by Adrienne Young
First sentence: “There was a blue door with a black lantern on Forsyth Street.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Fable, Namesake, The Last Legacy (which I read but never wrote a blog post for!)
Content: There is some mild swearing, violence, and one off-screen sex scene. It’s in the YA (grades 6-8) section of the bookstore.

In this prequel to Fable, we follow her father Saint, and her mother, Isolde, as they start out and first meet. Saint is a scrappy helmsman with a dream and a bit of a legend surrounding him. He’s not ruthless, but rather willing to get the job done no matter what it takes. He has dreams that the Narrows can be so much more than it is. Isolde is on the run from her mother, Holland, a master gem merchant and a terrible parent, someone who uses Isolde for her skill as a gem sage rather than caring for her as a daughter. When Isolde and Saint meet she is contracted to Zola, Saint’s nemesis, but things go sideways when Zola steals from Saint and he gets Isolde to get it back. From there, it’s history. 

Look: it’s not a great book. But it is a fun story, and I’m invested in this world that Young has built. I’ll read pretty much any story set in the Narrows, even if it’s kind of lame. But, there is something about these characters, and I really did enjoy getting to know a different side of Saint. So, no: not high literature. But it was fun.