Review by Ronald Hore: Recommended In Water Sight, the second book of the “Last of the Gifted” series, we return to Wales in the year 1285AD and a land at war. The English king, Edward the First, is determined to finally put an end to Welsh independence and the wars between that mountainous hard-pressed land and England. This fantasy tale is told through the eyes of two siblings, the young girl Cat, who can sometimes peer into the future within a drop of water, and her brother Hyw, who can take the shape of any bird or animal. The last Welsh ruler, Prince Llywelyn, slain during an ambush, his spirt trapped within Hyw, is desperate to rally the remaining Welsh forces. He believes their only chance to do this is to recover three magical relics: the Crown of King Arthur that marked his heritage, the Cross of Neith that marked him as their leader in the eyes of the Church, and the Coronet of Wales given to him by the English king to mark him as Prince of Wales. But these relics are held in secret at an abbey and the land between is swarming with English troops and knights. There is a bounty on the heads of all Welsh who have not pledged to the English Crown. Cat has the task of recovering the relics and delivering them to Prince Dafydd, Llywelyn’s brother, who, while pursued by the English, is making a desperate attempt to rally the Welsh forces. Hyw’s duty is to attempt to protect Dafydd from being taken. He fails. Cat recovers the relics but, along with her betrothed Rhys, is also captured. She cannot control her visions while Hyw eventually struggles to control his gift of shape-changing and fails becoming trapped within his form as a hawk. In the end, Cat and her betrothed escape but are unable to free Dafydd, ending the serious Welsh resistance. Hyw is brought back to human form again, and they manage to recover one relic that has been melted down into a chalice. In a moving ceremony, Llywelyn is rejoined in the afterlife with his love, the Princess Elinor, who died giving childbirth, and they are attended by those who have fallen. Cat and Rhys plan their wedding, Hyw has finally connected with a half-Welsh childhood friend, James, and they all sit down to dinner with one of their company, a bard, while discussing how they might compose a song to tell of their adventures they suspect no one would ever believe. Well-written, moving slightly slower than the first book, Spirit Sight, Water Sight touches on historical events with the added taste of fantasy elements. The book includes an opening two-page character guide and a one-page black & white map of the area in which the book’s action occurs, and it closes with a four-page historical note, a six-page glossary, and a brief one-page author biography. Recommended

Review by Wendy Hawkin An evocative epic laced with myth and fact... Powerful phrasing, sensory descriptions, and mythical references abound... This is a series for young adults and I recommend it to teachers and librarians. The characters face contemporary struggles in a historic setting. The mingling of myth, magic, and adventure will appeal to middle grade and high school students, but also their parents. The Last of the Gifted is a classic.

Review By Kristen McDermott ...In this YA treatment of 13th-century Welsh history, Powell relates the end of the reign of “Llywelyn the Last” and the waning days of Wales’s independence through the eyes of a gifted brother and sister, Hyw and Cat. The teens joined forces in the first volume of the series, Spirit Sight, to channel the spirit of the recently-assassinated Prince Llywelyn and resist the attempts by England’s king, Edward I, to claim the rich Welsh landscape for himself. The second volume picks up as Hyw, a shape-shifter, and Cat, an avatar of the prophetic Morrigan of Celtic myth, try to balance their otherworldly powers with their loyalty to their family and friends. Cat is newly betrothed, and Hyw is struggling to master his Gift; Wales is fragmenting under the English invasion. The dual narratives make for a fast-paced adventure as the English and Welsh factions chase each other around the picturesque mountains and castles of the myth-haunted land that Powell obviously loves. The series clearly intends to introduce teen readers to the complexities of Welsh mythos, culture, and history, and Powell’s research is front and center. Characterization suffers for this a bit; the need to turn frequently to the character list and glossary might discourage some readers from being invested in the relationships that drive Cat and Hyw to ever more audacious acts of bravery. The Welsh are depicted as uniformly enlightened and humane, which somewhat glosses over the real-life ferocity of life in the borderlands. In particular, the universal approval they express about Hyw’s romantic feelings for his English foster-brother James seems a bit modern, no matter how welcome it is to see such representation in YA historical settings.