Alison Pensy - The Emerald Staff

The Emerald Staff
A Custodian Novel



By Alison Pensy


Kindle Edition Available

Product Description (from Amazon)

Publication Date: April 22, 2011

Faedra was enjoying the fact that everything was back to normal, well as normal as it could get when you had the ability to manipulate energy, were protector of an ancient Fae amulet, and lived with a fairy guardian 24/7. Her dad had even started dating. Yes, all was right again in Faedra’s world, or so she thought…

About the Author (from Amazon)

Alison was born and raised in England and grew up near a medieval city called Norwich, which is where much of the inspiration for her young adult books comes from. She has traveled extensively and the experiences and inspiration gained from that are priceless. 
Moving to the States in 2001, Alison started out in California, but the pace of life for a country girl was overwhelming and she eventually settled near a small town in mid Missouri with her menagerie of animals.
Alison also runs a tax and accounting business, which keeps her very busy during the day and especially for the first few months of the year where she goes into "headless chicken" mode.
Alison started writing a few years ago when she became so fed up with the real world, she decided to create her own. 
Alison also writes adult romance under the pen name Adrianna Blakeley.

O.Scarlett! REVIEW by Kendra

After I reviewed book 1 of the Custodian Novels, The Amulet, the author found my review and asked if I would like to read and review the next two books as well. I agreed, and she sent them to me.

Unfortunately, that was about the time that my life went crazy, so it's taken me a lot longer than I would have liked to get around to reviewing.

The book begins a few months after The Amulet, Faedra has begun to settle back into her life as the custodian, and has almost gained control of her Energy-manipulation power. All is going well, Faen, her Guardian and boyfriend, has started college with her, and her father has even started dating again!

She hasn't met the lucky lady yet, but her dad says that she'll be at the approaching Halloween party that they're hosting. Faedra is delighted … until the lady walks in the door. Turns out, it's the woman who killed her mother, and tried to kill Faedra in book one. Let's just say, Faedra takes exception.

Trying to control her energy power and not reveal to the whole party that she's not a normal human, she goes outside with Faen to blow some steam. However, Mr. Bennet and the girlfriend soon follow them and the girlfriend forces him to do a big reveal – he's not Faedra's real dad. Then she makes her dramatic exit, Mr. Bennet in tow. She leaves behind a black stone with a red dot in the center. If Faedra doesn't turn herself in before the stone is completely red, well let's just say she won't like the consequences.

Faedra decides to see if there's any way to rescue him. She travels back to the Faerie world and discovers that the only way of tracking her father's kidnapper is to find the Emerald Staff … which belongs to a dragon. Not only is finding him hard enough, but he won't give up the staff unless they return to him his only egg (which he lost in a bet when he was a younger dragon).

Overall, I liked this book. Tension was higher than the book before, but less mystery when it comes to the villain. There were many twists and turns, some of which I smelled coming, others caught me completely by surprise. The old characters are as charming as they were before, and the new ones were delightful. For the most part. There's one character that shows up at the end that's not so nice … but he was well done, nonetheless.

My one annoyance with this book was the fact that the main romance is a forbidden romance. It was fairly well done, and I already knew about it from the first book, so it wasn't so bad. Forbidden romances just annoy me, so no offense to the author. Also, one of the new characters, while he is charming, borders on the too charming. I liked him, felt sorry for him even (since he's the last of his kind), but I was slightly annoyed with him.

But apart from the romance, I really enjoyed the book. It's a very interesting twist on fairies, though not extremely radical.

Genre/Theme: Fantasy, Romance,

Reading Level:  TEEN - upper elementary to middle school 
Profanity:  LOW - few mildly offensive words 
Sexuality:  MILD - descriptions of affection/desire There's quite a bit of kissing between Faedra and Faen, and there's one character who's described as having “thought with what's in his pants”Other: Lots of fighting, especially with magic. Nothing graphic, though.