Intense, Brutal and in your face with the darkness! 
 Dark and gripping, Bones of Faerie had me captivated from page one! With the opening line: "I had a sister once." I knew I was likely in for some heartache, and boy was I completely on the mark. 
 Fifteen year old Liza is a cautious girl, she has grown up under a tyrannical father, who is quick to anger and even faster to turn to violence. He doesn't spare the rid one bit! The fear and dread Liza feels is palpable! But you can also sense that she seems to think she deserves it, she considers it her shame when she is disciplined, because that is the only thing she knows. I feel like Simner got this so right and true to reality the way the abused can feel like they are in the wrong and that they are deserving of the abuse. 
 They live in a post apocalyptic time after a war with the Faerie folk. These are hard times now, where the land is dangerous and plants and animals all posses violent magic. I was entranced with the seemingly evil nature of the plants. They wanted to destroy living things, and venturing out into the dark in these times is practically a death sentence. 
 The pace of Bones of Faerie is very brisk. Liza moves from one crisis to the next basically through the entire book. I felt a lot of sympathy for her in the beginning but then also wanted to slap her a few times for her pig headed-ness. Luckily as she experiences more and learns more of the nature of magic I came to like her more and more. By the end I was fully in her corner. 
 She has two excellent supporting characters, Matthew of the same age from her village with a secret of his own and Allie, a much younger and stubborn girl with extraordinary abilities of her own. I loved these characters. They were so well done that I could see Allie starring in a book of her own. 
 I have to say I LOVED Matthew. He is strong, determined, self sacrificing and he manages to be all these great things without being some annoying good two shoes character that you just want to slap. Sometimes I hate the do gooders but he isn't like that for some reason - probably because he is so fierce about his convictions and I can feel violence in him like a tight coil ready to spring. Yeah if I were 16 I would be crushing hard core. 
 What I loved best about Bones of Faerie was that originally I read it a few years ago not realizing it would be a trilogy. After reading it I was content thinking that the story was over. It stood well on its own and I didn't feel like it was just the precursor to another book. This is so important to me as I hate books that aren't complete by themselves. So if a reader wanted to, they could pick up only this book and be satisfied at the end without feeling the need that they absolutely had to read the next book. Though I'm sure like me they would want to!