THE GREEN LION TRILOGY by Teresa Edgerton

There are only two things to do when it's this dark and damp outside:

a. run outside like a five-year-old, get soaked, and go inside for sweatpants and hot tea

b. curl up on the couch with aforementioned cuppa, a large white cat, and a novel of the guilty-pleasure variety

Since rain has a habit of sticking around for a good week or so in Maryland, you might as well make that guilty-pleasure novel a series.  I recommend the Green Lion Trilogy written by Teresa Edgerton.  Do not be deceived by the tacky cover art, and you might experience an enjoyable read.

The Green Lion Trilogy starts with Child of Saturn.  Apprentice-mage Teleri is little more than a shadow in the palace of Cynwas, King of Celydonn.  With the disappearance of the state wizard, and the rise of evil magic in the land, Teleri will have to embrace a hidden side of herself.  Of course, she accomplishes this with the help of a studmuffin knight experiencing his own brand of inner-turmoil because--wait for it--he turns into a wolf every now and then.

Hey, don't leave yet!  This isn't a werewolf novel in the genre of Series-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.  I can't say this is particularly great literature.  Nor can I say it's completely original, or that there is a cast full of dynamic characters (there's mostly a pretty clear "good-bad" delineation, with a few gray areas here and there).  But the characters are lovable, the land they inhabit is intriguing, and somehow you find yourself sucked into the soap-opera-in-tunics storyline.  The jewel of this trilogy--literally, as you'll see--is Teleri.  Her development, her mystery, and yes, even her relationship with the studmuffin!  It's clear that the author loves this character, and the reader loves her too.  But there is a story-line just as beautiful as the main Teleri-Ceilyn-Diaspad epic lying in wait underneath, and clearly, Edgerton saw it too, because she developed it into the marshes, the hills of the "fairy-folk," and a new series.  Celydonn itself is a character in Edgerton's books, and I think this and the influence of Celtic/Welsh mythologies give the series its edge.

The trick to Teresa Edgerton is that her books are hard to find.  She's not going to be in any major bookstore (although those are getting hard to find too . . . ).  I have no idea how I found Child of Saturn, only that it was clearly well loved before I ever saw it.  I found some used copies online and they will take up my shelf space--and my rainy-day reading--for some time to come.

Visit http://teresaedgerton.com/index.html to learn more.