Alison Pensy - The Amulet

The Amulet
A Faedra Bennet Custodian Novel


By Alison Pensy



Kindle Edition Available


Product Description (from Amazon) 

To seventeen-year-old Faedra, faeries were nothing more than the figurines she collected and displayed in her curio cabinet. She was in for the surprise of her life.

Faedra had no idea that faeries controlled nature, and with a book no less. Nor did she know that her ancestors had protected an ancient fae amulet for thousands of years. An amulet that if ever was reunited with the book would give the wearer power to control the weather, too. She didn’t know all this because the one person to teach her died when she was just six years old. Well, now it was time for her to find out…

A letter from the grave reveals her true identity the day of her eighteenth birthday. But she barely has time to digest the revelation when she is plunged into a fight for her life and that of mankind.

The 2nd Custodian Novel, The Emerald Staff is now available on Kindle

About the Author (from Amazon)

Alison Pensy was born and raised in England. She grew up near a medieval city, which is where much of the inspiration for her books comes from. Moving to the States in 2001, she eventually settled near a small town in mid Missouri with her menagerie of animals. Alison also runs her own tax and accounting business, and started writing when she became so fed up with the real world, she decided to create her own. Please visit her blog at www.alisonpensy.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from her readers, so feel free to leave comments or ask questions.

O.Scarlett! REVIEW by Kendra


The description of this book intrigued me. I’ve always had an interest in fairies, and so I had my mom send it to my Kindle so that I could read it. When it got there, I pulled it up and started to read.

 First off, I loved the “once upon a time,” beginning. Now, I understand that many people find that sort of thing boring and uninteresting, but I love a good “once upon a time,” and this book did a really good one. And I loved Faedra’s name. Faedra … it’s so … fairy-like. And Bennet reminded me of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which happens to be the sort of romance story I like.

Also, I enjoyed how the “letter from the grave” worked out. I must admit, I had had my apprehensions, but, as it turned out, the letter was more of an, “emergency backup plan in case I die before my daughter turns 18” that the mother had already written before she had died. Or, at least, that’s how I understood it from the text, and, had I not read “letter from the grave” in the book description, I would have had no cause to suspect that the mother had written it after her death.

But the description could have warned me about the romance! The moment Faedra’s love interest appeared in his true form and his physical description was given … well, it was obvious that he would be her love interest. And it went way too fast, despite several comments that neither realized they were falling in love. On his end, it was believable … but hers …

And, I learned by reading the sneak peek chapter from book 2, it’s a forbidden romance. Personally, I believe forbidden romances are overdone and cliché. I had been hoping that the man would be as he was supposed to be, her guardian. Sort of a second father figure, or maybe an older brother.

But, no, he had to be a love interest.

I digress.

I liked his younger sister, however. She is probably my favorite character in the books, but I can’t tell you why, exactly. She’s spunky, and sort of a tease, sweet, yet strong at the same time.

Romance aside, let’s examine the plot.

The plot took a while to build up. There were tons of mysteries, such as why Faedra’s hands had started randomly heating up, and what those strange eyes were in the forest that spooked her horse, and what about the fairy-shaped birthmark on the back of her neck? The mysteries built up until her eighteenth birthday comes around and they are all explained.

Then she has a birthday party where she is attacked by some redcaps - troll-like creatures.

So she goes to the Fae world with her Guardian and his younger sister to tell the Fae king. Turns out an important magic book has been stolen and the three have to go rescue it, along with the king’s daughter who was also kidnapped.

If it weren’t for all the romance at this point, I would have completely loved it. It is fast paced, though completely logical, and full of twists and turns, some of which I did not see coming.

So, while this isn’t on my list of top ten best books I ever read, I did enjoy it, and will probably read its two sequels if I can get my hands on them.


Note: While I didn’t care for the romance, most teen girls would, so don’t listen to me there if you actually like romance.

Genre/Theme: fantasy, fairies, romance

Reading Level: TEEN - upper elementary to middle school
Profanity:  NONE - no offensive language as far as I can remember.
Sexuality:  SUBTLE - hinted, but not explicit (some kissing.) Rape is hinted at.
Other: There is a bunch of fighting, particularly fighting with magic.  There is some drinking at Faedra’s eighteenth birthday, and she gets somewhat tipsy.