Shadows in Starlight takes off with the "heroine" of Cunningham's Shadows in Darkness, Gwenevere "GiGi" Gellman. She's fey yet brash, bold and a little bit crass. Gwen, who was booted off the Providence police force, now runs her own private investigation firm. Her mentor, Frank Cross, has just been murdered. She wants to find out the identity of his killer but can't. She's been sworn not to as the investigation would harm the elves.

Why should she care? Gwen is an elf herself. She just found this out, and she's having a hard time dealing with it - and her new mentor, Ian Forest. Plus, she's got a lot of other things on her mind. Death seems to stalk those she cares about. In this book, she has to figure out who killed her running partner and county mortician, Kate Myers. If it wasn't her ex-boyfriend, Quaid, another cop on the Providence police force who may be about to be set up like Gwen was, then who? And how does Gwen's inheritance from a man named Edmonson keep complicating matters?

Cunningham's work is action-packed and comes complete with murder, intrigue, sex and mayhem. For such a busy gal, GiGi makes time to make time with a few of her male friends. Shadows in Starlight has twists and turns a-plenty, yet it leaves you wanting more. I smell yet another sequel and, well, yippee for that! That way we can figure out if the chief of police is really as corrupt as Gwen suspects...and if her birth parents, the Avalons, are dead or alive.

Shadows in Starlight is a fun and not-so-frivolous frolic through a seedy paranormal underworld. It's great junk food for the mind!