Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

First review of the year. First book of 12 read for the 2009 Young Adult Book Challenge. And what a great way to start out the year.

Kelley is an aspiring actress, an understudy in an off-off Broadway production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The leading actress breaks her ankle and Kelley has to step into the lead role of Titania, the fairy queen. That’s the only reason she’s thinking of faeries.

Sonny is a changeling, stolen by the fae when just a child and raised by Auberon, the winter king, himself. He is now a Janus guard, sworn to protect the gate between the mortal realm and the Otherworld when it opens once a year. This gate is in Central Park, where, by chance, he meets Kelley, to whom he is drawn, can’t seem to forget, but who absolutely doesn’t believe the stories he tells about who she is (she laughs at him - well, wouldn't you? OK, so I need a little reality in my fantasy!)

This year, something different is in the air, something dangerous. And Sonny and Kelley can’t help but be pulled right into its midst.

I think it’s the theater scenes that give this book an originality that separates it from many others about the fae and it’s darker than you’d expect. It’s part mystery, mythology, adventure, and romance rolled into one and, once started, was impossible to put down.