{Short Story Sunday} Review: Fearless by Brigid Kemmerer

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Short stories are awesome.  They give us in-depth insight into characters, providing anecdotal proof of why some characters are they way they are.  They entertain by creating a certain mood or focusing on a singular effect...some instance in a previous body of work (or one to follow) that might have been glossed over or ignored completely in a longer novel. 

And so, every Sunday for the foreseeable future, I would like to highlight short stories and novellas set in worlds I've already come to love and learn a little more about some of the secondary characters in my favorite novels.  I'll be underscoring some of my favorite aspects of these short works of fiction, in addition to offering up a mini review of each work.

This week I'm featuring a prequel story as part of the Elementals Read Along:

Title: Fearless
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Series: Elementals, book #1.5
Publisher: Kensington/KTeen
Publication Date: July 31, 2012
Source: purchased
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Being a force of nature doesn’t keep you safe.

Hunter Garrity is used to watching his back. The kids at school sense something different about him. And they’re right.

Hunter has powers that have nothing to do with how hard he can throw a punch.

Maybe that’s what Clare Kasten is picking up. She’s shy, quiet, and intense, but she’s sought him out. There’s no telling what she wants from him.

But Hunter knows enough to sense a secret when it’s close. And getting close to Clare is a danger he’s ready to face…

Hunter Garrity entered the Merrick brothers' lives as a bit of an enigma.  But in this novella, we get a peek at what happened before Hunter tracked them down, who he was before.  And it's not all rainbows and sunshine.  Don't get me wrong...he didn't have a crappy childhood or anything...just a really strict upbringing.  His father expects him to handle all Elementals business in the same fashion that he himself would, but Hunter is still learning.

Hunter is a Fifth, which is a pretty lonely existence.  People are drawn to him but rarely with the best intentions. But he hopes that Clare's intentions are merely those of a girl interested in a boy when she approaches him out of the blue.  Considering the turn their first conversation takes, though, it's probably obvious to everyone BUT Hunter that there's more to the story, but he's new to this whole "reading and analyzing people" thing. Poor kid.

I enjoyed this brief glimpse at what makes Hunter tick, why he blew into town the way he did in Storm.  I don't think this novella changed my opinion of him any, but it did make me more anxious to continue the series so I can get to his full-length book.


Rating:   1/2

Don't forget we're discussing this book over on Steph's GR review later today as part of the Elementals Read Along.  You still have plenty of time to join!!!

Elementals series

About the author:

Brigid Kemmerer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, though her parents quickly moved her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, and several stops in between, eventually settling near Annapolis, Maryland. Brigid started writing in high school, and her first real “novel” was about four vampire brothers causing a ruckus in the suburbs. Those four brothers are the same boys living in the pages of The Elemental Series, so Brigid likes to say she’s had four teenage boys taking up space in her head for the last seventeen years. (Though sometimes that just makes her sound nuts.)

Brigid Kemmerer finds the time to write somewhere between caring for her family and working at her day job, but sometimes she ends up mothering her coworkers and managing her family. Storm: The Elemental Series was her first novel.

Find Brigid:

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