to think that Shinn returns my affections in a distant and anonymous fan-appreciation kind of way). It instantly set me off on a search for more of her books.

Corie is the teenaged illegitimate daughter of a nobleman who died before the story begins, but the royal family is still keeping close tabs on her.


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and ´s rating: | | , | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

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The Safe-Keeper’s Secret: Interesting idea, weak plot

The Safe-Keeper’s Secret by Sharon Shinn

Safe-Keepers can be trusted to never reveal a secret. So it’s no surprise that when a royal bastard needs to be hidden, a Safe-Keeper would be the logical place to hide the child. When the royal messenger who left the infant in the dark of night with the Safe-Keeper is found dead by his own hand a few miles away, the secret identity of the baby boy who was left behind becomes more of an open secret in the village. The Safe-Keeper decides to raise the child with her own daughter who was also born that night.


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The Truth-Teller’s Tale: Shinn is a beautiful writer

The Truth-Teller’s Tale  by Sharon Shinn

Adele is a Safe-Keeper, physiologically incapable of sharing a secret. Her twin sister Eleda is a Truth-Teller, incapable of telling a lie. From the young age of 12, these sisters assume positions of responsibility in their town, but what happens when they get dragged into royal intrigue and the indiscretions of the most powerful family in town?

The Truth-Teller’s Tale, the second book in the SAFE-KEEPERS series by Sharon Shinn,


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Mystic and Rider: A mystified, riderless horse…

Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn

Like a mystified and riderless horse, Sharon Shinn’s fantasy novel Mystic & Rider gallops to the point of fatigue and frustration. This conclusion is especially unfortunate in light of the excellent opening chapter. But buyer beware: the tension and excitement rarely increase from that point, and the last of the 440 pages brings us little closer to some kind of resolution or revelation than the first. Rather, the entire novel is simply a prologue for the rest of the series.

The novel’s plot is perfectly plain.


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Quatrain: Sensitive, beautiful writing with a touch of romance

Quatrain by Sharon Shinn

Quatrain is a collection of four novellas, each one set in a different one of Sharon Shinn’s worlds. Ranging from fantasy to science fiction, the stories take place in radically different societies, but each novella is a different look at a person trying to find their own place in a world that is not to their liking. Each main character ends up examining their own priorities and their desire to find love and happiness in less than ideal situations. The varied responses to those dilemmas are as different as the characters and the worlds they are set in.


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Troubled Waters: A book that just feels good

Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn

Zoe Ardelay has spent the last 12 years living in exile and poverty with her father. She’s known that her father, a member of the Five Families that help rule Welce under the king’s guidance, used to be King Vernon’s top advisor, but then fell out of favor and was forced to leave the capital city and seek refuge in a distant village. Now, stricken with grief at her father’s passing, she is shocked to see an expensive coach pull into the village, and an unknown stranger step down,


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, and ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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Royal Airs: Not as good as Troubled Waters

Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn

Royal Airs is the second book in Sharon Shinn’s ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS series. I loved the first book, Troubled Waters, which was a light romantic fantasy that told the story of Zoe Ardelay, a young woman who was brought to the royal court of Welce to be the fifth wife of its king. She discovered that she had power over the element of water and, using the personality traits that her water spirit gave her, she successfully navigated the dangers of the court and found true love.


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Jeweled Fire: Court intrigue and a murder mystery mark a return to form for this series

Jeweled Fire by Sharon Shinn

Jeweled Fire is the third book in Sharon Shinn’s ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS fantasy series, each one of which focuses on a different young woman. Corene, a secondary character in the previous books, is a strong-willed and fiery young woman (purely sweela, or fire, for those readers who recall the elemental influences that are presumed to govern personalities in Welce), one of four princesses of Welce who were in contention for the throne. Due to events that occurred in the second book,


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´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

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Unquiet Land: A redemptive story of parental love

Unquiet Land by Sharon Shinn

In Unquiet Land, Sharon Shinn’s fourth book in her ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS fantasy series, the story returns to the country of Welce, the setting for the first two books in this series. Leah, who was introduced to readers in the third book, Jeweled Fire, lived in the country of Malinqua for five years, helping Darien Serlast, the ruler of Welce, by acting as a spy and, for the last few months of her stay,


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´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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The Shape of Desire: Big disappointment

The Shape of Desire by Sharon Shinn

Maria is madly in love with Dante. It doesn’t matter that he is a shapeshifter, spending longer and longer periods away from her in animal form. Maria’s motto is “you can’t choose who you love,” and she loves Dante, regardless of the increasingly brief moments of time they can spend together as humans. But when mysterious animal attacks start claiming lives close to home, does her love for Dante put her own life at risk?

Oh my holy hand grenades barf.

I love Sharon Shinn.


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and ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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Shattered Warrior: Tale’s too familiar but artwork shines

Shattered Warrior written by Sharon Shinn &  illustrated by Molly Knox Ostertag

Shattered Warrior (2017) is a new graphic novel written by Sharon Shinn and illustrated by Molly Knox Ostertag. The artwork is excellent, but as far as plot, it’s an overly familiar one and, as usual for me with graphic novels (fair warning), neither story nor characters are rich enough for my deep engagement.

The story is set on a human world conquered years ago by an alien race (the Derichet) and mostly wholly subjugated,


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Next SFF Author: Lauren Shippen
Previous SFF Author: Ralston Shields

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