Reading Level: Junior High

Ruins

Rigg and Umbo have started to hone their time traveling skills—and just in time. They discover that in the not-so-far future Earth visits Garden with the intent to completely destroy Garden. Now the two boys race to figure out why their parent planet would destroy a colony they created. Something the Earthlings found on Garden horrified them, but what?

Garden cannot fend off these attackers, so Rigg will have to find the motive behind the attack and change the past to stop it from ever happening. As Rigg searches for answers, he travels through different wallfolds. One is extinct of all human life, another seemingly populated by poop-throwing yahoos and sentient mice, and in a third, the people have evolved to live in the sea. But wherever he goes, Rigg finds people who want to manipulate him. With no one willing to tell him the whole truth, how can Rigg decide which path to take?

The second installation in the Pathfinder series takes the story up a notch. By expanding Rigg’s world from one wallfold to four, the reader is shown several different paths the human race could have taken. The what if’s are tantalizing. The world Rigg explores is as interesting and exciting as the actions he takes. Ruins is in no way linear. Now that Rigg and Umbo are skilled time travelers, their paths jump forward, go backwards, and sometimes cease to exist entirely. While these time jumps may cause one to stop and ponder for a while, they are written in a way that is relatively easy to follow.

Sexual Content

  • When discussing a parasite, it is said that “the only part of the earthborn brain it could control was the wild, competitive beast, bent on reproduction at any cost . . . That sounds like soldiers on leave.”
  • Rigg notes that some mice are mating. Later, when starting a colony, Loaf says the mice are “mating their little brains out.”
  • The humans that live under the ocean are naked. Larex comments on how Rigg is staring, to which Rigg replies, “I’m fifteen years old, I think . . . my eye goes to naked women.”
  • Umbo explains that when they change something in time, children will be born, but the “mix of genes . . . will be different. Perhaps conception will happen on a different day. Or a different sperm will win through.”

Violence

  • Yahoos, creatures that appear to be similar to humans with little intelligence, throw poop at Umbo and Loaf. “The watcher flung something out of his lofty perch. It splatted against Umbo’s cheek and shoulder. It stank. It clung . . . it was nightsoil. Presumably the watcher’s own.”
  • Param is murdered. When she is skipping time, the mice move a metal rod into the space she is about to occupy. When she and the rod collide, “Param felt a searing agony in her throat, the heat of billions of molecules being torn about . . . she lived just long enough to feel the heat pulse through her entire body, every nerve screaming with the pain of burning to death in a searing moment.”
  • To keep the mice in line, Olivenko points out that the humans “can break their little skulls under our feet.”
  • Rigg and Loaf discuss the morality of preemptive killing.
  • When Ram Odin tries to stab Rigg, Rigg jumps into the past and kills Ram with a knife. “He was also completely aware of the knife in Ram Odin’s hand, the hand that was darting forward to plunge it into Rigg’s kidney . . . In the very moment he caught Ram Odin’s knife, Rigg shifted half an hour back in time . . . the knife easily passed between the ribs of Ram Odin’s back and pierced his heart. A little flicking motion and both ventricles of Ram Odin’s heart were split open. The blood of his arteries ceased to pulse. He slumped over and, without time even to utter a sound, he died.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The words “pissed” and “butt-ugly” are used once.

Supernatural

  • Symbiotic creatures evolve so they can live in conjunction with humans. They attach to the human body and, depending on the breed, can provide benefits such as breathing underwater and increasing a person’s speed, eyesight, etc.

Spiritual Content

  • Rigg discovers the Odinfolders have meddled in genetic alteration, and selectively bred themselves for traits they considered desirable.
  • Humans are defined as any creature, no matter how diverse, that is descended from what we consider a homo sapien.
  • Mice were bred for intelligence, to the point that Rigg says their souls look very similar to human souls.
  • Param briefly wonders if death is better than life.
  • Rigg accidentally copies himself by time traveling. Vadesh warns him to be careful or he will “run out of souls to populate these bodies that you accidentally make.”

by Morgan Lynn

Pathfinder

Rigg is as unimportant as a young boy can be. He lives in almost complete seclusion in the far northern woods of his wallfold. He and his father are trappers, coming down from the mountains only to sell their furs. But Rigg has a talent. He can see the path left by every living being that has traversed Garden. This skill comes in handy when tracking animals, but it is not until his father dies that Rigg beings to realize the full extent of his powers.

With his dying breath, Rigg’s father tells him a secret—he is not Rigg’s father. Shocked and hurt, Rigg must travel into the heart of civilization to find his family. He explores his terrifyingly powerful talent on the way, using it to get out of trouble time and time again. But when he arrives at his wallfold’s capital, he realizes that his talent may be most useful in protecting himself from his very own family.

Orson Scott Card creates a fascinatingly unique world. His detailed understanding of physics and his elaborate exploration of time travel puzzle and delight. Rigg’s story is wonderful to follow. It is exciting, dangerous, and enthralling. The skill in which Orson Scott Card builds this world will quickly suck readers into a wonderful trilogy. There are adult conversations regarding sex and violence, but the adult content is not described in detail.

Sexual Content

  • Loaf tells Rigg that he threw out this first wife when he came home from a lengthy trip and discovered she had three children from three different men. Loaf says she was lucky he didn’t kill her, as was his right.
  • Rigg hangs a purse of jewels under his clothes, around his waist. Loaf says, “I think you carry in your crotch most of the wealth of this wallfold . . . but that’s how all young men feel, isn’t it!”

Violence

  • Rigg’s father dies when a tree falls on him and he is impaled. His father calls out to him, “I have been pierced by two branches, completely through my belly.” Rigg does not see this directly, and his father makes Rigg promise, “You will not come look at me, now while I’m alive or later after I’m dead. I don’t want you to have this terrible image in your memory.”
  • Rigg tries to save a boy from falling off a waterfall. In the process, he nearly knocks a man over the falls. “The weight of Rigg’s head and shoulder striking the man caused his leg to buckle, and the man twisted, started to topple forward. I came to save a boy and now I’m killing a man.”
  • Umbo thinks his brother was pushed over the waterfall by Rigg. Umbo throws rocks at Rigg, nearly knocking him over the falls. Later a mob, stirred up by Umbo, comes for Rigg. Nox talks the mob down. “Why do you want to believe the worst? Why are you hungry to do a killing here today?”
  • Umbo runs away because his father beats him, and after his little brother dies he was scared his father would kill him. “Perhaps Umbo was afraid . . . Everyone knew how Tegay beat him when he was angry.”
  • Loaf met his wife after a battle. He was on the ground with a gash across his stomach. His wife found him, stitched him up and took him home. “By scavenger law I’m her slave,” Loaf says.
  • When captured, a general threatens to torture and kill Rigg’s friends.
  • A man talks about his great-grandfather, who was given, “a slow and gruesome public death . . . with his body parts fed to the royal hunting dogs.”
  • Rigg hits a man on the forehead and pees on the same man during an attempt to escape his own assassination.
  • Ram Odins’ neck is broken by expendables, machines that look human. “The expendable reached out with both hands, gave Ram’s head a twist, and broke his neck.”
  • Peasants broke into the house the former princess was living in, and forced her to surrender all her clothing.
  • Loaf injures a drunkard who was close to hurting his wife. He does this before his wife would have killed the drunk to save herself from harm.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Rigg is attacked by soldiers who are drugged to the point of being unable to recognize when they received, “orders [that] would lead directly to their deaths.”

Language

  • Bastard is said once.

Supernatural

  • Rigg and several others have the ability to manipulate time to different extents. These abilities are genetic.
  • Some people in Rigg’s wallfold have genetically induced powers such as projecting a wall with their minds.

Spiritual Content

  • The people of Rigg’s wallfold pray to many deities such as the Wandering Saint.
  • Rigg briefly wonders if he is a demon, since he has strange abilities.
  • Rigg and his friends take a pilgrimage to the Tower of O, a strange structure of unknown origins that is the oldest structure in the Wallfold.

by Morgan Lynn

Take the Key and Lock Her Up

Death is no stranger to the royal family of Adria. Centuries ago, the royal family was murdered, which changed the political landscape of Adri. However, the infant princess survived and was hidden; those who hid the child wanted her to take her rightful place as queen. Now, two hundred years later, there are still some that believe the princess’ descendent should sit on the throne.

Grace discovers that the princess’s blood runs through her veins. If people find out that Grace is a lost princess, the news could spark a revolution. Some people want to use Grace as a pawn, others want to silence her forever. Grace must figure out a way to save herself and the people she loves. Danger and deceit hide around every corner, and if Grace fails, she will pay with her life.

Take the Key and Lock Her Up is the exciting conclusion to the Embassy Row trilogy. The third book in the series ramps up the suspense because Grace isn’t sure who wants to help her and who wants to kill her. The romance heats up, but the kissing scenes are tame and appropriate for younger readers. Even though the book is written for readers as young as twelve, there are some readers that will not be ready for the more mature themes. For younger readers, the content may be disturbing because there are several scenes that focus on a mental institution and how the drugs affect the patients. In addition, Take the Key and Lock Her Up has more violence than the first two books because there are several factions that want Grace dead. The ending of the story is a bit predictable, but that doesn’t detract from the story’s enjoyment.

Sexual Content

  • Grace and Alexei kiss five times throughout the story. The first time, Grace brings “my free hand up and weave my fingers into Alexei’s dark hair, pull him close, and kiss him. Like maybe it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.”
  • Alexei kisses Grace. “. . . Alexei’s lips are on mine, and I’m not aware of anything anymore. It’s different from the kiss on the bridge. There’s no urgency now. . . This is about now—right now. No future and no past.”
  • Alexei and Grace kiss. “. . . His lips are on mine and my fingers are in his hair and everything fades away, the streets and the darkness. . .”

Violence

  • After Grace is drugged and taken to an unknown location, she escapes. “I just pick up the candlestick and throw it over my head as hard as I can . . . I can hear the chaos behind me, cries of pain and fury and fear.”
  • Someone is trying to capture Grace. In order to help her, Alexei throws a man over a bridge.
  • When a man tries to grab Grace, Alexei fights him. Grace watches “him twist, launching himself over the bigger man, and in a flash Alexei has his arms around his neck and he’s squeezing . . . The orderly slumps as Alexei cuts off his . .” At the same time, an orderly tries to drug Grace, and she throws her “hands up, catching his wrist with both hands, pressing up as he presses down.” She makes the man put the syringe in his own leg, and she and Alexei are able to escape.
  • Grace’s friends blow up a car. “Flaming debris fills the yard. Windshields are smashed. Tires are flattened.” No one is injured.
  • For no reason, a woman attacks the prince. She “slaps him hard across the face and starts kicking and clawing.” Several people pull her off of him.
  • Someone poisons the king, and he “pitches awkwardly forward and crashes down the massive staircase. . . (he) has landed, limp and broken, on the polished parquet floor.”
  • When Grace discovers a secret, someone hits her, knocking her out. Later, this person shoots a man in the chest, “and he drops to the ground.”
  • When a woman attacks Grace, her son shoots her. “The gun is tumbling from his hand as his mother crumbles, blood-soaked, to the floor.” The woman survives.

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Grace drugs someone’s tea. When Grace drugs the person, “she slumps slowly to the ground, getting mud and grass stains all over her pretty white suit.”
  • A guard drugs Grace. When it happens, she feels “a pinch in my neck. I turn to see a guard behind me holding a syringe.”
  • While walking down the street, Grace passes some drunk people and goes by a café where people are drinking wine.
  • Alexei’s mother was in a mental institution, where she was prescribed drugs. Grace thinks, “I don’t know what they were giving her at that facility, but I can imagine. I know better than anyone that the medicine can be far worse than the disease.”
  • A woman is put in a mental intuition where she is given a vial of medication. Grace thinks that the medicine is “supposed to feel like peace, like bliss. But to me they always felt like your heart was covered with frostbite. They made me so numb I actually burned.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

See How They Run

Finding the truth about her mother’s murder was supposed to bring Grace peace. But the past still haunts her. Grace realizes that her mother carried secrets of her own, but there are those who want those secrets to stay buried. And there is someone who is willing to kill to make sure the truth never comes out.

Grace knows there are century-old secrets surrounding her family. The only thing she doesn’t know is who to trust in her search for the truth. And when a U.S. citizen is murdered on Adria soil, Grace realizes that death is just a tool that a powerful person isn’t afraid to use.

Full of suspense and intrigue, the second installment of the Embassy Row series will captivate readers and pull them into the mystery surrounding Grace. See How They Run focuses less on Grace’s friends, and their absence makes the story less interesting. Grace doesn’t trust her own decision-making skills, and often refers to her “crazy” nature. Her complicated character adds suspense to the story. The addition of Adria’s history and the murder of a royal family creates an eerie atmosphere.

For those who enjoyed the Gallagher Girls series, See How They Run will not disappoint. However, See How They Run focuses on the death of a royal family and the murder of a young man. Even though the violence is not described in detail, the story makes it clear that someone is willing to kill innocent people.

Sexual Content

  • At a party, a boy kisses Grace. “He is leaning closer and closer. I close my eyes and feel his lips brush mine.” The kiss ends when she shoves him back.
  • Alexei and Grace kiss. The first time they kiss, Grace thinks, “Spence kissed me. But this is more. More intimate. More gentle. More emotion pounds through my veins than anything any boy has ever made me feel.”

Violence

  • An integral part of the plot revolves around a revolt that happened 200 years ago. During the revolt, “The king, the queen, two princes and a baby girl who wasn’t even a month old yet. Five of them. They pulled them from their bed, and they killed them.” The family was murdered and their bodies were hung from the palace.
  • When Alexei finds out that Spence kissed Grace, Alexei “turns and pulls back his arm in one smooth motion, dropping Spence to the ground with a single blow. . . They tumble and twist and brawl closer and closer to the party.” The fight lasts over several pages, but no one is seriously hurt.
  • When Jamie finds out that his friend kissed Grace, he “doesn’t say a word of warning. He just hits him.” Spence’s head jerks but he stays on his feet. The boy doesn’t hit back and Jamie leaves him with a warning to leave his sister alone.
  • During the festival, a drunk man recognizes Alexei. Then a mob of people attacks him and Grace. “The first fist that hits Alexei knocks him nearly off his feet. He doesn’t see it coming. . . I can feel myself getting pushed, almost knocked to the ground. I lash out, kicking a man in the knee as he lunges at Alexei. But two other men are already upon him.” During the attack, Grace is stabbed in the side.
  • Someone bombs a car. It is unclear if the driver was killed in the explosion or if the vehicle was unoccupied.
  • Someone stabs Jamie. “. . . I see blood that covers Jamie’s shirt. He’s trying to press against the wound with his free hand, but it’s not working. My brother is going to bleed to death, die right in front of me.” A helicopter arrives to take him to an Army hospital in Germany. It is unclear if he will survive his wounds.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In the past, Grace has been given medication for anxiety. When she has a bad dream, she blames it on “the meds that I’m not taking.”
  • During a festival, a man walks by Grace and her friends. She comments that the drunk’s “breath smells like liquor.”
  • When Grace is stabbed, someone tends to the wound and then gives her “a small glass bottle” with medicine in it to help with the pain.
  • Grace does not want Alexei to turn himself into the authorities, so she drugs him. “His hand goes limp . . . His legs wobble. But thankfully we are out of view of the street by the time he passes out completely and falls, sprawling on the weeds.”

Language

  • A character, “mumbles something that I think must be the Russian equivalent to Oh my freaking goodness.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

All Fall Down

Three years after her mother’s death, Grace is sent to live with her grandfather, a powerful ambassador who is too busy to spend any time with her. Thrust into a new situation, Grace isn’t sure who to trust. Grace has never been close to her childhood companion, Megan, and wonders why she would want to help her. Her new friend Noah claims to want to be her best friend. Her brother’s best friend Alexei says he’s watching out for her out of obligation. Are they really her friends or do they have other motivations for staying close to Grace?

Grace wants to keep out all thoughts of her mother’s death, but visions of her mother keep appearing.  While Grace’s grandfather wants her to put on a pretty dress and attend functions at his side, Grace doesn’t seem to be able to stay out of trouble. When the mysterious Scared Man from her past appears, Grace overhears his plans to kill. Convinced that the Scared Man is responsible for killing her mother, Grace goes on a mission to stop him from killing again.

Grace narrates her own story, which allows the reader to see into her troubled mind and understand her terror. Grace believes that others think she is crazy because she witnessed her mother’s death; despite appearing completely normal, she struggles with panic attacks and visions of her mother. Grace saw her mother being shot in the chest, so why does everyone say the death was an accident?

Full of suspense, interesting characters, and plot twists, All Fall Down is an entertaining story that will leave the reader reaching for the next book in the series. For those who enjoyed the Gallagher Girls series, All Fall Down will not disappoint. However, All Fall Down has a more serious tone with more violence. Although the violence is not described in gory detail and is appropriate for younger audiences, Grace’s mother’s death is described in a detailed flashback. Even though the book is written for readers as young as twelve, as the series progresses there are some readers that will not be ready for the more mature themes.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Feeling overwhelmed, Grace runs from the house. As she backs out of the door, a “hand grabs me from behind” and she lashes out. “A cry rises up my throat, primitive and raw, and then I’m pushing and lunging. Falling. As I land in the rosebushes, I can feel the thorns of a rosebush tearing into my skin, clinging to my clothes.” In her panic, she hit the Russian ambassador, giving him a bloody nose.
  • While Grace is sleeping, a boy sneaks into her room and tries to wake her up. Startled, “I wrench the boy’s hand farther back, holding his thumb with my other hand.” After they talk, they sneak out of the house to attend a party.
  • Grace is told a story about a royal family that was murdered. The person speaking says, “The people stormed the palace and dragged Alexander and his family from their beds.” No other description is given.
  • Grace thinks that the Scared Man is going to kill the Russian president so she jumps off a balcony. When she jumps, “everyone is watching as I hurl myself over the railing. Even the U.S. Secret Service can do nothing but watch as I fly through the air and crash onto the Scared Man’s back.” Later she finds out that the Scared Man was holding a cell phone, not a gun.
  • Someone tries to kill Grace. “There’s a fence at my back. I can’t move any farther, and that is when the prime minister lunges for me, grabbing my arms in his massive hands, squeezing like a tourniquet. . . I can’t think anymore, so I just start kicking, screaming.” She struggles with her attacker, “when my elbow makes contact with his nose, I hear a sickening snap and feel the warm gush of blood on the back of my neck.”
  • Grace witnessed her mother’s death. “. . . I am standing there, watching my mother fall, bloody and broken. . .” The person who tried to help her was injured. “Blood rains down his face. His left eye is swollen shut. And the skin on his left cheek is almost black with blood, singed skin, and a rugged cut that runs from brow to jaw.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Grace takes prescription pills that help her deal with anxiety. Several times she refers to the pills. When she has a panic attack she doesn’t want anyone to find out because, “It will be just like after (her mother’s death). With the pills and the shrinks and the looks.”
  • After Grace jumps off a balcony and lands on the Scared Man, she is given more medication. The medication makes her act differently. The medicine makes Grace shake “my body like a pendulum that can never quite stop moving.”
  • Someone drugs Grace so that she will go to sleep. After she takes the drugs, she thinks, “I want to argue and demand answers, but it is all I can do to focus on the glass that is falling, shattering on the floor. Two seconds later, I follow.”
  • Grace’s grandfather “pours himself a drink, I can tell it isn’t the first of the night. The way things are going, it almost certainly won’t be his last.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Bet Your Life

Jess Tennant wants to stay out of trouble, but when Seb is found on the side of the road with serious injuries, she is pulled into the drama. At the request of Seb’s younger sister, Jess tries to find out what really happened to Seb, but the more Jess discovers, the more complicated Seb’s story becomes.

In Bet Your Life Jess enters the party world of the popular rich kids. However, she soon learns that the party scene isn’t glamourous, but dangerous. As Jess learns about Seb, she finds that most people think he had it coming and nobody wants the truth to come out.

Bet Your Life explores the topic of rape. Although the rapes are not described in detail, bits and pieces of the victims’ experiences are uncovered. One of the girls talks about how the police would not believe her story because she could not remember exactly what happened. Even though Jess knows that Seb was drugging girls, she decides not to tell anyone with the hope that being beat up and left for dead will cause him to change his ways.

Unlike the first book in the series, How to Fall, the second installment of the Jess tenant series contains more sexual content and the kissing scenes are described in more detail. The sexual content may be disturbing for some teens.

Sexual Content

  • Ryan unexpectedly kisses Jessie on the mouth. “My lips were parted and it was startlingly intimate, even if it was quick.”
  • Jess watches Will and thinks, “I wanted to run my hand across his broad shoulders and down his back. I wanted him to turn around and press his body against mine. I wanted to remind myself what it was like to kiss him. . .”
  • Will and Jess kiss several times.  In one scene, Will sneaks into Jess’s house and surprises her. “I slipped my arms around his neck and he stepped between my knees, closing the distance between us . . . and then we were kissing and it made the room spin as if we were on a carousel. . . he dropped kisses down my neck. He trailed his fingers along my spine and I felt it in the pit of my stomach . . . He pulled the material off my right shoulder and leaned in to kiss my collarbone.”
  • Jess discovers that a boy was drugging girls and then having sex with them.  In one scene, a girl wakes up and is unable to move. The boy strokes her face and then she passes out.  Jess finds the boy’s cell phone which has pictures of some of the victims. “The lighting in the picture was terrible, but I could see a girl lying on her back on a rumpled bed, one arm over her face. She was topless. I was also fairly sure she was unconscious.”
  • While looking at a boy’s cell phone, Jess discovers pictures of him and his step-mom. “. . . in the picture he’d taken of the two of them kissing. And he was pretty obviously naked too, so it didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on.”
  • A girl went to the police to report that she had been raped, but the officer said, “no jury would ever take me seriously, especially when I don’t’ know where it happened or even what happened.”
  • A boy tells Jess that he was drugging girls so he could have sex with them. When she said it was rape, he replied, “There were no consequences for her. She didn’t even know it had happened, and neither did anyone else. I wore a condom. I was respectful. I didn’t take pictures or video. I didn’t make fun of them.”

Violence

  • At a party, Ryan and Will fight, presumably over Jess. The fight takes place over several pages and neither is hurt badly. When Ryan is hit in the mouth and begins to bleed, the fight ends.
  • Someone drugs Jess, locks her in a pool house, and then sets it on fire. She is able to escape without being seriously injured. However, the person who set the fire ends up dying.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jess goes to a party where alcohol is served.

Language

  • When talking about a boy who was beat up, someone said, “There’s no justice in half killing someone because they’re a dick.”
  • Profanity is used rarely. Profanity used includes damn and ass.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Hide and Seek

Unapologetically curious—that’s Jess Tennant. So when her classmate, Gilly Poynter disappears, Jess decides she must investigate. With only Gilly’s diary as a clue, Jess finds out that Gilly’s home life wasn’t happy, and her social life was a mess. As Jess tries to find out what happened to Gilly, she discovers that the police and her boyfriend want her to keep clear of the case. But Jess is convinced that she can help find Gilly and unlock the secrets that want to remain hidden.

Although most of Hide and Seek revolves around the mystery of Gilly’s disappearance, it also delves into the complicated relationships between people. Jess’s boyfriend is back in town for Christmas break, but instead of spending time together, they are arguing. To add conflict to the story, Jess’s dad is in town trying to win over his ex-wife, which Jess is hoping doesn’t happen.

Jess Tennant is a charismatic character who has the reader running with her from the start. Hide and Seek contains mystery, suspense, and complicated relationships that keep the reader guessing. The characters in the book are complicated and real.

For teens who like mysteries, Hide and Seek tells a good story without adding graphic images of sex and violence. Instead, the author creates interesting characters that drive the action and keep the reader interesting.

Sexual Content

  • One of the characters is seen kissing his girlfriend. “She grabbed hold of him and kissed him back, pressing her body into his. One of his hands slid down her back, his fingers spreading, digging into her flesh.”
  • Jess’s boyfriend’s father lectures her on, “taking the appropriate precautions.” Jess is upset by the talk because, “it wasn’t even relevant, currently. We hadn’t. We hadn’t even talked about it.”
  • Jess kisses her boyfriend several times throughout the book. In one scene, “his mouth tasted of cinnamon and his hand was warm on my neck. His thumb stroked the skin just under my ear and I shut my eyes, lost in him.” Another time, Jess “found myself pinned against the wall. He kissed me, hard, and my heart took off, fluttering in my chest like a hummingbird.”
  • In her diary, Gilly described having sex with someone in the disabled toilet near the staff room. “We ended up on the floor . . . And it felt amazing. . . But the main thing is that it felt RIGHT.” Later it is revealed that the person Gilly had sex with was her history teacher.
  • When Jess was trying to figure out who Gill had sex with, another character goes through a list of possible people. Jess “thought of quite a large group she’d left out. The girls.”
  • Nessa talks about how her parents think she is a lesbian, but she hasn’t made up her mind yet. Later someone defends Nessa asking, “Why do you care if Nessa likes girls anyway? Why does it threaten you?”
  • The teacher kisses Gilly twice. He “turned his head and kissed her, his tongue probing her mouth.”

Violence

  • At a party, a group of girls confronts Gilly. One girl grabbed onto Gilly’s wrist. Then Gilly grips her glass so hard that it breaks. “Liquid started to seep between her fingers—wine mixed with oozing red blood that trickled down the backs of her hands and slid along her forearm, branching out as if her veins were suddenly, shockingly, on the outside of her body.”
  • Jess sees blood in Gilly’s trash can and assumes it was cutting. “I knew plenty of girls who did it, slashing their skin to ribbons in neat lines down arms or thighs, because physical pain was better than the emotional kind.”
  • A girl attacks another character. “Nessa grabbed him by the throat . . . Max was choking, his face red, and Nessa let go . . . I couldn’t tell if it was planned or not, but her knee collided with his nose. He jerked his head back, and a spray of blood splattered the fake snow . . .”
  • Two of the boys fight and the description lasts for several pages. “It wasn’t a pretty fight. It was punching and shoving and gouging eyes. It was a kick to the thigh that wrung a string of curses from Will.” Will’s father shows up and breaks up the fight.
  • Gilly and the teacher tie Jess to a latter and then lock her in a house that is about to be crushed by incoming waves.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jess goes to a party where alcohol is served.
  • Jess goes to talk to Gilly’s mother who was acting strange. “I didn’t know if she’d been drinking or if she’d taken something, but there was no way she was sober.” Later Jess discovers that Gilly’s mother had been drugged.
  • Jess used to live in North London, “where you could buy pretty much any drug you wanted just outside the train station.”
  • One of the character’s wife is ill. He tells Jess that she, “just stays in her room, popping pills and waiting for the end.”
  • Gilly wrote in her diary that she wished she were like everyone else, “getting drunk, having fun.”

Language

  • Hell is used several times. For example, when Jess thinks someone is spying on her, she asks, “What the hell are you doing?”
  • When Will’s father breaks up a fight, he asks, “Do you want to tell me why you and this idiot are hitting seven kinds of crap out of each other?”
  • When Jess is asking too many questions, she is told to “piss off.”
  • One of the characters calls someone a “twisted little dyke” and later someone refers to another character as a “dick.”
  • In her diary, Gilly uses, “Oh my God, OMFG, and F*****G.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

How to Fall

Fraya is gone, but Jess is determined to discover how Fraya ended up dead at the bottom of a cliff. However, everyone just wants Jess to stop asking questions. After all, Fraya is dead and nothing will bring her back. Despite the obstacles, Jess is determined to follow the leads and find out if Fraya’s death was a suicide, like some believed, or if there was something more sinister at play.

How to Fall is an action-packed story that will have the reader on the edge of their seat to find out what will happen next. As Jess tries to unravel the secrets to Fraya’s death, she meets Ryan and Will. Both boys hate each other, and both want Jess as their own. This budding love triangle is expertly weaved into the story without taking over the mystery of Fraya.

Teens will relate to Jess because she is a likable character who isn’t afraid of the popular mean girls or being an outcast. Jess’s confidence in herself is refreshing in a character. Even though Jess is sure of herself, she doesn’t come across as smug. The romance and language are teen-appropriate and, although there is profanity, it is used sporadically. How to Fall is an enjoyable book that shows how bullying can quickly spiral out of control.

Sexual Content

  • Jess is going out with a boy, so she can find out what he knows about her cousin’s death.  Her friend tells her to wear “Skanky jeans” so the boy talks to her.
  • Someone started gossiping about Jess’s cousin Freya and telling people she was a “slut.”
  • At the end of the story, a boy kisses Jess. “I had spent days imagining what it would be like to kiss him, but I hadn’t even come close. He kissed me like it was the start of something, or the end, and I couldn’t work out which it was, but I didn’t want to ask.”
  • Someone tells Jess that a boy likes “dirty girls.”
  • Jess goes to a party with a boy and he kisses her. “He pressed his body against mine, and with the kiosk behind me I had nowhere to go, but I didn’t have enough air to complain.”
  • A policeman gives Jess a ride home. Before she can get out of the car, he grabs her arm.  “Slowly, deliberately, he stroked my wrist with his thumb, trialing it across the veins where the blood ran close to the surface. . .” He then wipes off her smeared lipstick. “Before I could stop him he drew his thumb along my lower lip, staring into my eyes the whole time.”

Violence

  • Natasha is upset that Jess has been spending time with Natasha’s ex-boyfriend. They argue and Natasha grabs Jess. “Before I could move, Natasha shot out a hand and grabbed a handful of my hair.” Natasha then tries to throw her over a cliff, but is stopped.
  • A character retells a story about when he and a friend were being bullied. Eventually, his friend was attacked and broke an arm.
  • A group of girls was bullying Freya. One day at school, “a whole group of girls cornered Freya and held her down so Natasha could cut off her ponytail.”
  • The story begins with Fraya running and falling off a cliff. As the story unfolds, the reader discovers that Fraya had been bullied, which eventually lead to her death.
  • Someone tries to kill Jess by throwing her off a cliff.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A character retells a story about a boy that was “smoking dope.”

Language

  • Jess and another girl were arguing. The other girl tells Jess, “Don’t think you can do better than me at being a bitch.” Several times throughout the book someone is called a bitch.
  • Jess’s friend surprises her. Jess says, “God, Will, you scared the crap out of me.”
  • Someone tells Jess, “Don’t tell anyone, but I am shit-scared of heights.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Elite

America isn’t sure if she wants to win Prince Maxom’s heart. The other six selections’ girls don’t share that uncertainty. They all want Maxon to choose them to be the next princess of Illea and are ready to fight America for Maxom and the crown.

When America is with Maxom, he sweeps her off her feet, and the choice seems obvious. Then her heart becomes confused whenever she sees her childhood sweetheart, Aspen. With Aspen back in her life, and both Aspen and Maxom competing for her heart, America’s indecision grows.

America is a strong character in The Selection, but she loses much of what makes her likable in the second installment of this series. In book one she is strong and funny, but in this book she degenerates into an indecisive and, quite frankly, whiny brat. The story is dragged on because America can’t decide if she wants to marry the Prince or Aspen.

The book loses the romance and suspense of the first book. Though there are exciting and fun scenes, they are sparse. If you enjoyed The Selection, you may find yourself reading The Elite out of obligation, rather than enjoyment.

Sexual Content

  • America kisses both Malcom and Aspen at different times throughout the book.
  • After one of the contestants gets married, she talks about the first time she and her husband shared a bed. It was, “a little uncomfortable at first. The second time was better.”
  • One of the contestants is seen lavishing affection on Maxom and kissing his neck.

Violence

  • After being found together, a contestant and a guard are caned for treason. During the caning, the guard’s back is described. “His skin was already torn, pieces hanging sickeningly. Blood was trickling down, ruining what used to be his dress pants.”
  • Two of the elite get into a fight. They use their nails and fists causing mild injury to each other.
  • The rebels attack the palace several times. In one scene a guard is hit by a bullet and blood pours from his chest.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a banquet hosting the Italian monarchy, wine is served. When a member of the monarchy wants America to talk about Maxom, she offers America wine in order to get her to talk.

Language

  • The words hell and damn are used in the heat of emotion.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Passenger

Secrets are kept to protect. Secrets are kept to survive. When Etta is suddenly thrust into another time, she realizes her life has been based on secrets. In an attempt to keep Etta safe, and keep a family heirloom out of the Irnonwood’s hands, Etta’s mother disappeared into the future. Now, if she wants to save her mother and return to her own time, Etta must find the ancient object that has been hidden for so long.

Nicholas has long been the Ironwood’s victim. In an attempt to secure his freedom, he agrees to watch over Etta and ensure that she brings the ancient object to them. Yet when Nicholas and Etta team up, he soon finds himself drawn to Etta.

As Nicolas and Etta work together, they follow clues left behind by Etta’s mother. The clues lead them across time periods and across continents. As they race to meet Ironwood’s deadline, they realize he is not the only one who wants the object. Can the two find the object and keep it out of the grasp of those who would use it to destroy their timeline?

The imagery and dialogue in Passenger jump off the page and engage the reader from the start. Action and suspense begin in the first chapter and lead the reader on an adventure that spans several centuries. For a story that has epic chases and attacks, the violence is not graphic. Although there is blood, the battle scenes are not gory or over the top.

The reader learns about racism through the eyes of Nicolas, as he struggles with being the son of a slave and a white landowner in the southern colonies. The cultures of the past cause interesting conflicts, as Etta’s worldview is based on the present.

Passenger is an excellently written book, with interesting characters, secrets galore, and suspense. However, the ending is set up for a sequel and leaves more questions to be answered. Because none of the book’s questions are answered in this installment, the reader will be left wondering what next?

Sexual Content

  • A few weeks after Etta and her boyfriend break up, she sees him kissing a girl in Central Park.
  • Nicholas explains his parentage. “Nicholas’s mother had been the family’s slave, and Augustus had assaulted her, abused her, and in the end had never freed her.”
  • Cyrus Ironwood tries to blackmail Etta. Cyrus tells her, “he was going to leave me so destitute I was going to have to resort to prostitution.”
  • Etta and Nicholas are attracted to each other. “She traced his face . . . He pressed a hard, almost despairing kiss to [her hand]. But when she tilted her face up, half-desperate with longing, her blood racing, Nicholas pulled back.”
  • Etta and Nicolas kiss several times. “He leaned forward and captured her lips, stealing the kiss himself until she had to come up and gasp for breath. Nicholas pulled her back under, and this time she did let go, only to take his beautiful face in her hands, to let his hands tangle in her hair, around her shoulders . . . he was breathing hard enough that she felt his heart jumping against her ribs, and she knew hers was doing the same. She turned, running her lips along the curve of his ear, her fingers pressed against the solid muscles of his back.”
  • Nicolas looks at Etta and thinks, “Want. His exhaustion had boiled him down to his basest instincts. He wanted her lips, her touch, her esteem, her mind. Inside her. Beside her. With her.”
  • When Etta and Nicolas are put in the same room to sleep, Etta goes to Nicolas’s bed and crawls in with him. “He ducked down kissing her, and she moved against him, urging him to touch her, to find the secret self that only ever seemed to exist with him. Etta felt him come alive in his own skin, felt the sheer stretch of him as he moved over her, with her, and she let herself fall into it, dissolving into him.”

Violence

  • Etta’s mother is kidnapped and her family Alice is killed. “Blood sputtered from her chest, fanned out against Etta’s hands as she pressed them against the wound . . . Her next breath came raggedly, and the next one never came at all.”
  • Etta wakes up on a ship that is under attack. During the attack, several people die. One crew member falls, “his chest shredded by balls of lead, his face a death mask of outraged disbelief.” During the fight, Etta stumbles over a dying man. “He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t blinking. She looked down, mind blank as it took in the dark liquid coating her skin, her chest, her stomach, the dress. Blood. Her snowy white skirt was drenched with thick crimson blood. She was crawling through that man’s blood.”
  • Etta and Nicholas are chased by three men. “A pair of hands scooped Etta up by the elbows, hauling her back before she could get her feet beneath her. The smell of cologne and sweat flooded her nose, and she threw her head back, trying to hit some soft, fleshy part of him.”
  • A man shoots at Etta. “The bullet went wide, striking the brick wall behind them. A splatter of dust and debris exploded into her hair, scratching the back of her neck.”
  • In the jungle, Etta almost steps on a cobra. Nicholas shoots it, but the bullet also grazes Etta.
  • Etta and Nicolas are again chased by men. Etta shoots at them, and they scatter.
  • Someone tries to capture Etta. The attack is described over several pages. During the attack, Nicolas is shot. “She reached out, one hand gripping his arm to steady him, the other going to his side—where a large, wet patch of violently crimson blood was spreading.”
  • In a final confrontation, a man holds a knife against Etta’s throat and later is shot in the shoulder. Etta and Nicolas are left in a desert to die.
  • At the end of the story, one of the characters is found. “The face was unrecognizable, swollen and purple as a ripe plum. She’d been stripped bare to her waist, and three jagged stab wounds to the torso looked to be bleeding through the earthy salve and bandages covering them. A thin blanket had been draped over her supine form to protect her modesty.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Damn and hell are used frequently.
  • Bastard is used in a couple of instances. “Despite the wash of blood at his feet and the bodies strewn around him, his features went as soft as a kitten’s. The old bastard couldn’t help himself in the presence of young ladies, especially those in need of rescue. . .”
  • Nicolas says “bloody hell” a few times.
  • During a battle, one man is killed. His dying words are, “Sent . . . down . . . to . . . devil . . . by-by-a-a shit-sack . . . negro.”
  • Nicolas explains about time travel. “Christ. . . The first time I traveled, I attacked an automobile with an umbrella and nearly pissed myself in terror.”
  • “Oh my God” is used several times.
  • When Nicolas thinks, “And holy God, when she looked at him the ways she did now . . . he felt like he’d stepped into the blue-white heart of a flame.”

Supernatural

  • Several of the characters are able to use portals to time travel.

Spiritual Content

  • One of the characters describes his parents’ relationship. “Abbi and Ummi were not married—they could not be traditionally bound. It is forbidden for a woman of my faith to marry a man who is not. But Allah in all his wisdom still brought them together. . . It is blasphemous, I know; it goes against our teachings and beliefs, but I accept their choices. I cherish them in my heart. I cannot help but think, it matters not who you love, but only the quality of such a love.”

Glow

Julie’s future plans of going to New York for college have died. Julie is frustrated with her mother’s financial problems, a dead-end job, and a best friend who is moving on without her. When she discovers a series of antique paintings in a thrift store with hidden glowing images, her curiosity is piqued. As Julie looks for clues to the artist’s identity, she finds more paintings with increasingly nightmarish scenes hidden in the daylight.

Lydia’s story comes to life as she writes to her beloved who is on the front lines of the Great War. One hundred years before Julie’s time, Lydia is excited to join the girls in the factory painting luminous watch dials for soldiers. She is hoping that her factory job will help her struggling family, but when girls from the factory become seriously ill, Lydia wonders if there is danger lurking in the factory’s new scientific paint.

As Julie’s obsession with the paintings mounts, she discovers the truth about the Radium Girls. As she learns about the paintings, she also learns that relationships are more complicated than she thought. In the end, Julie realizes that when life’s obstacles destroy your plan, there can be a new path to finding your goal.

Megan E. Bryant tells a beautiful story of love, friendship, and broken dreams. Julie’s story is told in the first-person point of view, which allows her range of emotions to be highlighted. As Julie grieves the loss of her college dream, she also struggles with feelings of resentment towards her mother and envy over her best friend’s future. Teens will be able to relate to Julie’s frustration because life doesn’t always go as planned. However, in the end, Julie learns valuable lessons about the secrets that people keep.

Lydia’s story is told in letter format. Every other chapter of Glow focuses on Lydia’s life and concerns. The reader will learn about how life was for a young woman who lived during World War I. Lydia’s only wish is to have her soldier come home safely so they can be reunited. The unexpected ending of Lydia’s story is heartbreaking and will leave the reader in tears.

Glow captures the reader’s attention from the very beginning. The mystery of the paintings, as well as the captivating characters, make Glow a difficult book to put down. Although Glow is written for readers as young as 12, younger readers may be disturbed by the gruesome descriptions that are found hidden in the paintings. The story describes the horrific effects of radiation poisoning both in the paintings and in Lydia’s older sister’s slow death. Although there is very little sexual content, the story does show the shame of being diagnosed with syphilis during the early 1900s.

Sexual Content

  • Julie makes a wisecrack and then wonders if it made her sound “slutty.”
  • Lydia’s boss takes “liberties” with the girls.  “A leering smile here, a sneering remark there, even a pinch from time to time . . . I do not smile when he is near, lest he think I encourage such behaviors.” Later in the story, Lydia discovers her sister and her boss, “locked in a tender embrace. His thick and calloused hand, pressed to her chest. . . “
  • A doctor diagnoses Lydia’s sister with Syphilis. Lydia “has never heard it spoken out loud before, just in whisper-hisses hidden behind hands when an uncharitable rumor spreads from girl to girl.” According to the doctor, Lydia’s boss said he had an affair with her sister. The doctor said, “We also understand that your sister is known for dangling her favors before a great many men. . .”
  • When Julie is upset, her friend Luke tries to comfort her. “I just leaned up and kissed him. His lips were as soft as I imagined they would be. . . his kisses were so good, just what I wanted, just what I needed, my fingers ran through his hair, and it was so soft, so silky. I couldn’t help pulling his face closer to mine, and I think he liked it. . . I tugged at his jeans, fumbled for the button, for the zipper. Luke was poised above me. I was ready. He was ready . . . He pulled away.”
  • Julie thinks back to her time with Luke. “When I thought about how ready I’d been to sleep with him, in the mud, on the worst night of my life, I wanted to pull my hair over my face and hide. I wanted to die of shame.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Lydia’s sister breaks her leg, she is given morphine for the pain. After an operation, Lydia’s sister is again given morphine for the pain.
  • Julie remembers a time when she and her friend “got wasted.”

Language

  • Profanity is used rarely throughout the book. Profanity includes crap, holy crap, damn, goddamn
  • Julie uses Oh my God, God and Jesus as an exclamation often.
  • Julie tells her friend, “I have been to hell, and it is Triple-B on a Sunday in August. God, can you imagine?”
  • When Julie touches a painting, her friend yells, “Come on, Julie, you know this. Don’t touch the goddamn painting.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • In a letter, Lydia writes, “I send my greatest hopes that the Almighty will protect you.”
  • When Lydia’s sister has surgery, Lydia thinks that “God willing the procedure will . . . offer a cure.”

Terrier

Beka lives in the Lower City, the roughest part of Corus. She is a Puppy, training to be one of the Dogs, those who police the streets and try to keep the Rats from causing too much hurt. The job is a deadly one and undesirable to most. But being a Dog is in Beka’s blood, and she will do everything in her power to protect the people of the Lower City–her people.

Terrier is the beginning of a trilogy, but each book is self-sufficient. This series is not like Pierce’s other books. It is an excellent and entertaining story, with heaps of action and convoluted plots that will reveal an unexpected ending. However, this series is meant for a more mature audience than the majority of Pierce’s novels. There is a decent amount of profanity as well as more sexual content. As Beka is a guardswoman, the majority of her job involves her capturing and fighting with criminals. While the fights and sexual content are not graphically described, they are plentiful.

Sexual Content

  • Beka sees a woman and notes that “there was a twitch to her hips. I’d wager she’d give her husband an extra-warm night, thinking of the tall Dog who had flirted with her.”
  • Beka calls her breasts peaches. When describing herself, she says, “My peaches are well enough. Doubtless they would be larger if I put on more pounds, but as I have no sweetheart and am not wishful of one for now, my peaches are fine as they are.”
  • There is a mage who works at the Kennel, who has “roaming hands, with their pinching and stroking fingers . . . Quick as a snake, Fulk grabbed my wrist. He smiled into my eyes, his fingers rubbing my arm.”
  • Beka accidentally lets her neighbor see her half-dressed. “I blinked at Rosto. Trouble has just moved in, I thought. Then I remembered I stood there in no more than breastband and breeches. I shrieked and slammed my door.”
  • Beka sees a male prostitute. “He beckoned to me, flexing hard chest muscles. I looked away. It was a very tight loincloth.”
  • Rostro has two girls he is intimate with at one point, which Beka and Ersken discuss briefly. “‘And he’s got Aniki or Kora.’ ‘I’d say both.’ ‘That’s his business, Ersken.'”
  • While Beka says she will never get involved with Rosto, she admits, “He makes my skin, my peaches, and my other parts tingle in an agreeable way. Naught will come of it.”
  • Beka goes to a tavern while pursuing a case. “That same knight beckoned to a serving maid as the two noblemen seated themselves. She thrust the neck of her dress lower, when it already did little enough to cover her peaches.” Later some men “made a game of looking under tables, benches, and the mots’ skirts. More than a few earned cuffs and boxed ears from the mots who objected.”
  • A knight notices a prostitute at a tavern. “The wench who’d gotten his attention was one of the higher-priced doxies there, wearing a dress and earrings that did not come from Cheappretty Row.” His friend says he “is all kinds of fat in the purse, and he loves to pay double when he’s happy.”
  • Beka finds her neighbor in “only her shift, though the day was cool and rainy. Moreover, I saw Ersken pulling on his breeches behind her . . . ‘I’m my own mot and can say who shares my bed,’ Kora told me. ‘Rosto knows.’ She smiled. ‘We’re still friends, just not bed friends.'”
  • Goodwin finds a coil of wire hidden in a codpiece. “She reached around the rusher and grabbed his metal codpiece. “‘Oh, sweet one,’ the cove said with a moan, ‘my lovey, my–’ ‘Shut up.’ Goodwin yanked the codpiece hard.”
  • A criminal tells Tunstall, “Pox on yer privates if ye think I’ve a word for ye.”
  • Kora kisses her boyfriend. “Then she kissed him again for a goodlytime. I grabbed the ham, as it seemed they would be occupied for a while.”
  • Rosto kisses Beka. He “grabbed me by the back of the neck, and kissed me on the mouth. I should have punched him, but his mouth was sweet and soft. I will punch him next time.”

 

Violence

  • Goodwin is attacked while trying to make an arrest. “Orva struck backhand, her fist turned sideways. She caught Goodwin with the butt of the hilt square on the hinge of the jaw. Goodwin dropped, her eyes rolled up in her head.”
  • Goodwin tells Beka they can’t catch every Rat. “Do you know how many robberies there are in a day in the Lower City, how many burglaries, how many purse cuttings, rapes, brawls . . . Do you know how many mothers drown newborns and tots in privies or rain barrels? How many fathers and uncles toss them into the rear yard with broken skulls?”
  • Beka has to break up a tavern brawl while on duty. “Someone pushed me against a table. I smashed him across the head hard, then shoved him behind me. I heard him smack into furniture . . . I finally remembered Ahuda’s teaching and fought my way to a wall.”
  • Beka and her partners break up a fight. “He roared and charged Tunstall, head down. Tunstall turned to the side and swung up his bent knee. He caught the charging Parks brother on the chin . . . He never saw me smack his wrist with my baton. When he dropped the weapon, he bent to grab it. I hit him on the spine, praying I hadn’t done it too hard.”
  • The Rogue mentions he will give his guards “a choice between death and life as a maimed beggar” after they failed him.
  • Beka sees a woman being abused by her brother. “He knocked her sideways, sending her sprawling on the floor. Now I knew where her bruises came from.” Beka stops him from hitting her, too. “I blocked his swing with my forearm, though it jarred my teeth. While he gaped, I grabbed that wrist with my free left hand and yanked him toward me over the counter . . . When he grabbed at me with his free hand, I seized it and twisted so he’d stop thrashing.”
  • A woman confesses that “I tried to get my man to move in . . . but he wouldn’t allow for it. Said he wasn’t meant to live with little ones. So one night I took the blanket and I put it over my boy’s face until he stopped breathin’.”
  • Beka and her team stop a robbery. “I scooped my own kick forward and up, between his legs, and slammed a metal codpiece with my foot. Had it been solid metal, not pieces, I might’ve hurt myself. Instead it gave way under my kick. The rusher groaned, his eyes rolling up in his head. I hadn’t seen him draw a dagger with his free hand. It slid just past my right side, slicing my loose tunic and shirt.”
  • When Beka deals with a criminal, “He slapped me. I didn’t try to stop him this time. I wasn’t sure I would break his arm. I had to be better than him.” The criminal tells her, “I’ll see you raped and your body left in a midden, your throat cut in two.”
  • Beka and a team of Dogs storm a house. “The cove didn’t even see Goodwin lunge in under his strike. She struck him full in the belly with her baton. He doubled over, retching. She knocked him out.”
  • Beka and her Dogs find multiple mass graves. “Half of the cellar was under a huge mound of dirt. I gagged. The smell was dreadful, like a Cesspool butcher’s dump in the summer heat . . . We worked gently, fearing what we might hit. I’d just felt the tip of my shovel touch sommat when we heard wings in that hot space . . . We found eight dead there.”
  • When Beka and her Dogs corner a criminal, “He thrust the dagger into his throat under his jaw. He did it before we could move, and no amount of healing could have saved him. He bled to death fast, making a frightful mess.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Tunstall goes out to dinner with some other adults. “So the wine was flowing well, and there was brandy after supper.”
  • While Beka does not usually partake, her partners and friends often drink ale with their suppers.
  • Beka writes once, “I fere I broke my rule and Dranke more wine thann I shud.”
  • A Puppy dies, and it is said that one of her trainers was drunk on duty when it happened.

Language

  • The words “piss,” “piddle,” and “scummer” are used often.
  • Insults such as “pig scummer,” “cracknob” and other impolite, but not profane, words are used. Beka calls a group of lazy Dogs, “scummernobs.” When particularly angry, she once says “pox-rotted pus-leaking mumper bags.”
  • Beka tells her friend that she is “making an ass of yourself.”
  • A violent woman that Beka arrested shouts at her. “You bitch! . . . You puttock, you trollop, you trull . . . I’ll cut your liver out, you poxied leech! Why wouldn’t you let me go! You ruined my life!”
  • The words “bitch” and “bastard” are used a few times. A criminal calls Goodwin a “mangy bitch,” and Beka thinks “I needed to catch up with the old bastard” when she’s following a criminal.
  • A criminal calls her daughter a “slut.”

Supernatural

  • Beka has a magical cat. ” ‘We’re not even sure he’s a cat,’ Tunstall muttered to Goodwin. ‘I say he’s a god shape-changed.’ Pounce meowed, Do I look as stupid as a god to you?
  • Beka has the magical Gift. Many people have this magic, which can be used for fighting, controlling the weather, or healing. Beka’s brand of magic lets her hear voices picked up by wind spinners, and allows her to hear unhappy spirits that are carried on the backs of pigeons before they go to the Black God’s realm.
  • Beka helps a mother speak to her son and aid him in crossing over. “‘Sweetheart, of course the Black God has birds,’ Tansy whispered, straightening. ‘Beautiful ones. But you won’t see them if you stay where it’s dark. You have to go to the Peaceful Realms.'”

Spiritual Content

  • There are many gods in Tortall, such as the Crooked God, Mithros and the Black God. Different people honor different gods. Their names are often invoked in daily conversation as exclamations of surprise or relief. One woman, when exhausted, exclaims “Thank the Goddess . . . I’m weary to death!” When Beka brings in a Rat, Ahuda exclaims, “Great Mithros bless us, you actually caught “
  • Goodwin tells Beka to toughen up “before you jump into the Olorun or slice your wrists. We lose five Dogs a year to the Black God’s Option. Don’t you be one.”
  • Farewells sometimes have the name of the gods in them. ” ‘Mithros and the Crone watch over you.’ I curtsied as he went inside. ‘Gods all bless and keep you, my lord.’ I whispered.”
  • A friend of Beka’s deceased mother asks if she “burn(s) the incense for Ilony’s ghost?” Beka says she does.

by Morgan Lynn

 

Mastiff

Pierce once again expands Beka’s world by bringing her into the exclusive circle of royalty. Caught up in intrigues and politics, the royal family experiences a tragedy of unparalleled circumstances and reaches out to Beka for help. Along with Tunstall and Achoo, the weight of the realm is on Beka’s shoulders. Struggling against enraged mages and ambitious nobles, Beka and her team are all that might prevent the end of Tortall. While success may save the kingdom, it will cost Beka more than she could imagine.

Mastiff leaps into an interesting scenario, dropping hints about Beka’s personal life that will intrigue readers. Achoo is a sweet hound and Pounce, a talking cat, is delightfully sassy. However, what starts off as an interesting and exciting story quickly lapses into a long journey, with little to break up the monotony. While the middle of the book has readers turning pages out of loyalty to Beka, and little else, the final chapters arrive with a startling twist and heartwarming ending.

Sexual Content

  • Beka “went to him and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Rosto. You’re a good friend.’”
  • When Beka meets the king, “all I could think as I stood there was the jokes from the days before his second marriage. ‘Randy Roger,’ ‘Roger the Rigid,’ stories of merchants’ daughters, soldiers’ daughters, noble daughters . . . Sabine, had earned herself a spell of patrol in the gods-forsaken eastern hills when she offered her king physical violence if he didn’t keep his hands to himself.”
  • Farmer complains that Iceblade only “talk(s) about his skill as a lover and his last woman. Beka overhears Iceblade talking about a woman with, “‘—nice, firm peaches,’ Iceblade was saying, his hands shaping the womanfruit he meant. ‘No pestiferous husband in the way, either.’”
  • A servant says she is safe from reprimand because “Master Niccols has taken his pleasures in my bed.”
  • After joining the Hunt, Lady Sabine talks to some silly noblewomen, who think her “travels with the three of you . . . though gods forbid they would say it! –are one long orgy.”
  • Beka mentions her ex-fiancé. “The best thing about Holborn was our time in bed. I missed the bedding, though not the man, and I deeply envied Sabine and Tunstall that night.
  • Farmer kisses Beka. “He caught me by surprise when he leaned down and kissed me softly. His lips parted from mine gently, he stroked a lock of my hair away from my face.”
  • When Farmer sees Beka dressed in a long shirt but no pants, he says, “It’s just that I’ve, I’ve never, well, you look different. Good. Very good.”
  • An evil mage says, “Sabine’s just a crude brawler, mad for sex and fighting.”
  • After being captured, Beka and Farmer admit they love each other, and kiss several times after that. “This time he held me carefully while kissing me in a most satisfying way . . . he sat on a bench and pulled me onto his lap. Then, with most of him around me, and me around a good bit of him, I was content to hold him.”
  • When Beka won’t stop laughing, “Farmer resorted to wanton kissing. That worked. I am much in favor of wanton kissing and other things.”
  • Farmer hides a ribbon that holds magic in his bum. When captured, he asks Beka, “Did they look in your bum, or in your coyne? . . . you could have a weapon in either place. A strangling cord at the very least.” Beka doesn’t watch as he removes the object from his bum.

Violence

  • Beka is slapped by a mother that blames her son’s death on Beka’s involvement with him. “I saw her slap coming, but I did naught to stop it. Only when she went for a second blow did I grab her wrist. ‘You cold, Cesspit trull!’ she screamed. ‘My poor lad was forever trying to impress you. He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been trying to prove himself as good as you.’ ”
  • Beka rides to a palace after there has been an attack. “Bodies lay among the flowers. Here were the missing Palace Guards, as well as men of the King’s Own, and the Black God knew how many servants, all burned, sword-hacked, or stabbed.”
  • The kidnapped prince is disguised as a slave and travels with a slave train. In Tortall, it is legal to own and sell slaves.
  • Beka finds a Dog that has been murdered. “The Dog lay half in the water, half out, just ten feet from the road. Animals had been at her legs. When we pulled her from the water, we saw fishes had been at the rest of her.”
  • Beka and her team discover a grave. Farmer digs the bodies up with magic, to discover what killed them. “With the other hand, he beckoned the dead forward. When they were but a foot away, he gently let them settle on the grass . . . The worms and beetles had been at them already. They were black and swollen with rot, their scant ragged clothes cutting into their flesh.”
  • Beka finds a young slave girl who was strangled. “The gixie Linnet was sprawled naked atop heaped slops from the kitchens. Her face was purple and swollen . . . I used my fingertips to push her up on her side. The blood in her body had flowed down into her back and bum, pooling there, turning that part of her skin purple.”
  • Beka and her friends are attacked. “I screamed as one hacked at Achoo. She danced out of the way and leaped for his throat, snarling. Pounce went for the eyes of the cove beside that one . . . A Rat came at me on my right. I swung my baton hard into his knees, hearing bone shatter as he pitched face-first toward the fire. He threw himself to the side, away from the flames, but didn’t remember I was still there with my dagger. I killed him and hunkered by his corpse, keeping low.”
  • Beka kills a mage who is trying to kill Farmer. “I reached the road just as lightning struck the ground in front of Farmer . . . I looked for the solid form inside the wavering illusion and struck as hard as I could . . . The image vanished. The mage lay in the road, a dent in her head from my blow.”
  • An inn catches on fire. “I could hear no voices, but I saw a burning body fallen on the steps . . . Three people stood by the well . . . their magics combined to draw up water into a great snakelike column that rose all the way to the attic.”
  • Achoo finds a pile of dead bodies. “Her face was bloated and black from the time she had lain here in the sun. She crawled with maggots. They all did.”
  • An evil mage insinuates that Beka slept with her foster father. “[Lady Teodorie] never struck me as the sort to let her man keep his child mistress under her roof.” Beka spits on him. The man then “slapped me hard, rocking my head back on my neck.”
  • Sabine slaps her cousin when she realizes she was involved in a plot to kill the King. “Sabine strode up to her and slapped her across the face. Nomalla let her do it, to my shock.”
  • Tunstall and Beka get in a fight. “I drew a long, flat knife from my arm guard and shoved the blade clean through the heavy muscle of his left forearm. Gritting my teeth, I wrenched it all the way around . . . he grabbed my braid at the end this time. I lifted myself as high as I could go, raising my arms as I gripped my baton two-handed. With all my strength I slammed my lead-cored baton down on Tunstall’s oft-broken knees.”
  • When his plot for power fails, “[Thanen] leaped from the tallest height in the castle. The coward left his family and remaining allies to face the royal courts.”
  • There are many executions after the plot to take over the throne is revealed. “When the day was done and the dead were left swinging or smoking, depending upon the magistrates’ judgment . . . since Prince Baird had not led the conspiracy based on the evidence, he would not be forced to endure being hanged, drawn, and quartered, as the other nobles had. Once it was done, his head was placed over the main palace gat as a warning to others with ambition.”

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Beka gives the queen a bit of wine to calm her after she suffers a fright.
  • Beka will consume alcohol on occasion, but she turns it down most of the time. “Tunstall offered me the small bottle of mead he always carries in case someone needs warming up, but I shook my head. I don’t like to drink at all when I’m on duty, even when it might warm me.” Another time, Beka “decided the wine was light enough that a cup wouldn’t addle me too badly, if I had some of the bread and cheese first.”
  • Farmer checks some water for sickness and poison. Beka is grateful and thinks, “I would have hated to slow us down while I shit my tripes out because someone had dumped offal upstream—or while I died of poison or spells.”
  • Beka drinks a bit while undercover. She “took a seemingly deep drink from my tankard. It was filled with strong ale. I sipped and let the rest stay where it was. The last thing I needed tonight was a gut full of spirits.”

Language

  •  “Piss” and “scummer” are used often, typically in regards to the smells that Beka’s hound can track, but occasionally they are used as profanity as well. “Just now I felt like an unmade bed, while the sky continued to piss on me.”
  • Phrases and words such as “cracknob,” “cracked mumper,” “doxy,” “guttersnipe,” and “pox rot it” are used often.
  • “Ass” and “arse” are used often. Tunstall says, “We’re wasting time here, standing about with our thumbs up our asses.” Beka once says, “Craven canker-licking sarden arseworms,” when she discovers the kidnappers have burned a bridge so she can’t follow.
  • “Bastard” is said a few times. Achoo is called a bastard dog, and a ghost tells Beka, “Well, he’ll soon learn I won’t do as some randy bastard with a title bids. He’ll rue the day he crossed by friends and me!”
  • When Beka is strict, a man says, “I bet she sets the Corus Rats to kissing the mules’ arses . . . Stricter than their old mams!”
  • “Bitch” is said once, when a mage tells Beka, “We were only a day behind you, stupid bitch, riding hard. We passed you by night.”

Supernatural

  • Some people in Beka’s world have the Magical Gift, as it is called. This varies widely, and can be used from anything from healing and fighting to predicting or controlling the weather. A pair of mages manages to raise two sunken ships from the bottom of the sea after another mage senses them and projects an image of the ships above the water. “Two ships drawn in fire floated over the middle of the cove.”
  • Beka travels with a mage who calls himself Farmer. He is a powerful mage, who practices magic often. Sometimes his magic isn’t visible; sometimes it is very flashy. Once he sets a trap for another mage. “The blue sheath that covered him sent power flowing out over the little river to its opposite bank. An image formed over the water, bright against the dark and the magic. It was that of a woman in dull olive silk . . . The mixed-color fires rose from the river and flowed into the image of the Viper, swirling around until they swallowed her.”
  • Beka and some companions travel “under magical sleep, trapped onto their bunks to keep from flying off of them” because the ship is blow by mage-winds and are so fast “they don’t sail over the waves, they bounce off of them.”
  • Beka has a magicked mirror that “seemed to show me all manner of magics, whatever they were for and no matter what their strength.”
  • Beka’s cat is a constellation visiting the human world. After a nasty sea voyage, the cat says “I went to the Realms of the Gods once Achoo was under the sleep spell . . . Why should I remain for such an abysmal voyage if I don’t have to?” The constellation is not supposed to meddle in the human world, so he does so at the risk of angering the gods.
  • Beka can hear unhappy souls that ride on pidgeonbacks until they go to meet the Black God in his realm. As such, Beka is considered to be in the Black God’s service, and she often says prayers for the dead. “I closed the big cove’s open eyes with my fingers and set two copers from my purse on them . . . ‘Black God take you gentle, brave defender,’ I whispered. ‘The living will carry your duty now. Find the Peaceful Realms and rest.’ ”
  • An evil mage melts people who get in her way. “We both raised our lamps so we could better see the nastiness that was before us. It was a great soup that lay on the grass, trickling slowly into the river. I stared at it, fascinated. I recognized pieces of metal from horses’ tack, metal amulets and jewelry, and swords and daggers, but naught that was leather, cloth, or skin.”
  • Pounce steps in to stop Achoo from dying, even though he knows the gods will be angry. “Pounce set a forepaw on Achoo’s bleeding wound. Achoo shuddered all over and whined, but held still. Pounce kept his paw there a moment longer, then took it away . . . The wound closed and shrank, until it looked like an old scar.”

Spiritual Content

  • There are many gods in Tortall, though most rarely interact with mankind. The Mother, the Black God, Mithros, and the Drowned God are a few. Their most-often appearance in Tortall culture is their names being used as profanity, or exclamations of surprise. Tunstall says, “Mithros’s spear, what kind of cracknob picks a mage name like Farmer?”
  • The gods’ names are also invoked in greetings and blessings. One man tells Beka and her team, “I’ll make sacrifice to Great Mithros in your names, in hopes he’ll keep guiding you.” Another time Beka writes, “Gods all aid me and my Hunting team, I beg,” in her journal.
  • Beka and her cat can talk silently during hunts and when they are bored. “Pounce and I had entertained each other through prayers at Lord Gershom’s for years, and had begun again when our Hunts took us to noble houses.”
  • When Beka almost cries because they don’t have time to bury the bodies they discover, the Black God appears and buries them for her. This is the first time she has seen the Black God, the god of death. “You need not try to bury them, my finest priestess. I will do so . . . The god I’d been taught to call black reached out hands gloved in ever-changing colors, holding them over the murdered slaves, the guards, and the Viper. Suddenly green tendrils sprouted from the earth, twining around limbs and bodies like so many agile snakes . . . By the time they had stopped, the ground where the dead had lain was sunken. It looked as if their remains had been placed there decades ago and only flowers remained.”

by Morgan Lynn

Melting Stones

Evvy is a young stone mage; someone who can communicate with and control stone. Her mentor is a nature mage, and their less-than-welcome traveling companion is a water mage. These three have powers that frighten and impress most people they meet, but they might not be enough to stop what’s coming to the island of Starns. Strange deaths and earth shakes are only a hint of what is to come, and Evvy will need all the help she can get if she is to survive.

Melting Stones is a wonderful stand-alone novel. Evvy is not a people person. She would rather be alone with her rocks than talking to people, but she has a beautiful soul. This is a story of a traumatized girl learning to be a better and more caring person. Placed in an intriguing world of mages and spirits, this story will be enjoyed by kids of many ages.

Sexual Content

  • ” ‘Bored is the last thing we’ll be!’ The man laughed. I suppose they were talking about fooling around. People always think they have to discuss it like I don’t know what it is. That’s grown-ups for you. I let them do their sideways joking about sex, while I let my power trail along the ocean floor.”

Violence

  • Evvy disarms and beats up a couple of boys. “I had a problem with some rich boys . . . They were bothering some of my friends. I said I would hit them with my staff if they didn’t stop, and they drew swords and daggers on me. It wasn’t as if I actually broke any of their bones.”
  • Evvy has a flashback from a war she was in. She panics and accidentally hurts a companion. “Terror flooded me. I forgot where I was. I thought I was a captive . . . Was I back in Gyongxe? . . . They beat me last time! They’d beat me again to make me tell on my friends. I screamed and slammed my head forward, hard, into the soldier’s nose. Then I lashed sideways and bit deep into his arm.”
  • Evvy talks about a war she was in. She says, “I knew where people were hiding. The soldiers tried to make me tell by hitting the bottoms of my feet with a cane.”
  • Jayat confesses that his master used to beat him, and Evvy thinks, “My owner had beaten me when I was a slave, after all. Joobe-Hooba . . . would have beaten me. I bet he would have smiled as he did it.”
  • Nory is upset and hits Evvy. “Even if I could have moved, I wouldn’t have been fast enough to escape the hard slap she landed on my cheek. Then she slapped me again. She was crying . . . Then she punched me in the eye and walked off.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Evvy’s mentor drinks a medicinal tea, though it is not said why. ” ‘Did you drink your medicine tea?’ I asked her. ‘The kind that smells like boiled mule urine?’ “

Language

  • Evvy complains that people aren’t grateful for mage services. “They should half-kill themselves in the service of this, this beetle-spit village next to its chicken-piddle lake on its donkey-dung island.”

Supernatural

  • Mages can commune with certain elements of nature, like growing things, rocks or water. “Alongside the ship came a long arm of seawater with Rosethorn’s hat on top of it. It passed the hat to Myrrhtide, who patted the tentacle as he’d pet a good dog.”
  • Luvo is the heart of a mountain. He appears as a small crystal bear who can talk and walk.
  • Evvy has a spirit self that can travel through stone. “In my magical shape I swooped through a vein of rock-water, the indigo crystal cooling me as I passed . . . My magical body was all ideas and power, controlled by my mind, but I was certain that if my magical self burned to ashes, my real body would die, too.”
  • Evvy senses magma spirits. Their energy is so enticing Evvy appears as though possessed while pursuing it.
  • Evvy meets magma spirits. “When they’d first grabbed me they were like a pair of comets, gripping me with long, molten stone tails. Now they were shifting, their bodies getting shorter . . . Flare was sapphire blue, still with his trailing flame of hair. He had blacked-rimmed eyeholes around flame eyes.”
  • Local mages can’t control nature, but they can do some small spells. “Jayat and Tahar drew spell designs on the floor. Their lips moved as they called on the rocks to show where they came from.”
  • Luvo makes contact with the spirits of several islands. “I didn’t know this great, female voice, but it was familiar. I knew the stones in it, from mica to obsidian to basalt. It sounded like . . . Starns. It sounded like the island.”

Spiritual Content

  • Slavery is looked down on, but is legal in some places. Evvy says, “my mother sold me as a slave when I was six. It was because I was one mouth too many, and only a girl.”
  • Evvy says she would leave the villagers to deal with the volcano. “It’s their island, they have to solve getting off. They’re lucky I could warn them.” Her mentor asks, “You would abandon even the babies, Evvy?”
  • Evvy says, “Heibei, take this bad luck and bury it . . . Heibei’s the god of luck back home in Yanjing. I asked him for help. He’s a good god, not undependable, like your Lakik.” She mentions a few other gods as well, for example, “Kanzan the Merciful smile on me.”
  • After the volcanic incident is resolved, Evvy says crossing the island, “was like a journey through the hell of those who defy the Yanjing will of heaven. I thought I’d stopped believing in those hells, but they hadn’t stopped believing in me. They had followed me all the way here. This one had, anyway.”
  • “Gods of all stones be praised,” Luvo says. “We are not too late.”
  • A young boy tells Evvy that, “You mages is god-touched.”

by Morgan Lynn

Alanna, The First Adventure

Alanna may look like her brother, but where Thom is timid and studies magic, she is reckless and filled with a desire to learn how to wield a bow and sword. When Alanna is to be sent to a convent and Thom to become a knight, the twins take their lives into their own hands. By forging their father’s letters, Alanna becomes Alan, a page in training to be a knight, and her brother goes to learn sorcery. Training to be a knight would have been difficult without hiding her true sex; with that secret on her shoulders, it becomes almost impossible. But Alanna isn’t one to quit, and being a knight is all she’s ever wanted.

The first book in a quartet, this novel is a wonderful introduction into a richly drawn world of knights and magic. Alanna is a noble and stubborn girl who will sweep readers along on her adventures and will have you rooting for her every step of the way. While there is much fighting in her story, the lack of gory descriptions and clean language will make this story entertaining for teenagers and younger readers alike.

Sexual Content

  • When Alanna begins to grow, she has to bind her breasts to keep them hidden. “Watching the glass closely, she bounced up and down. Her chest moved. It wasn’t much, but she had definitely jiggled. Over the winter her breasts had gotten larger.”
  • Alanna doesn’t know what is happening when she has her first period. “She got out of bed–and gasped in horror to find her things and sheets smeared with blood.” A woman healer asks her, “Did no one ever tell you of a woman’s monthly cycle? The fertility cycle? . . . It happens to us all. We can’t bear children until it begins.”
  • Alana is given a pregnancy charm, which she claims she’ll never use. The healing woman asks, ” ‘Do you know what happens when you lie with a man?’ Alanna blushed. ‘Of course.’ “
  • When Alanna visits George, “he wasn’t dressed–he always slept bare.” When Alanna reveals that she is a girl, George orders her to turn around while he gets dressed. She does, but she says “That’s silly. I’ve seen you naked before.”
  • Alanna and Jon fight beings of power who are nearly immortal. They expose her secret by vanishing her clothes. “Her clothes were gone. All she wore was her belt and scabbard . . . She looked at Jonathan. Her friend was openly staring . . . [Jon] pulled off his tunic and handed it to her.”

Violence

  • George hints that he killed the last Rogue and took his place. “Who knows when some young buck will do for me what I did for the king before me, just six months back.”
  • When the bully Ralon tries to force Alanna to swim, she “rammed herself into Ralon’s stomach. The older boy yelped as he tumbled into the pool . . . When Ralon finally surfaced, he was half blind and three-quarters drowned.”
  • A boy bullies Alanna mercilessly, and as a result they get into several fights. “She hit low and hard. Ralon doubled over, clutching his lower belly.” During another fight, “She bloodied Ralon’s nose. Ralon broke her arm.” When Alanna finally beats the bully, “She slammed a fist up and under, into his stomach again, knocking the breath from his body. Swiftly she broke his nose with the other hand. Ralon collapsed, crying like a small child. ‘Never touch me again. If you do, I swear–I swear by Mithros and the Goddess–I’ll kill you,’ ” Alanna tells him.
  • In an attempt to protect Alan, her friends “beat Ralon thoroughly.” When Ralon doesn’t stop the bullying, “Gary held Ralon. Raoul administered the beating, his face impossible to read.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • George gives Alanna a tankard of ale, and he and his (adult) friends often drink at his inn.

Language

  • A bully tells Alanna, “If I say you’re the goatherd’s son, you say, ‘Yes, Lord Ralon.’ ” Alanna responds, “I’d as soon kiss a pig! Is that what you’ve been doing–kissing pigs?”
  • Ralon calls Alanna “dunghill trash.”

Supernatural

  • Some are born with The Gift, which can manifest in different ways. Some are great healers, while others use their Gift to control the weather or to fight.
  • Alanna threatens to make a man see things that aren’t there, unless he helps her become a knight. She also admits that she has made people see things in the past. “Coram turned pale. The afternoon the tarts were discovered missing, Cook started to see large, hungry lions following him around the kitchens… When the twins’ godmother came to Trebond to snare Lord Alan as her next husband, she had fled after only three days, claiming the castle was haunted.”
  • Magic is used to send a fever to the palace, in an attempt on the prince’s life. “The fever continued, drying Jon’s lips till they cracked and bled.”
  • Alanna uses her magic to heal. “She reached inside herself. It was there: a purple, tiny ball of fire that grew as she nudged it with her mind. Her nose started to itch, as it always did when she first called on her magic.”
  • Alanna asks the Goddess for aid, and the Goddess tells her to call her friend back from edge of death. Alanna has to go through the Black God to get to her friend. “She was twisting in a black, writhing well . . . Shrieks and cackling and the screams of doomed souls sounded all around her. She was on the edge, between the world of the living and the Underworld . . . A huge, dark shadow shaped like a hooded man came between them . . . This must be the Dark God, the Master of all death.”
  • Alanna and Jon fight powerful beings who say, “We are gods and the children of gods . . . We were here before your Old Ones, and we laughed when their cities fell.”

Spiritual Content

  • There are many gods in Tortall, such as the Black God and the Crooked God. Some gods guide mortals, while most never interfere directly.
  • Alanna discusses whether or not she should use her magical Gift. She says, “If a person has power–something that can be used for good or evil, either way–should they use it?” Her mentor tells her, “Magic isn’t good or evil by itself. I believe you should only use it when you are absolutely certain your cause is just.”

by Morgan Lynn

In the Hand of the Goddess

Few know that tiny Alan, who is squire to none other than the prince himself, is actually a girl named Alanna. In order to become a knight, Alanna has been forced to disguise herself for years. Despite this secret, she has managed to become one of the greatest squires of her year. Squire Alan is admired for his skill with the bow and sword, and he’ll need those skills for what’s coming. Dark magic and treachery surround the crown and Alanna’s friend, Prince Jon. Alanna might be the only one capable of bringing such plots to light.

While this book has slightly more adult content, the descriptions are not gory and the writing is discreet. During the course of the book, Alanna kisses two men and takes one for her lover, but there are no descriptions of her having intercourse. This book continues the exciting adventures found in the first installment, and Alanna remains a strong and likable female heroine.

Sexual Content

  • The Goddess asks why Alanna fears love. “Yet what is there for you to fear? Warmth? Trust? A man’s touch?” Alanna replies, “I don’t want a man’s touch!”
  • George and Alanna kiss. ” ‘Alanna,’ he whispered, ‘I’m takin’ advantage of you now, because I may never catch you with your hands full again.’ He kissed her softly and carefully. Alanna trembled, too shocked to do anything but let it happen.”
  • Alanna thinks about Jon’s relationship with Delia. “The girl would convince Jon one day that she was his alone, and ignore him the next. Soon they were sleeping together–”
  • George kisses Alanna goodbye. “George kissed her, pulling her close. His mouth was warm and comforting. Alanna had not forgotten the last time, and she had discovered that she liked his kisses. Relaxing, she let her friend hold her tightly.”
  • Jon kisses Alanna. “Suddenly he was very close. Alanna discovered she was afraid to breathe. Carefully, almost timidly, Jonathan kissed her mouth.”
  • Alanna is walking in a garden. “A night for lovers, she thought, then bit her lip. She had no lover, and she didn’t want one.”
  • Jon kisses Alanna again. “Swiftly he kissed her again and again . . . She was scared. She suddenly realized she wanted to be the one in his bed tonight. Jonathan stopped kissing her, only to start unlacing her bodice. Alanna shoved him away, terrified.”
  • Alanna and Jon start sleeping together, though it is not described further than “At night, Jonathan taught her about loving.”
  • When joking about bathing, Alanna says, “You just don’t want Gary to see me bare.” Jon replies, ” ‘You’re right I don’t! Do you?’ . . . When Alanna only giggled, Jonathan repeated, ‘Do you?’ “
  • Jon kisses her goodbye. “He kissed her fiercely before letting her go.”

Violence

  • When Alanna duels, her partner breaks the rules. “She stepped back too slowly, and the tip of Dain’s sword sank deep into her right arm below the elbow… According to the rules, Dain had won… He lunged for her chest, his eyes wide and crazy. Alanna jumped aside, just missing dying on the Tusaine’s sword.”
  • Alanna gets into a border skirmish. “Swiftly Alanna slid Lightning into the opening between the knight’s arm and chest armor, thrusting deep. With a gasp of surprise, her enemy fell from his horse, dead.”
  • Alanna is attacked by a wolf. “She saw nothing but the wolf, who was doing his best to fling her off his back. She held on, desperately striking again and again with her knife. Suddenly the wolf shuddered and howled; her blade had entered his side. He fell, his paws twitching. She had stabbed him to the heart.”
  • Alanna and George are attacked. “She rode Moonlight straight at a man who was putting an arrow to his bow. The mare trampled him ruthlessly as Alanna drew Lightning, slashing at a third attacker.”
  • Alex tries to kill Alanna when they are practicing their swordplay. “The blunt edge struck her collarbone rather than her skull. Bone cracked in her shoulder as she fell to her knees with a cry of pain. Helplessly she watched the sword swing up and down, unable to stop its slicing toward her throat.”
  • Alanna kills Roger after he tries to kill the Queen. ” ‘The Goddess!’ She yelled, leaping forward. Lightning struck the cloud, slicing it open to find Roger at its heart . . . The sword cut even deeper this time as Alanna opened her eyes, blinking to clear her vision. Roger stood, trying to pull her sword out of his body.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • George and his other friends, all in adulthood or their late teens, drink ale.
  • George offers Alanna brandy in celebration. Alanna says, “Normally I just drink this stuff to clear my head, but–this is quite pleasant.”
  • George knows Alanna will worry herself silly before her Ordeal of Knighthood, so he sneaks something into her drink that makes her sleep.

Language

  • When captured, Alanna distracts a man so her fellow captives can escape. “Behavior I’d expect from the goatherd’s bastard, not a nobleman . . . Perhaps your mother tricked your father?”
  • Alanna occasionally curses with the gods’ names when surprised or upset. ” ‘Great Merciful Mother!’ Alanna gasped.”
  • Damn is said once or twice. “Myles said he was damned if he would get up at this hour . . . “

Supernatural

  • Alanna is blessed by the Mother, also known as the Goddess, who is one of Tortall’s many deities. The Goddess visits Alanna occasionally, bestowing advice and sometimes gifts.
  • Someone tries to kill Alanna with sorcery. “When an ugly, cloven hoof burst through the beaten snow over the tent opening, Alanna thrust upward with all her strength. She burst from the snow, shaking clumps from her face, to feel her sword wrenched from her hand… Gripping her sword hilt to pull it free, she stopped; the boar’s eyes were a demonic red. Suddenly he shuddered one last time–and vanished.”

Spiritual Content

  • There are many gods in Tortall, such as the Dark God, the Goddess, and the Crooked God. Different people honor different gods, and Alanna has glimpses of them because she is god-touched. “A huge shadow figure was bending over her. ‘Thor,’ she sighed, recognizing the Dark God. ‘You want Thor.’ Reaching out a hand that was blacker than night, the God touched Alanna’s eyes.”
  • Alanna’s partner cheats during a duel. Afterward, her friend says, “he gave you every excuse to kill him . . . even his Ambassador would have understood if you had.” Alanna replies that “Just because he behaved badly is no excuse for me to behave badly.”
  • Alanna thinks that soldiers, “only cared about pain and the Dark God’s arrival.”
  • When Alanna finds a dying friend, he asks for her help. ” ‘I’d just like to . . . go to sleep. I’m that tired.’ Alanna trembled. Healing was natural for her, but she had never killed a human being with her Gift. She didn’t think she could . . . Alanna pressed her good hand to Thor’s forehead, her Gift lighting the clearing with a deep violet fire. ‘Sleep, Thor,’ she whispered. She felt him falling away gently, slipping into a long, dark well. Alanna rose. Thor’s chest was still.”

by Morgan Lynn

Lioness Rampant

Alanna is restless. She has already accomplished the impossible by becoming a female knight, but that is not enough. She craves the sort of adventure that can only be found in legends. Luckily for Alanna, her life is quickly making her story legendary. Lioness Rampant introduces enjoyable and richly developed characters. Along with the reappearance of an old evil, Alanna must decide where she fits in. Will she ever be welcomed back at court, or will she spend the rest of her life wandering along the edge of the world?

There is slightly less fighting in this book than the others, but still plenty of excitement to keep readers engaged. Alanna takes a lover, as she did in book three, but there are no graphic descriptions and her relationship is not the main plot. Alanna continues to be a likable heroine and a fun character to follow.

Sexual Content

  • Coram tries to warn Liam off, but Liam assures him that his interest in Alanna is because he likes her, not because she is famous. “I’m not a village lad wanting to boast of having the Lioness’s pelt in my hut, Master Smythesson. I like her.”
  • When Alanna tells Coram that Liam didn’t touch her, Coram says, “maybe he’s plannin’ to.” Alanna responds, “Nothing wrong with that.”
  • Alanna gets involved with Liam, who is a Shang Dragon, a great warrior. She sleeps with him, but nothing more than kissing is ever described. “He kissed her gently, then passionately, and Alanna surrendered. Any misgivings she had were put away for thought at another, less interesting time.” Another time, “His first kiss was gentle, the second passionate. Alanna let him pull her into his arms, thinking, We should talk some more about why he was angry. I don’t think lovemaking will settle anything. The Dragon was so determined, however, that once again she put her questions aside to be dealt with later.”
  • Alanna kisses Liam a few times. “He jumped down and held his hands up to her. She slid into his grasp, and they kissed.”
  • A background check is run on a man called Claw. It is discovered that “He was disinherited after the attempted rape of the second daughter of the bailiff… The girl’s maid threw acid in his face, thereby leaving the purple scars of which you spoke.”
  • George kisses Alanna awhile after she breaks up with Liam. “He cupped Alanna’s face, his grave hazel eyes searching out her own. He nodded, liking what he saw, and kissed her gently.”

Violence

  • A group of rogues tries to kill Alanna and her man-at-arms. “The thieves understood simultaneous attack. Alanna and Coram blocked automatically . . . One of the staffmen swung and missed–she ran him through. Coram shouted fiercely, and someone screamed. When a swordsman looked to see the screamer’s fate, Alanna slashed his leg.”
  • Alanna finds a pile of dead bodies, the aftermath of a war. “Here the dead had been piled up and left, until only skeletons remained . . . Bone hands still clutched weapons. Kneeling, Alanna slid a lowland sword out of the pile.”
  • Buri tells a story of a queen who killed herself in protest of how her people were being treated. “Lowlanders take us for slaves; they steal our horses . . . She and Thayet tried to make the Warlord stop . . . Kalasin stood at her window and sang her death chant, about her shame at jin Wilima’s laws. A crowd was there to witness: nobles, commonborn, and slaves. My mother and brother were killed, but they held the door until it was too late for the Warlord’s men to stop her from jumping.”
  • An assassin shoots an arrow at a princess, then jumps off a roof to escape capture. “She lifted the assassin’s headcloth. The face, sickeningly misshapen after the fall, was male and coarse, the cheeks filled with a drunkard’s broken veins.”
  • Alanna battles an elemental for the Dominion Jewel. When she decides she does not want to kill the beast, it gives her the jewel. “She ducked and dodged. When he gave her an opening, she executed one of the jump kicks Liam had taught her, slamming into the ape’s shoulder and making him roar. When he swung to chop her down, she was away and circling. She sought her chance and flew in again, hitting the same shoulder . . . “
  • After the Queen dies, the King kills himself by jumping into a ravine. This act is not described, and the reader only learns about it when the Prince tells his friend.
  • A man is attacked. We don’t see the fight, but Alanna finds him afterward. “The old man staggered in, clutching a bloody right arm. Alanna grabbed a towel and swiftly bandaged the priest before he lost more blood, fighting brief nausea. Si-cham’s right hand was gone.”
  • Alanna is attacked by her once-friend, Alex. “He lurched once more, cross-cutting with a speed she could not dodge, slashing across her cheek and her bare right hand. In the split-second opening in the path of his sword she rammed forward, crushing his windpipe with one fist as she struck his nose with the other, thrusting bone splinters deep into his brain.”
  • Alanna kills the evil sorcerer who tries to destroy Tortall. “The effect was like loosing a bolt from a crossbow. Released from her pull, the sword shrieked as it flew . . . He didn’t even seem to know what she’d done until Lightning buried itself in his chest. Roger grabbed the hilt. Amazingly, he laughed. He laughed until his dying lungs ran out of air.”

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A man buys a glass of wine for Alanna, who is now an adult.
  • Alanna’s man-at-arms, Coram, drinks regularly. His worst behavior while drinking, is singing raucous songs that are not described. “Coram awoke late, with a head he would not wish on his worst enemy. For a long time he waited for his knight-mistress to arrive with her hangover cure.”

Language

  • A jealous girl calls Alanna a slut.

Supernatural

  • Many people in Alanna’s world have the magical Gift. Some use this Gift for fighting, while others use it for healing or to control the weather.
  • Alanna searches for the Dominion Jewel, which “may be more directly used, in healing and war, for fertility and death. A knowledgeable ruler, knowing fully the creation of magical formulae, may create new land from ocean deeps, or return the breath of a dead child.”
  • Alanna has a magical cat who can talk.
  • Thom’s magic is stolen by an evil sorcerer.

Spiritual Content

  • Tortall has many gods, such as the Crooked God, Mithros, and the Black God. Alanna was chosen by the Great Mother, also known as the Goddess. The Goddess visits Alanna occasionally, to bestow advice.

by Morgan Lynn

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Alanna has revealed to the world that she is a woman; the first woman knight in hundreds of years. Thanks to the less-than-warm welcome she received at court, Alanna decides to travel south in search of adventure. After a violent conflict with some hillmen, Alanna is set on a course that leads to her being adopted by a tribe of Bazhir. After becoming the tribe’s shaman, Alanna must train the young Gifted children in the tribe how to control their magic. As she begins to learn what life is like in the Southern desert, she finds herself the student as often as the teacher.

Alanna has become a knight, a duty that she takes seriously. She is a kind and honorable woman; a strong role model. Her story is packed with fighting, magic and adventure. The fighting is exciting but not gory, making it appropriate for a wide range of readers.

Sexual Content

  • Alanna and Jon are lovers. “He kissed her fiercely. She returned the kiss, feeling heat rush through her at his touch. He bore down to her sleeping mat; in the time that followed, they knew they still desired each other.”
  • Alanna tells Jon that, ” ‘women of bad reputation’ go without veils among the Bazhir . . . All this time I haven’t worn a veil, but it took me until tonight to get a bad reputation.”
  • Jon proposes to Alanna, then asks. ” ‘Do you still wear that charm Mistress Cooper gave you to keep you from getting pregnant?’ She showed it to him, hanging half-hidden on the same chain that suspended her ember-stone. ‘I never go without it.’ ‘I trust you’ll leave it off after we’re married,’ he said with a yawn.”
  • Alanna and Jon get into a fight. ” ‘What about all those women at the palace and the way they look at you?’ Alanna demanded. ‘And I know you’ve had affairs with some of them! They’ve made you into a conceited–’ “
  • After Alanna breaks up with Jon, she asks George to kiss her, but he says, ” ‘Oh, no . . . If I kiss you again now, one thing will lead to another, and this isn’t the proper place for that sort of carryin’-on.’ ‘Then take me to a place that is,’ she suggested.”

Violence

  • Alanna and Coram fight with hillmen. Coram is, “trying to fend off three at once. He yelled in pain as one of them opened a deep gash on his sword arm. He swore and attacked again, dropping his shield and switching his sword to his good left hand . . . Alanna caught another blow from the crystal blade on her shield, feeling the shock through her entire body.”
  • Alanna duels a Bazhir to prove her worth. “He feinted high and then drove in, his knife coming up from beneath. Alanna turned her side toward him; as his arm shot past her, she seized it and wrenched him over her hip . . . Twisting, Alanna stabbed through the web of muscle on the bottom of his upper arm. She yanked her knife free just as one of his fists struck the middle of her spine, driving the wind from her lungs.”
  • Alanna is forced to fight a shaman. “Violet fire sprang into being, whirling to encircle Ibn Nazzir. He shrieked and swept the sword around him; the wall vanished. He charged; Alanna jumped, kicking him to the ground. With a roll she was on him, wrestling for the sword.”
  • Alanna tries to tame an evil sword. “She ducked under the swing of the axe-man and came up inside, running him through. For an instant sick, black triumph roared into her mind. She froze, knowing the sword’s magic was turning her fierce pride in being the better fighter into an ugly joy at killing.”
  • Alanna helps her tribe fight off another tribe with her Magic. “She sent a whip of violet fire at the shamans, determined to end the problem at its source. One dropped to the ground when her magic reached him, screeching in agony. A second streak of fire, red in color, picked off another shaman–Ishak had seen her purpose, and was helping.”
  • A boy is destroyed by a magical sword. “The sword’s magic reflected back from her protection, enveloping Ishak in a ball of flame. He screamed, once. Then he was gone.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The Voice of the Tribes smokes a “long pipe.”
  • Alanna gives a girl wine to calm her down.
  • George tells Alanna’s brother that he, “Best have a shot of brandy to steady your nerves.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Some people have the magical Gift, which manifests differently in different people. Some are able to heal, while others use their Gift to fight or control the weather. In the Bazhir, people with the Gift are trained to be shaman. Alanna eventually starts a school for magic.
  • Alanna is adopted by a Bazhir tribe. “In a swift movement the man opened a low shallow cut on the inside of her forearm. Holding out his own wrist, he did the same to himself, then pressed his wound to Alanna’s . . . Alanna shuddered as an alien magic flooded into her body. She knew without being told that Halaf Seif was only a pathway for this sorcery, that its origins were as old as the Bazhir tribes.”
  • A shaman attacks Alanna’s pet. “Frantically he drew shimmering yellow magical symbols in the air . . . A wall of purple magic streaked from her fingers to surround Faithful, just as yellow fire left the shaman’s hands. It shattered against the wall protecting Faithful.”

Spiritual Content

  • There are many deities in Tortall, such as the Dark God and the Crooked God. Different people honor different gods. Alanna is watched over by the Goddess, who has visited her and given her a token. ” ‘It is a token given me by the Great Mother Goddess, from Her own hand!’ Those listening drew back, awed and frightened. The Mother was as well known and worshipped here as she was in the North; none of them would use Her name lightly.”

by Morgan Lynn

The Rosemary Spell

As Rosemary is moving into a new bedroom, she discovers a mysterious book hidden in a locked cabinet.  The book used to belong to the town’s famous poet Constance, an elderly poet who has lost most of her memory. With her best friend, Rosemary tries to unravel the secret of the words. However, when they read what is written within, Shelby suddenly disappears—no one remembers her, not even her own parents.

Rosemary and Adam desperately try to figure out how to keep Shelby’s memory alive and how to bring her back. As they embark on their quest, they need Constance’s help, but her memory is fleeting. The two aren’t sure how to get the answers they need to break the spell. And as each minute passes, memories of Shelby are harder and harder to remember.

Right from the start, The Rosemary Spell will capture readers’ hearts with the characters. The mystery of the old book adds just a bit of creepiness without being scary. The Rosemary Spell is full of suspense, but what really drives the book is the close relationship between the three characters. Throughout the story, the reader will also gain insight into Rosemary’s feels of being abandoned by her father, as well as how Alzheimer’s affects the elderly. In the end, Rosemary learns that “There is loss in life, and the best we can do is face it head-on and meet it with grace and remembrance.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • During a storm, Adam and Rosemary take a small boat across a swollen river. Rosemary injures her arm. “Swearwords I have never spoken, that I didn’t even know I knew, rise up inside me, but I keep my mouth shut. If I open my mouth, I’ll throw up.”
  • Adam, Rosemary, and Shelby try to cross back over the swollen river, and the three almost drown.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Adam and Rosemary find an ancient book that has writing that appears and disappears. The book also has a spell, which when read out loud makes whoever hears it no longer exist. Not knowing it is a spell, Adam and Rosemary say it, and Adam’s sister, Shelby disappears.
  • When Adam and Rosemary repeat a line from Shakespeare, “Rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray, love, remember,” they remember Shelby.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Aru Shah and the End of Time

Aru makes up stories such as having a fancy chauffeur and traveling to Paris. She doesn’t mean to tell lies, she just wants to fit in at her private middle school. While her classmates are vacationing in exotic places, Aru is stuck at home, which just happens to be connected to the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture.

Not all of Aru’s classmates believe her stories. One day, three students show up at Aru’s home hoping to catch her in a lie. Aru told them that the museum’s Lamp of Bharata is cursed. When they dare her to light the lamp, Aru doesn’t really believe anything bad will happen.

Aru doesn’t know that lighting the lamp will change her life forever. When the fire touches the wick, it awakens the Sleeper, an ancient demon, who is intent on awakening the God of Destruction.  Now Aru’s mother and her classmates are frozen. Aru must do something to save them, but how is a young girl supposed to defeat an ancient evil?

Aru Shah and the End of Time will captivate readers from the first page. Action, adventure, humor, and interesting places in Indian Mythology come to life. The beautiful descriptions and interesting characters (including a pigeon sidekick) are just some of the reasons readers will fall in love with Aru’s world. Although the story contains many Indian words, the reader can figure out most of them through the story’s context. The back of the book contains a glossary that helps explain the Indian Mythology and terms.

Told from Aru’s point of view, readers will relate to her desire to fit in and her struggle with being truthful. Aru and her companion, Mini, are unlikely, lovable heroines. As the two girls fight to defeat the Sleeper, they discover that one doesn’t have to be perfect in order to accomplish great things, such as saving the world.

Told with compassion and humor, Aru Shah and the End of Time is a must-read for middle school girls. Not only will the story take readers on an amazing adventure, but it also teaches the importance of friendship, working together, and honesty. Because of Aru’s experiences, she realizes the importance of looking at situations from different perspectives. The many lessons in the book are seamlessly integrated into the plot and never feel forced. Once you open the pages of Aru Shah and the End of Time, you will not want to put the book down.

Sexual Content

  • At a school dance, the chaperone yells, “Leave enough room between you for Jesus.” As the dance progressed, she begins yelling, “LEAVING ROOM FOR THE HOLY TRINITY.”
  • When Aru looks into the Pool of the Past, she sees her mother and father. “They were strolling along the banks of a river, laughing. And occasionally stopping to . . . kiss.”

Violence

  • Aru and Mini trick a demon to make herself turn into ash. “The demon’s palm landed with a loud thunk on her own scalp. A horrible shriek ripped through the air. Flames burst around Brahmasura’s hand… Aru covered her face. Her ears rang with the sound of Madam Bee’s screams.”
  • Boo attacks the Sleeper and poops on him. The Sleeper “growled and threw Boo across the room. The pigeon hit a shelf with a loud smack and slumped to the floor.”
  • Shukra becomes consumed with his beauty. Because he spends so much time focusing on himself, his wife stops loving him. Shukra’s wife tells him, “How can I love someone I no longer know?” In anger, he kills her. “I do not remember doing what I did. . . It was only when the red had cleared from my eyes that I saw her corpse.”
  • Memory-stealing snow falls on Aru and Mini. “This time, when the snow landed on Aru, it stung. Because it (the snow) was taking. With every flake another memory was ripped from her.” Later Aru causes someone to lose his memories.
  • Aru, Mini, and the godly mounts plan an ambush. The ambush is described over a chapter. When the Sleeper arrives, he brings demons with him. “Aru ducked under the guest sign-in table as someone’s head (literally) flew past her . . . The seven-headed horse shook its head. Blood and spit flew over the walls . . . Boo acted quickly, and bird droppings rained across the demon’s eyes and forehead.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The story focuses on Indian Mythology and includes gods, demigods, monsters, and demons.  The back of the book includes a glossary of Indian mythology, so the reader can understand who the mythological characters are.
  • Aru lights the Lamp of Bharata and awakens the “Sleeper, a demon who will summon Lord Shiva, the fearsome Lord of Destruction, who will dance upon the world and bring an end to Time.”  When Aru lights the lamp, people are “suspended in time… Their skin was warm. A pulse leaped at each of their throats. But they didn’t move.” The Sleeper is a demon that can take many forms.
  • In order to save Time, Aru and Mini must find the keys to the Kingdom of Death. The first one is found in the hair of a demon—anything that touches the demon turns to ashes.
  • Aru discovers that her mother is a part of a sisterhood. “Five women who are reincarnations of legendary queens from the ancient stories. These days their job is to raise and protect us.”
  • Aru and Mini meat the Seasons, who are tailors. Winter explains, “We dress the world itself. I embroider the earth with ice and frost, the most delicate in the world.” The Seasons give the girls magical gifts that will help them on their journey.
  • Aru and Mini go to a market that has a library of living books.
  • The Sleeper turns the “mounts of the gods” into clay and puts them in a birdcage. Aru uses a magical ball to free them.

 Spiritual Content

  • Aru and Mini are “siblings because you share divinity. You’re a child of the gods because one of them helped forge your soul.”
  • When trying to explain the Otherworld, a character explains, “Many things can coexist. Several gods can live in one universe. It’s like fingers on a hand. They’re all different, but still part of a hand.”
  • Aru’s mother said, “the Hindu gods were numerous, but they don’t stay as one person all the time. Sometimes they were reincarnated—their souls were reborn in someone else.”
  • Aru and Mini go to the Halls of the Dead, where Aru can “hear the final words of people who have died: No, and not yet. . . And I hope someone clears my internet browser. But mostly, Aru heard love. Tell my family I love them. Tell my wife I love her.”
  •  After leaving the Hall of the Dead, Mini remembers, “in Hinduism, death wasn’t a place where you were stuck forever. It was where you waited to be reincarnated. Your soul could live hundreds—maybe even thousands—of lives before you got out of the loop of life and death by achieving enlightenment.” Later in the story, Aru and Mini visit that place where reincarnation takes place. The sign says, “REMAKE, REBUILD, RELIVE! REINCARNATION MANUFACTURING SERVICES.”
  • Aru and Mini go to an office where a character explains karma. The story talks about Chitrigupta, who “kept a record of everything a soul had ever done, both good and bad. This was why karma mattered.” Later, someone explains, “As you live, your good deeds and bad deeds are extracted from karma . . .”

A Nearer Moon

Luna’s world revolves around her little sister, Willow. Willow is happiness and sunshine, and she brings the family together. When Willow becomes sick with the mysterious river sickness, everyone tells Luna there is no way to save her sister. They say she will be dead in three weeks. Luna refuses to sit by her sister’s side and watch her die. Luna and her friend Benny embark on a series of adventures to find a cure for Willow.

Interwoven into Luna’s story is the story of Perdita, a spunky river sprite. The fairies moved to a new world, far from humans. But in a devastating twist of fate, Perdita was left behind when the fairies went through the magical door to a new home. All alone, Perdita flees to the bottom of a swamp and hates anything that shows joy.

Luna offers herself to Perdita in exchange for Willow’s life. Luna hopes the sprite can save Willow but has Perdita’s grief made her blind to others’ needs? Can Perdita find hope again?

A Nearer Moon is a beautifully written story about the love of sisters. The parallel stories about Luna and Perdita add interest. Luna is a plucky character who younger readers will love. The story has beautiful, vivid descriptions of Luna’s world. The only downside to this story are the long descriptions that slow the action.

Sexual Content

  • None

 

Violence

  • While riding in a boat, Willow’s laughter disturbs Perdita, who goes up and tips the boat. When Willow is dunked into the water, she “sputtered and coughed the filthy swamp water off her tongue . . . Willow leaned over the side of the boat, her stomach heaving as she retched, her eyes teary and her nose running . . . The creature slid, unseen, back to its cave, the silence, smothering its aching heart like a damp blanket over hot coals.” Both Willow and Luna know the water will give Willow the river sickness.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The sprites used magic to build a door to take them to another world because humans poisoned the sprites’ world. “Only a hazy wrinkle of air betrayed that any magic had been done in that place or that anyone had passed through at that spot, passed through from one world into another.”
  • A girl’s grandmother “told us a story about a wood sprite that lived in her rafters when she was little. They never once saw it, but if they so much as dusted the beam where its bundle-of-sticks house was, the milk would turn sour and vegetables would rot overnight.”
  • Gia, a sprite, makes two lockets, one for herself and one for her sister. “These, when opened, would be like doors of their own. Private doors through which to call a lost thing home.” If both lockets were open, Gia could speak a word and her sister would be magically transported to wherever she was.
  • When Willow becomes sick, Luna tries to discover how to cure her. Some people “call it a sickness. Call it a curse . . . Maybe it was all the same thing, only different words used by different people struggling to understand the sort of thing no one can comprehend.”
  • Luna finds a book that has fairy recipes in it. Luna makes “a dram of flower essence for use in the purification of soured water.” When she uses the potion, she whispers a phrase. “She didn’t know if this was magic. It was pleading. It was hoping. It was speaking the deepest wish of her soul and asking the air to hear her.”

Spiritual Content

  • When Willow becomes sick, her mother “sank to her knees beside her own bed, clicking her prayer beads around and around again.” Willow’s mother goes to the chapel often to “click” her prayer beads.

The Serpent’s Secret

Kiran’s parents are just a bit odd, and she has never really fit in. Even so, she thought she was just a regular sixth grader living in New Jersey. Then, on her twelfth birthday, her parents disappear and a rakkhosh demon crashes through her house to try to eat her.

When two princes show up, trying to rescue her, she realizes that her parents’ stories are really true—she really is a princess that comes from another world. With the help of the two princes, Kiran is taken to another dominion, one with magic, winged horses, moving maps, and annoying talking birds. Before she can save her parents, she must fight demons, unlock riddles, and avoid the Serpent King of the Underworld.

The Serpent’s Secret is an interesting and action-packed retelling of Indian mythology. Filled with riddles, jokes, and a talking bird, the story will entertain middle school readers. Black and white illustrations will help readers visualize the characters. As Kiran learns about her cultural background, she also learns to accept herself. Although there is violence, the scenes are appropriate for younger readers because they are not described in detail and much of the action is running away from demons instead of battling them.

Kiran and the two princes talk like stereotypical teenagers. The main character’s dialogue is filled with slang and idioms such as when Kiran looks at the prince and thinks, “While I got my fill of Lal-flavored eye candy.” There is a lot of creative name-calling throughout the story, which does not involve cursing.

A dynamic story with a strong heroine, The Serpent’s Secret will delight those who like a good adventure story.  For readers interested in adventure stories or India’s mythology, Aru Shah and the End of Time is a must-read.

Sexual Content

  • The king has multiple wives.

Violence

  • A rakkhosh, or demon, swallows Kiran’s parents and then tries to swallow her. When Lal tries to help, the rakkhosh knocks him out. “I shrieked as the monster’s fist managed to connect with Lal’s head. The prince slumped forward, unconscious, and then began to slip off the rakkhosh’s neck.” The fighting takes place over several chapters.
  • A teenager spits at Lal. “The goober hung on a lone blade of grass, shimmering like a disgusting jewel.”
  • The Demon Queen attacks Kiran. “. . . The rakkhoshi ripped a handful of her own hair from her head and threw it at me . . . As soon as the magical hair hit me, I couldn’t move at all.” Neel saves Kiran, but not before the Demon Queen turns Neel’s brother and friend into spheres. The battle lasts over several pages.
  • When Kiran and Neel try to steal a stone that is being protected by a python, the “snake grabbed a hold of Neel, wrapped itself around him, and began to squeeze. . . Neel’s face got redder as the snake squeezed.” The battle scene takes place over a chapter. In the end, the python is defeated. “The python’s giant body lay still, oozing dark blood on the cavern floor. Trying to reach the jewel, it had instead split itself in two on Neel’s sword.”
  • A baby rakkhosh wants to eat Kiran, her parents, and Neel. “That snot-nosed newborn demon transformed himself into a whirlpool.” When the rakkhosh “eats” them, they end up in a cave with a seven-headed snake, who “wrapped Ma, Baba, and even poor terrified Tuntuni in his coils. As a last flourish, he slapped his nasty tail over all their mouths.”
  • The serpent king imprisoned Neel in a flaming sphere. “The prince screamed in pain—a sound that made my blood run cold. He writhed around within the glowing orb, his body twisting in unnatural contortions, as if he were being tortured.”
  • Kiran and the Serpent King battle. “He shot bolt after bolt of green fire, but I met them all with the shimmering, diamond light of my own.” Kiran’s moon mother shows up, and “as he launched the cracking lightning from his hands, the moon shot a white-hot beam at the Serpent King. He glowed an incandescent green, but then began to writhe and decay, his energy going from green to brown to gray to black.” The Serpent King disappears and everyone is safe.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A rakkhosh sings a song, “Hob, gum, goom, geer! Pass the blood! Pass the beer!”
  • A “band of drunken demons” chase Kiran and Neel.
  • Kiran sees a warning sign that reads, “After whisky, fighting demons risky.”

Language

  • A bangle seller says her bracelets are for “generously proportioned and the skinny-butt offspring of slimy snake creatures alike.”
  • The Demon Queen calls Kiran a “snake in the grass” and “cobra dropping.
  • When Kiran is fighting a python, she thinks, “Holy serpent poop.”
  • Kiran thinks that Neel’s “Granny still had some chutzpah left in her.”
  • Kiran calls Neel a “Royal Pain-in-the- Heinie.”
  • Crap is used twice and heck is used once.

Supernatural

  • The story focuses on Indian mythology, including mythological monsters and demons.
  • Kiran’s parents are “swallowed by a rakkhosh and whisked away to another galactic dimension.”
  • Kiran’s father was a serpent king and her mother was a moon maiden. Her adoptive parents found her “in a clay pot floating down the River of Dreams.”
  • Kiran’s biological mother exiled her to New Jersey and put a protection spell over her and her adoptive parents. “Anyway, an expired spell also makes everything around it unstable—in this situation, the boundaries between the various dimensions . . . which is how the rakkhosh came into your world.”
  • Kiran’s tears have healing properties. “I remembered how Tuni had seemed dead, but how he’d come to life in my arms.”
  • Kiran can understand horses. “And then, as clearly as if the horse were speaking to me, I heard his voice in my mind.”

Spiritual Content

  • Kiran explains that her “Baba always tells me we’re all connected by energy—trees, wind, animals, people, everything. . . He says that life energy is a kind of river flowing through the universe.” Neel continues the thought and says, “When our bodies give out, that’s just the pitcher breaking, pouring what’s inside back into the original stream of universal souls . . . so no one’s soul is ever really gone.”

Took

When Daniel and his sister move to rural West Virginia, Daniel doesn’t think things can get any worse.  The students at his new school torment him. The teachers are indifferent. He has no friends. His parents are unhappy. And to make matters worse, his sister spends all of her time talking to her doll.

When Daniel hears stories of Old Auntie, who kidnaps a girl every 50 years, he thinks it’s just an old tale used to frighten children. But then he feels someone watching him. He sees strange shadows. And when his sister suddenly disappears, Daniel is convinced Old Auntie isn’t just a story.

As Daniel’s parents lose themselves in grief, Daniel decides he must face his fears and bring his sister home. With the help of his neighbor and one of Old Auntie’s descendants, Daniel fights for his sister’s freedom.

Right from the start, Took: A Ghost Story will capture the reader’s attention. Young readers will be able to relate to Daniel, who feels as if all of life’s decisions are out of his control. Although Daniel clearly cares for his parents and sister, his frustration with them is understandable. Daniel is a likable character, who faces his fears and in the end, brings his family back together.

The story is primarily told from Daniel’s point of view but has several chapters told from Old Auntie’s point of view. This adds suspense to the story and helps develop the creepy mood. This is not a book to read with the lights out. Because Old Auntie and Bloody Bones are described in such realistic, vivid detail, readers will be entertained and frightened.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Bloody Bones kills someone. “Tore him clean apart with the panther’s teeth and ate him up. Then he dug his grave with the bear’s claws and brushed the ground smooth with the raccoon’s tail.”
  • The kids at school are mean to Daniel. They “accidentally” hit him and kick the back of his seat on the bus.
  • When Daniel and his sister, Erica, are in the woods, Daniel sees something and forces Erica to leave with him. They get into a fight. “. . . She struggled harder to get away from me, crying and screaming . . . she managed to bite me twice and scratch my face.”
  • Bloody Bones is going to throw Daniel off of a cliff, so Eric throws rocks at him. “Bloody Bones plunged over the edge of the cliff, screaming as he bounced from rock to rock, his bones flying apart and scattering as he went.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Daniel and Erica’s parents are seen drinking wine. When Erica is “took,” their parents drink even more. “There was an empty wine bottle on the table and an ashtray full of cigarette butts and ashes.”
  • When Daniel goes to a friend’s house, his friend’s father smells of beer and cigarette smoke.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The story revolves around Old Auntie, a “conjure woman” who takes a girl every 50 years. When she takes a girl, she returns the one that was “took;” however, the girl is the same age as she was when she was first “took” and has no memory of her former life. Auntie weaves spells to influence people’s decisions.
  • One character describes Old Auntie as “a haunt come back from her grave.”
  • Old Auntie takes the form of a girl, so she can talk to Erica without scaring her. Auntie also uses a doll to convince Erica that no one loves her except Auntie.
  • Auntie has a razorback hog, called Bloody Bones, which she called back from the dead. “His bones put themselves together and rose up on their hind feet. His skull jumped on top of the bones, and off he danced.”

Spiritual Content

  • The townspeople are mean to the new family because they do not join the only church in town. “We weren’t only outsiders, we were godless outsiders.”

The Rose Legacy

Since the death of her parents, Anthea has never felt wanted. Her family shuffles her from relative to relative. Her life is uprooted when she receives a letter from an uncle who lives in the exiled lands. Anthea dreams of being a Rose Maiden to the queen like her mother, but she fears that being sent to live beyond the wall will end her dream. Feeling scared of living beyond the wall, Anthea’s nightmare becomes worse when she learns that her uncle breeds horses—animals thought to be extinct after bringing a plague to Corona.

Anthea questions everything that she has been taught as she learns more about her family, her country’s political history, and herself. When Anthea tries to flee, she meets Florian, a horse from her childhood. For years, Florian has dreamed of being reunited with Anthea. With the help of Florian and a mix of interesting characters, Anthea learns that things are not always what they seem.  When danger threatens her new family, Anthea learns to trust others as well as herself in order to save the horse that she has come to love.

Jessica Day George’s cast of characters in The Rose Legacy is diverse, interesting, and captivating. The story is told from both Anthea’s and Florian’s points of view. This allows the readers to understand Anthea’s confusion, fear, and her desire to be wanted. The connection between Anthea and Florian is remarkably sweet and shows the true meaning of love.

Anyone who loves a good story should add The Rose Legacy to their reading list. Full of suspense, emotion, and surprises, the story will captivate readers of all ages. The story isn’t just about horses, but the power of friendship and overcoming one’s fears as well.

Sexual Content

  • As part of the narration, Anthea mentions that a man had “gotten fresh” with her teacher.
  • A boy gives Anthea a necklace for her birthday and “kissed her on the cheek and then fled.”  Anthea thinks, “It had been a very nice kiss. . . . His lips had been very warm and soft.”

Violence

  • When Anthea tries to save an owl, a horse named Constantine gets angry and tries to trample her. Another horse, Florian, intervenes, and the stallions fight. “Constantine bit Florian’s neck with his yellow teeth. . . . Constantine came thundering toward them, seeing that Anthea was about to escape . . . lashed the boards, trying to break through to get to them.”
  • One of the horses gets caught in a hunter’s snare. When Anthea tries to free him, “the wires that were still wrapped around his legs arced through the air with a singing noise. . . . A wire slashed open her face just below the left eyebrow, narrowly missing her eye, and a rivulet of blood obscured her vision.”
  • A hunter shoots and hits a horse and Anthea. “When the bullet ripped through her side, Anthea honestly didn’t understand what had happened.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A train conductor offers Anthea’s uncle a glass of whiskey.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • People who have “the Way” can communicate with horses and feel the horse’s emotions.

Spiritual Content

  • One of the characters says, “Then they’ll probably find some long-lost sacred tablet that says that horses are the devil’s pets and we have to destroy them all or burn in hell!”
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