Hello there guys!!
Today I'm super excited to be part of the Blog Tour for Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond! I adored Girl on a Wire and I've loved every Gwenda Bond I've read and this one was no exception!
I need more Cirque Americana books and soon!
Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond
(Girl on a Wire #2)
Published by: Skyscape
Publication date: July 5th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Eighteen-year-old Moira Mitchell grew up in the shadows of Vegas’s stage lights while her father’s career as a magician soared. More than anything, Moira wants to be a magician too, but her father is dead set against her pursuing magic.When an invitation to join the Cirque American mistakenly falls into Moira’s possession, she takes action. Instead of giving the highly coveted invitation to its intended recipient, Raleigh, her father’s handsome and worldly former apprentice, Moira takes off to join the Cirque. If she can perform alongside its world-famous acts, she knows she’ll be able to convince her dad that magic is her future.
But when Moira arrives, things take on an intensity she can’t control as her stage magic suddenly feels like…real magic. To further distract her, Raleigh shows up none too pleased at Moira’s presence, all while the Cirque’s cocky and intriguing knife thrower, Dez, seems to have it out for her. As tensions mount and Moira’s abilities come into question, she must decide what’s real and what’s an illusion. If she doesn’t sort it out in time, she may forever remain a girl in the shadows.
REVIEW
Girl in the Shadows is the second book in the Cirque American and both builds on what we knew about the Cirque and the characters we met in Girl on a Wire and takes it in a new direction with a new plot and new main characters.
When we meet Moira she's ready to prove herself but it doesn't go as she wanted, and she ends up defying her father in a rather spectacular way and joins the Cirque!
I liked Moira a lot because she's brave and extremely motivated, she loves what she does but she is not ruthless or backstabbing with competition. She's secretive and that's not always very good for friendships or other relationships, but for the most part, she had a point when secret keeping.
I loved her work with magic and escapism and her drive and love for magic reminded me of Jules' love for walking the wire in book 1. She had quite a few unexpected surprises and revelations and she managed to handle them all pretty well, given what a shocker some of them were!
The moment we met Dez and Moira used the word "rakish" for his smile and attitude... well, I was 100% sold on him! I liked that there was quite a lot more to him that we might have thought at first, and he might not have been entirely trustworthy, but for different reasons than one might suspect upon first meeting. I called it pretty soon with his allegiance but it didn't bother me that Moira didn't suspect as I did, since she was too close and with too many things to worry about.
I loved that we see the relationship between Jules & Remy progress once established, even if it's more in the background, and I loved that Nan and Dita and the rest of the Cirque crew that I loved from the first book still were relevant and part of the story and very much on the forefront of the story at times.
Moira's story has quite a finale and the climax was as satisfying as slightly unexpected (which is usually best) and although it closes her story well enough, there's also enough of an open door to get more stories from the Cirque and hopefully to check on her on those stories too!
If you love the circus, magic, rakish boys, fearless girls and a captivating story, look no further! Very much deserved 4.5 stars to Girl in the Shadows!
Author Bio:Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Lois Lane: Fallout and Girl on a Wire, among others. Lois Lane: Double Down and Girl in the Shadows, a companion
novel to Girl on a Wire set in the Cirque American, are next up in 2016. She’s also hard at work on some secret projects you don’t know about yet.
Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe. There are rumors she escaped from a screwball comedy, and she might have a journalism degree because of her childhood love of Lois Lane. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.
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