As Jelani reached Broadway, a worn blue bicycle pulled up next to her, horn screeching over its rider’s distinctive squeal.

"Where is your car, woman?"

Jelani eyed her best friend, Iris Pallaton, who blonde hair swirled above the bright cloud of a magenta blouse. "Richard had it towed."

"Jackass!"

"Tell me about it. I'm late." Jelani headed off again.

Iris pedaled along the curb beside her. "You should call his supervisor and complain."

"And what? Humiliate myself because he’s a jerk? Screw him!"

"Maybe you should." Iris laughed. "Then he'd be too awed to bother you again."

Jelani glared as they crossed the street. "Funny."

On the far side, she caught the glint of glass in the middle of the sidewalk. "What idiot would drop a bottle when there’s a trash can right there?" she grumbled. "I’ll get it. First karma points of the day."

Iris climbed off the bike and put down the kickstand. "What is that?" She bent down near the object. "Oh, sweet Gaia! It’s a glass slipper!"

No kidding. It really appeared to be a shoe made out of glass. A large one.

"Who would have left this here?" Jelani picked it up, looking around for a prankster camera team. Something kept her from tossing the shoe.

"Try it on," Iris whispered. "It would get Richard Snyder off your mind."

"Richard is not on my mind. He’s on my shit list."

"Oooh. Sorry." Iris ran her finger over the shoe. "You’re chicken anyway."

"Don’t even go there"

"Chicken. Bawk-bawk." Iris giggled.

"Fine! If it means I can get to work." Reaching down with her right hand, she unzipped her boot and kicked it off. “Ready? You want a picture?”

Iris dug for her cellphone and raised it, ready to take a shot. "Just in case your prince shows up right then."

Unbelievable. "I don’t need a prince. I don’t need a man. I need a new life."

Jelani set the shoe on the ground and slipped her foot in it. She gently stepped down, not sure what she expected.

The slipper shattered, slicing into the sole of her foot.

Nauseous, Jelani screamed and could only watch in disbelief as tiny men sprang from the blood trickling under the broken shoe. She lost track of how many.

With the biggest maybe two inches high, the men scattered into the shadows around the nearest building and disappeared.

She lifted her foot, shaking off the blood, and examined her sole to see if glass remained buried in her skin.

"Did you see that?" Iris gasped, nearly breathless. She grabbed at the wall, eyes closed for a moment.

Jelani felt faint, too, suddenly washed out. "I--I don’t know."

There were no glass fragments in her foot or anywhere. The shoe had vanished. The only trace of the whole incident was dark blood, slowly drying in the sun on the sidewalk. As she watched, the cuts in her foot healed.

What the hell?

Iris knelt down to peer at Jelani’s foot. "There were little . . . people. Naked little people. They ran away. I swear they did."

"Did you get pictures?"

"I almost forgot!" Iris got up and activated the screen on her cellphone, pressed the arrow. Jelani leaned close to watch the whole thing replay in living color. "Oh. Bless. My. God," Iris said, in her shock reverting to the male deity.

Jelani nodded. "And the horse He rode in on."

One morning, while Jelani is on the way to work, Iris rides up on her bicycle. Jelani spots something on the sidewalk and they both approach the object. It turns out to be a glass slipper and Iris convinces Jelani to try it on whey she videotapes it on her phone. When the shoe breaks and the glass cuts her foot, tiny men sprang out of Jelani's blood under the broken shoe and run away. Jelani looks at her foot and sees that it has miraculously healed, as if by magic.

Later, Jelani notices that there are two men in the coffee shop where she works that seem to be watching her. As the days pass, and the men are always there, she realizes that she must confront the two men eventually and find out what they want. The two handsome and mysterious men turn out to be Astan Hawk and Daven Talvi. Daven is Astan's father, although they appear to be the same age, and they are elves that are there to protect Jelani. They explain to her that she is the daughter of the last queen of the elves. Twenty five years ago, the elves split into three groups. One group stayed in the Bitterroot Mountains and is lead by Bartolomey, the brother of the queen. One group, of which Daven is a member, went into hibernation awaiting the day they would return to help set things right. And one group, Astan's group, went out into the world to live with the humans.

Now that Jelani is of proper age, Astan and Daven are to take Jelani to the tree that houses her mother's spirit and somehow bring the queen out of the tree so she can rule once more. Jelani was supposed to have been trained by her father, who died years ago protecting the tree where his wife's spirit was trapped, and knows nothing about elves or the magic they can wield. She soon learns that Bartolomey and his clan of elves are looking for her and will stop at nothing to obtain her. With the help of Astan and Daven, and her human friends, Jelani must wade through the clues her father left behind and figure out how to save her mother's spirit from the tree before Bartolomey grabs her.

The Elf Queen is the first book in the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot series by Lyndi Alexander. The story revolves around elves living in the forests of Montana on the outskirts of the human world. The story takes place in modern times.

From Conan Tigard . . .

It has been a while since I read a Fantasy book and I was quite happy to start a new series. Fantasy is my favorite genre and I have been reading it for over 30 years. Along comes The Elf Queen by Lyndi Alexander and I found myself liking the book. I would consider the book more along the lines of light Fantasy, since the book takes place in our modern-day world, not in a fantasy world like Shannara, DragonLance or Forgotten Realms.

I enjoyed the storyline of the book and found myself wanting to know a lot more about these elves. As the story progresses, you learn about the recent history of the elves, but nothing beyond that. I had questions that were never answered. Where did they come from? What do they look like? Is the only difference between elves and humans that elves have longer lives and each has one type of magic they can do? I would guess since humans cannot tell that they are elves they don't have pointed ears or anything that marks them as being different from humans. This was never really discussed, so I didn't have a point of reference to draw from to imagine what they looked like. I kind of pictured them to look like Native Americans, but that may be wrong also.

The character development is pretty good in this first book and I really liked all of the main characters. Crispy and Lane add a little comic-relief, but not much. Astan and Daven are the serious guys in the story who have a job to do . . . save their queen. Bartolomey is the elf trying to stop Jelani from rescuing her mother from the tree. During the story, the reader is unsure as to whether Bartolomey is a bad elf or Astan and Daven are bad elves. Who is on the side of right and who is on the side of wrong? I never knew for sure until the end of the book.

I found it interesting that the elves helped out the humans in E.L.F., the Earth Liberation Front, a radical group of environmentalists, also known as ecoterrorists, that put spikes in trees to stop the cutting down of ancient forests. Being an environmentalist myself, I understand the need to stop the insane amount of logging humans do, especially in old-growth forests, but I would never hurt another human to stop the logging. The elves in the story need to insure the safety of their queen by making sure the tree is not cut down. They use E.L.F. to help with this issue and are determined to stop the logging at any cost.

Overall, The Elf Queen is a good light fantasy tale with interesting characters and a fascinating plot. I did enjoy the read and believe that this book is intended more for women than men. Still, as a man, I did enjoy the book and look forward to seeing how this trilogy continues in The Elf Child.

I rated this book a 7½ out of 10.

From Nikki Tigard . . .

Apparently my husband feels that this series is directed more at women than men, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it much more than he did. I did like the story overall and it did keep me interested for the most part. I like stories where I can relate to the characters, and these were relatable people, but like my husband, I wish that they had been fleshed out a bit more. I would have appreciated a bit more history, background and detail about the main characters. I did feel that it was a bit simplistic – maybe directed at a young adult crowd, rather than adults. Additionally, I found several typo’s and mistakes in this book, particularly in the last half of the book – and that drives me crazy. 

But overall, I did find it to be an enjoyable story and am interested in reading the second book in the series to find out what new adventures will greet Jelani and her friends now that they have been exposed to the elf world reality.