Flicker by Kaye Thornbrugh – a Review

Flicker by Kaye Thornbrugh is her debut novel, which is considered YA Urban Fantasy. 

Book Description:
When sixteen-year-old artist Lee Capren is spirited away to Faerie and forced to serve capricious faeries as a prized portrait artist… and live as their prisoner.

With the help of Nasser, a charming Seer with magical powers, Lee escapes to a sprawling city where supernatural creatures walk hidden among humans—but what felt like days in Faerie spanned years back home, and Lee’s old life is utterly gone.

Joining a rag-tag group of teenage Seers and beguiling creatures, Lee discovers powers she never knew she had—and feelings for Nasser she never imagined she could feel after all she’s lost. But when a mysterious and cunning faery threatens all their lives, she learns just how far she’ll go to save those she cares about: through the city’s supernatural underworld, and into another world entirely.

Review:
We meet the heroine of the book right from the start.  Lee Capren is a 16 year old girl, who loves to draw, and does not socialize much, and even alienates her one friend.  Lee takes a walk into the woods after her argument with her friend, and her mother.  She steps into an unseen realm of the fey.

Filo Shine and Nasser meet up, while Nasser is looking for his brother, Jason.  Once close friends, Nasser and Filo only talk when necessary.  But Nasser needed to find Jason, and asked Filo for help.   Later Nasser steps into the Fey realm to look for his brother.  Nasser, being a seer, has enough magic to prevent the Fey from reaching out to him.  It is there, that Nasser sees the beautiful young girl, totally out of it, drawing all kinds of designs.  Something about the girl attracts Nasser.  He tries to take the girl away, as he knows she is human.  But Byrony, a drayad, stops him, but a deal is made to allow Nasser to take the girl.  Something that will come back to haunt them later on.

When Lee is taken by Nasser to stay temporarily with Filo, to keep her safe, she doesn’t understand why she can’t go home.  She finds out, though it takes her time to believe it, that in what she thinks is only a short time, perhaps an hour or two has passed, Lee discovers 7 years have passed.  Fey time moves faster then the human world.

I have to admit, in the beginning of this book, the story went back and forth between first Lee, then to Filo, then to Nasser, and I found it somewhat confusing.  It really wasn’t until all of them came together, that I found the story to start get interesting. 

I found myself liking Lee a lot.  Wheras, Filo and Nasser had the sight and magic, Lee did not. But she did have some ability for magic, as seen in her drawings.  Filo, though not happy that Lee was there early on, gives her books to read on learning how to use magic.   

Kaye Thornbrug creates a different world, with faeries and the creatures that they are.  But what I find very well done, is the characters that she has created.  They are mostly likable, developed characters.  I enjoyed Lee; Filo at first was annoying, but he got better; Nasser was a nice guy from the start, and you knew he and Lee would be a pair, keep in mind, in the first book at least, there is no romance at all; Jason was a nice guy, who also did not have the sight, but like Lee, he had some magic and his talent was music; then there was Alice, who grew up with the three guys, and also left Filo, like Nasser and Jason.   I really like Alice, and she has potential to be a great character.  Alice has magic, and the sight, as much as Filo and Nasser.   Very good characters that you end up caring about by Thornbrug.

We get to see some of the Faerie world, as they play a huge part of the story, but more so in the eyes of the 5 above and Byrony, the dryad, who is out to get them.  We also get to see two faeries (Morgan and Neman), that own Filo, and how they have taken care of him all his life.  We see their cruel, and at times (not often) nice side, and their treatment of Filo & humans.  We also get a nice look at Umbriel, the faerie prince, who kept Lee for 7 years (or 1 hour in her mind), as a pet, but he was at least nice, and very handsome. 

The last third of the book was very well done, adventure, action, and an exciting climax.  Lee was my favorite character, and I would like to see how she matures in future books, and I also would like to see more of Alice, not to mention Filo, Nasser and Jason.  They made a nice team.  Kaye Thornbrugh did a good job with this world building, and her characters.  I did feel the book was slow and somewhat confusing early, switching back and forth.  But once the team came together, it turned out to be a good book. 

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Author