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Smog City #3
Shadowed Skies: The Third Smog City Novel
People never really listen. Ask Mandy Svetlana Valems, who, after the harrowing death of her not-so-imaginary friend, is being forced to visit a psychologist and being interrogated by the Cape Breton police after reporting his death. "He isn't real", they all say, but they have no idea.
With some help from an unlikely source, Mandy is going to revive her friend and help others who are in danger of the same fate he had. But from her well-meaning yet misunderstanding family, to the locals she grew up with in the past, to old memories that refuse to go away, there are a lot of obstacles to get over... including her friend, who has some dark secrets about what happened to him during his death that are driving him crazy. When your friends aren't ordinary people and your world is changing every day, how do you stay down-to-earth?
Mandy is about to find out.
Shadowed Skies explores a life ignored by most other people, but one that isn't lonely. When your friends are Personifications and you have a chance to start things over for a brighter future, anything can happen.
With some help from an unlikely source, Mandy is going to revive her friend and help others who are in danger of the same fate he had. But from her well-meaning yet misunderstanding family, to the locals she grew up with in the past, to old memories that refuse to go away, there are a lot of obstacles to get over... including her friend, who has some dark secrets about what happened to him during his death that are driving him crazy. When your friends aren't ordinary people and your world is changing every day, how do you stay down-to-earth?
Mandy is about to find out.
Shadowed Skies explores a life ignored by most other people, but one that isn't lonely. When your friends are Personifications and you have a chance to start things over for a brighter future, anything can happen.
397 pages, Paperback
Published March 30, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 21, 2016
So what is Shadowed Skies?
It’s a nimble conjuring of nostalgia’s most honest and charming components and it's a rueful smile, a teary-eyed nod over the shoulder, walking hand in hand with a commentary on modernity’s aggressive appetite to forget what has been, even though, those who fail to observe history...well, you know.
It is difficult to review Shadowed Skies without first observing the ingredients needed to make something so original and creative that it inspires me like summer sunlight on the skin and fresh sea air in the nose and lemon-juice on the tongue. To read Rebecca McNutt’s work is to flip through a photo album, or to kick back in a heavy station wagon with vinyl bench seats and listen to the sounds of eras long-forgotten with the mosaic of the city flashing by, and to observe things often overlooked, beautiful everyday things that can’t be seen under the self-absorbed haze instant technology often proffers like a needle to the junkie.
It’s about gratitude as much as it is about slowing down, and about friendship as much as it is about fearlessness. It’s about industry as much as it is about technology and it is about the past just as much as it is about the future.
I’ll always be amazed reading Becky’s work, and Shadowed Skies is without a doubt my favorite piece she’s written. Her ability to fashion pictures and scenes that are warm, not only with the honeyed tones of Nova Scotian sunsets across the water or lonely spreads of concrete and steel, but with the materialistic anthropology that defines generations, while at the same time sweeping a shivering chill through that same warmth, with thoughts of pain and loss, regret, astounds me in a resonant harmony that brings me to Nova Scotia, or brings Nova Scotia to me.
As you cannot have beauty without ugliness or joy without sorrow, you cannot have something that impacts you without there being a bit of a challenge behind it. To look and see, but to look again. To take a moment to think about what you see, what’s around you, about the giant ripple of it all, and in the end, to think for yourself, but most of all, to be thankful for what you have, and for the kind of friendship that has no price, and is stronger than time or tragedy.
It’s a nimble conjuring of nostalgia’s most honest and charming components and it's a rueful smile, a teary-eyed nod over the shoulder, walking hand in hand with a commentary on modernity’s aggressive appetite to forget what has been, even though, those who fail to observe history...well, you know.
It is difficult to review Shadowed Skies without first observing the ingredients needed to make something so original and creative that it inspires me like summer sunlight on the skin and fresh sea air in the nose and lemon-juice on the tongue. To read Rebecca McNutt’s work is to flip through a photo album, or to kick back in a heavy station wagon with vinyl bench seats and listen to the sounds of eras long-forgotten with the mosaic of the city flashing by, and to observe things often overlooked, beautiful everyday things that can’t be seen under the self-absorbed haze instant technology often proffers like a needle to the junkie.
It’s about gratitude as much as it is about slowing down, and about friendship as much as it is about fearlessness. It’s about industry as much as it is about technology and it is about the past just as much as it is about the future.
I’ll always be amazed reading Becky’s work, and Shadowed Skies is without a doubt my favorite piece she’s written. Her ability to fashion pictures and scenes that are warm, not only with the honeyed tones of Nova Scotian sunsets across the water or lonely spreads of concrete and steel, but with the materialistic anthropology that defines generations, while at the same time sweeping a shivering chill through that same warmth, with thoughts of pain and loss, regret, astounds me in a resonant harmony that brings me to Nova Scotia, or brings Nova Scotia to me.
As you cannot have beauty without ugliness or joy without sorrow, you cannot have something that impacts you without there being a bit of a challenge behind it. To look and see, but to look again. To take a moment to think about what you see, what’s around you, about the giant ripple of it all, and in the end, to think for yourself, but most of all, to be thankful for what you have, and for the kind of friendship that has no price, and is stronger than time or tragedy.
December 1, 2016
So far, every book in the Mandy and Alecto series have been dark, eerie, chilling, brilliant, emotional, and enchanting all in one! Rebecca McNutt does a wonderful job at capturing the friendship between Mandy and Alecto and how they would do anything for each other, as well as saving one another from death itself.
The first book in the series, was most definitely my favorite. Though this book is totally worth reading and absolutely underrated, it does seem to go in circles for a while in this particular volume (Shadowed Skies). But, maybe that's just me.
Overall, I'd give this book 4.5 or 5.0 stars. I definitely do plan on reading Shoot The Drag as I am extremely excited to see what may happen next.
The first book in the series, was most definitely my favorite. Though this book is totally worth reading and absolutely underrated, it does seem to go in circles for a while in this particular volume (Shadowed Skies). But, maybe that's just me.
Overall, I'd give this book 4.5 or 5.0 stars. I definitely do plan on reading Shoot The Drag as I am extremely excited to see what may happen next.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews