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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 14 Nov 2008
While tending to the saint's shrine in the woods near her house one November day, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Dyer comes across a Green Girl.
Isabella Leland's bones have been at rest in the human world for the past three hundred years, while the rest of her has lived among the Crow People. The world in which she wakes is very different from the one Isabelle once knew. A Protestant queen now resides on the throne and practitioners of Catholicism, like Elizabeth and her family, have been forced into practicing their faith in shadow, lest they jailed or even worse.
The stakes are raised when Elizabeth's older brother secrets an exiled priest from Oxford into the Dyer home for safekeeping. With Queen Elizabeth's priest-hunting spy (Kit Merrivale) hovering about the estate of Spirit Hill, where Elizabeth serves the Lady Catherine Melibourne, returning home to aide her family becomes impossible. Elizabeth has no choice but to ask for help from mysterious Isabelle, who has ventured beyond the forest in search of her new friend.
Both girls must reach out to overcome the threats and fears inherent to life as outsiders, if they want to survive this ordeal.
I thoroughly enjoyed OUT OF THE SHADOWS. Sarah Singleton seamlessly mixes folklore, history, and theology without once sacrificing character or plot development. Ms. Singleton gives the perfect amount of detail in all three subjects so we're never overwhelmed by too much information.
While the greater themes of acceptance, worlds of larger possibilities, life as an individual on the fringes of acceptable society, and trust resonate throughout the text, the heart of this novel is a friendship between its two young girls and the loneliness it fills.
Reviewed by: Cat
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Fab book, but a word of warning, 4 Dec 2009
Sarah Singleton is one of my favourite authors. Although her books are aimed at young adults they can easily be enjoyed by people who are much older. And, OUT OF THE SHADOWS may just have one of my favourite openings for a book ever. The first chapter, which describes Isabella as she is beginning to wake up from her sleep of many hundreds of years, is simply enchanting. Yet, this fairytale-like opening to the book belies the punch of the subject matter.
The book is set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a time when tensions between Catholics and Protestants was at its highest. Isabella Leland has spent the last 300 years within the faery world. On the day that she awakes, she is discovered by another young girl, Elizabeth. Each child has experienced persecution in their own way and so they must come together to try and prevent their lives ending in tragedy.
That is a very brief synopsis. Obviously, I have missed out any details which would spoil it for future readers of the book. What I love about this offering by Singleton is how her writing has the ability to take you to another place, which in some ways feels familiar because it is drawn on our own country's history, yet she is also able to add the extra bit of magic which then turns it into something else. And, although there are faeries in this book, there is also a strong backbone to the plot in the exploration of persecution.
One final word of warning, however. This book is basically the same as HERERTIC, also by the same author. The title has been changed and there are some changes to the chapters, but essentially they are one and the same. One was released in America, I believe, and the other over here in England.
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