The Return of the Key - By Alisha Nurse

    

Hey everyone! This is a new novel I was kindly asked to review based on fey lore but with a completely new and original take on these magical creatures that I loooove!

The main character is Eliza Aurelio (great name!) who feels like an outcast and has never fit in because she is mixed race *awwwwwh*. The book starts with one of her 'premonitions', a talent that have haunted the women of her family for generations (tad bit creeps), that she has repeatedly been having for a couple of weeks. Then her and her beloved grandmother are sent to England by her grandfather for their safety (LOL - the irony). Here she becomes automatic best friends with the outgoing and spirited Gwen! But Gwen has a secret. Quelle surprise! Gwen is seen as a bit of an odd fellow when everyone calls her dead mum a witch, which is not far from the truth because she was fey! *Gasp* These two become ultimately connected when Eliza is taken into the land of the Fey by use of the 'Key' which she must return because she is 'The Chosen One' *double take on Eliza*.
Naturally, she meets a completely hot fey who is her instant crush, Arden, and a good friend who is her crush's cousin, Arrae. 
I've got to say, I do love the names in this book, but mostly, I love the moral. Eliza learns to overcome her personal fears that were installed into her from a young age, one of the hardest missions to accomplish. During her time in Annwn (faeryland), she is also discriminated against because she is a human! Her character is inspiring and is narrated very well. She doesn't just come out of her shell, she obliterates it!

Talk of a Series

I believe this is not a stand-alone novel and will be part of a series as Alisha has confirmed! Whoop whoop! I absolutely cannot wait! 

'The Return of the Key' Synopsis:

'16 year old Eliza Aurelio grapples with her mixed race identity amid rising racial tensions on her little island. For their safety, Eliza’s grandfather sends her and her grandmother to a quiet town in Southwest England to stay with a relative. But this otherwise quiet town has been turned upside down by people mysteriously disappearing. Eliza eventually encounters a magical but dangerous realm accessible through a doorway in the town, and sees its connection to the abductions. She intends to put things right, only wanting to protect her family. To do this, she must return a stolen key to lock the open doorway. But Eliza has to overcome her own inner conflicts if she is to stand any chance of being successful and leaving the other realm alive.'

'Angelfire' Series - by Courtney Allison Moulton

First book in 'Angelfire'

Okay, so I bought this book on a complete whim because I was bored and it was the first one I came across on Goodreads. So my advice to everyone? Buy books on whims more often! 'I found the greeaateest whim of all' (pun intended) because this ended up being one of my favourite series!

This series is about a girl called Ellie having a normal/not life with nightmares and a dad who is extremely rude to her when, surprise surprise, she is approached by a hot, intense, weird guy called Will who follows her and pulls her into his world after they are attacked on her 17th birthday. Everything pretty much just goes berzerk for her after that. 
The secrets he keeps interests me and make me want to skip ahead to find them already! The whole series is like one big cliffhanger and you just can't guess what's going to happen next! This is not your typical fallen Angel series with new characters and completely different ideals (apart from the fall of Lucifer). 

Books in the Angelfire series:

0.5 novella - A Dance With Darkness
1st book - Angelfire 
2nd book - Wings of the Wicked
3rd book - Shadows in the Silence

'Angelfire' synopsis:

'First there are nightmares.
Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.
Then come the memories.
When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.
Now she must hunt.
Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.'