This review was originally published on the book review blog justonemorepaige.wordpress.com.

This book is exactly the type that I love, with great high fantasy elements and a fantastic group of friends at the center. This one definitely leans towards young adult, but there are certain parts of it that are handled much more maturely and I appreciated and enjoyed that quite a bit. Plus, the general pacing, plot development, and character growth and interactions were written, for the most part, in a non-typical format for this genre that must be respected for it's level of reality.

Tallis has grown up particularly poor and on the sidelines in a small that that is itself poor and on the sidelines. But with an air of "different" about her, a mysterious past that she is just coming to know about herself, the disdain and dismissal of her father, a tragedy involving her mother, the slow accumulation of a few close friends, Tallis' life is not destined to take a normal path. When the feral elves, called tremps, that live in the woods surrounding her town attack, hissing Tallis' name, she and her friends decide it's time to find some answers.     

As I