Fun entry in the Serrated Edge series. Silence, Maine is doing better since the end of the Blackthorns but there is still healing to be done. Staci and her friends are being trained for combat. The new threat is unknown but strong and forming an alliance of their enemies. The Fairgrove elves move into town, also. ( )

Following the destruction of the Blackthorne unseelighe clan who were feeding off the misery generated by a failing township, there is now hope for the town. New industries appear, and if one is run by seelighe elves, that's all to the good, isn't it? Staci, who had been shipped off to the town to live with her alcoholic mother when her father remarried, is now studying magery under the tutelage of the local bookstore owner. Together with a group of LARPing (and TTRPGing) friends, they are training to be a magical strike force. Tim, the leader of the group is not happy when the new lot of elves show up; OK, they're seelighe, but they are an arrogant bunch. Strange things start happening outside the town and a darkness is on the way.

As with the previous book, Silence, it comes across as fairly YA in style, reading more like the Elemental Masters series. Nothing really horrific happens, and it doesn't deal with the issues the earlier books did - child abuse, runaways etc. Even the township doesn't come across as particularly bad for what is supposed to be a former sinkhole.

OK, but probably for completists.

The second of the SERRAted Edge books set in the village of Silence on the coast of Maine. Awkwardly arbitrary plotting, way to many nick-of-time rescues, and minimal character development, there were elements here that could have made for a significantly better book, but were just wrapped up in the usual plot and set on the shelf. ( )