Reading Level: Young Adult

Dreamless

Helen’s world is turned upside down when she discovers that Lucas, her beloved, is her cousin. Tormented by the guilt of being in love with someone she is related to, and unable to banish her feelings for him, her despair begins to affect her time in the Underworld. Her experiences in the Underworld are so grueling that her friends and family begin to worry Helen is going insane, or even dying.

Despite her failing health, Helen can’t avoid the Underworld. She is the Descender. She must wander through Hades’ world, and search for a way to stop the Furies from tormenting her family. But her strength is fading. Even a demi-god can only survive so much before the trip to the Underworld stops being a visit, and becomes permanent.

Dreamless keeps the stakes high. Helen is plagued with incestuous thoughts and tries to avoid those by falling in love with her friend Orion. However, that only brings about a love triangle. Lucas burns with jealousy, and Helen is still unable to let go of her feelings for her cousin. This book has adult themes and conversations, as well as a smattering of language and a decent amount of violence. Most violence isn’t extremely graphic, aside from the final battle, which will leave readers dying to get their hands on the third and final book in this beautifully written trilogy.

Sexual Content

  • Castor tells Lucas, “Scions have been plagued with incest since Oedipus. And there have been others in this House who have fallen in love with their first cousins, like you and Helen . . . the children born to related Scions always suffer our greatest curse. Insanity.”
  • Orion and Helen kiss. “His head fell listlessly toward Helen, inch by inch, until his lips grazed lightly against her own. His mouth was very warm and soft. Like a new flavor she couldn’t quite place but that she wanted to swallow whole, Helen pulled his lower lip into her mouth to take a bigger sip of him. Catching his face in one of her hands so she could tilt his wilting mouth towards her . . . “
  • Morpheus, the god of dreams, tries to seduce Helen. “Helen ran her hands across his chest and allowed him to kiss her lightly as he spoke . . . [he] slid her hands up over her head, pinning her under him.”
  • Orion and Helen make out. “He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. Her knees melted. This guy was that good a kisser . . . He guided her down to the ground, careful not to crush her underneath him.”

Violence 

  • When Castor tries to stop his son from yelling at Helen, Lucas, “spun around and hit his father. The blow was so hard it sent Castor flying halfway across the kitchen and into a cabinet of glasses and mugs over the sink. Noel screamed, covering her face as shards of broken dishes went flying in every direction.”
  • The Furies make Orion and Helen try to kill each other. “There was blood on her hands. Stunned out of her trance, Helen looked down and saw a dark, wet circle expanding across Orion’s shirt . . . She had stabbed him. And then she kept pushing the tip of the blade into him a tiny bit at a time.”
  • Zach’s master abuses him. “Zach crumpled onto his knees, all the air rushing out of his lungs. Automedon had punched him in the gut so fast he’d never seen it coming.”
  • When a child is born with the ability to cause earthquakes, the child is “left on a mountainside to die of exposure to the elements.”
  • Ares tortured Helen. “Ares hit her face again and then stood up so he could kick her in the stomach. The wind came out between the seized-up muscles . . . He kicked her again and again. If she tried to avoid the blows by curling up and turning her back to him, he stomped rather than kicked. She felt her forearm snap and tried to bring her leg up to protect her side, but that only made him attack her more viciously.”
  • Automedon stabs Zach in the chest, killing him.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The words hell, ass and damn are used frequently.
  • Other profanity is used rarely. The profanity includes crap, bitch, dick, asshole, bastard, son of a bitch, bullshit, and dickhead.

Supernatural 

  • There are Greek gods, demi-gods, and myrmidons in Dreamless. These beings have an assortment of powers, from super-strength to the control of hearts.

Spiritual Content   

  • None

Starcrossed

Helen has always been odd. Her biggest fear growing up was that someone would find out how much of a freak she really was. It’s not until a strange new family moves to her hometown on the island of Nantucket that she begins to realize just how different she is from the average teenager.

When the Delos family arrives, they open Helen’s eyes to another world. One where the ancient Greek stories of Troy, Tartarus, and Mount Olympus are true. Helen is more closely tied to this world than she could ever have dreamed. She is a Scion, a demigod, and with that knowledge comes the awakening of a myriad of powers she must learn to control.

But along with the Delos family arrives a curse. Scions have been tormented by the Furies for millenniums; three sisters who demand a blood debt be paid. This tortuous debt has cost countless lives, divided families, and driven Scions insane. Yet if that debt were to ever be paid in full, it would bring the end of the world.

Starcrossed is a page-turner that creates a world so wonderful one can’t help but wish it was real. Ancient Greek myths mesh with modern times in a delicious way, creating vivid characters and a whirlwind of action.

The Starcrossed series is best suited for more mature readers because the fight scenes add suspense, but also violence and blood.  There are few kisses but a plethora of sexual tension because Helen cannot be with the man she is falling in love with.

Sexual Content

  • While injured, Helen sleeps in the same bed as Lucas. “She gasped involuntarily as one of Lucas’s hands ran up the length of her thigh and latched on to the sloping dip from her hip to her waist. Then she felt him tense, as if he’d just realized that pillows weren’t shaped like hourglasses. His head jerked up and he looked around.”
  • When discussing Lucas with Helen, Kate says, “He’s like . . . wow! I could go to jail for even thinking what I’m thinking . . . But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and Lucas and the importance of condoms.”
  • Creon lusts after Helen. “She was powerful, and yet so unaware of her potential she was nearly helpless. His hands shook at the thought of conquering her.”
  • Helen thinks she accidentally killed a child molester with her lighting. “That creepy guy . . . remember how he kept ‘accidentally’ bumping up against you and stroking your hair?”
  • When Helen is learning jujitsu Hector cracks a joke about Helen’s, “prone body and open legs.” Then Claire teases, “I would have thought it would be harder to get between your legs, but Hector doesn’t seem to be having any trouble at all.”
  • Helen and Lucas experience a lot of sexual longing while trying to stay away from each other. Helen asks Lucas, “Why are you sleeping on my roof and not in my bed?” Later she realizes that “There was a part of Helen that knew exactly how to seduce Lucas whether he wanted to be seduced or not, and that freaked her out.”
  • Helen wears the cestus, a mythical object that protects her. It looks different to everyone, because it turns into what most attracts them. When testing it, Helen “looked at Hector, focusing on him alone, and she felt her necklace change shape in her hand . . . Helen looked down and saw that she was holding a tiny scrap of lace that more closely resembled diamond-encrusted dental floss than underpants.”
  • Helen and Lucas kiss. “Lucas caught her and supported her as they tumbled on the wind, holding and kissing each other as he guided them safely back down to the catwalk.”
  • Lucas and Helen try to find a way to be together without being considered married. Helen suggests, “What if I wasn’t a virgin?” Lucas responds, “We’d be considered a married couple in the eyes of the gods, regardless of who took your virginity.”
  • When Lucas sees Helen in her pajamas he says, “since you apparently sleep in the most ridiculously transparent tank top I’ve ever seen, I’m going to have to ask you to get under the covers before I do something stupid.”

Violence

  • Helen attacks Lucas when she first sees him. “Lucas was holding her by the wrists to keep her hands away from his neck . . . if she could get her fingers half an inch closer, she could reach his throat. And then what? a little voice in her head asked. Choke the life out of him! answered another.”
  • Helen is attacked by a mysterious woman. “A wiry arm wrapped around her neck, simultaneously pulling back and pressing down until Helen fell to her knees . . . white and blue blobs bloomed across her field of vision . . . Helen crooked her arm and rammed her elbow into her attacker’s solar plexus with every bit of juice she had in her tank. She heard the person suck wind and then felt herself get dropped.”
  • Helen gets beat up when trying to learn how to fight. “Helen swallowed a mouthful of spit and blood and instantly regretted it when she choked on one of her own teeth.”
  • A reporter is murdered by a Scion. “She was lovely in terror–a perfect, pleading mast of alabaster white skin . . . Creon wanted to hold her like that for days, but a split second of enjoyment later he heard a snap. Like a switched-off TV, the light in her eyes contracted to pinpricks, and then went completely dark.”
  • It turns out that Helen is impervious to all weapons. “He started hacking away at her. Four strokes in, and the blade was ruined . . . The rain of blows ended abruptly when the sword fell apart.”
  • Creon tries to kill Helen. “He brought it down directly over her heart. Creon’s knife made a dozen pinging noises as it shattered and scattered off her skin . . . Lucas jumped on Creon with a vicious snarl, and the two of them began to fight so fast Helen could barely see their hands move. They punched and grabbed and gouged at each other, both of them changing from claw-handed boxing to some kind of strange wrestling in which they tried to bend each other’s joins in the wrong direction.”
  • Helen’s mother wakes up after being abducted. “There were deep vertical slashes on both her forearms that were still leaking fast-pumping blood even as they healed.”
  • A Scion, “drew a small bronze blade from his belt and slit Pandora’s neck so deeply he nearly cut off her head. She was dead before her blood had a chance to soak into the sand.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Helen’s mom, “Jabbed a needle into [Helen’s] neck . . . Helen felt her muscles go limp and refuse to follow her commands. The world faded into a pale gray haze.”
  • Helen’s mother is drugged with her own syringe.

Language

  • The words hell and ass are used frequently. Such as, “What the hell are you wearing?”
  • Crap and damn are said several times. For instance, when Claire sees Helen fly she says “Oh, damn it. You are a vampire.”
  • Jackass and shit are said once or twice.
  • Helen thinks, “I’m not usually a bitch–I’m just super-grouchy because I’m being stalked by three blood-crying ghosts who won’t let me sleep.”
  • When Helen is learning to fight with Hector, Jason yells, “She’s never fought before, you dickhead!”

Supernatural

  • Many of the characters in the books are demi-gods and have powers such as super-strength, super-speed, lightning bolts, flight, power over water, etc. In the book, “most of the ancient myths and great dramas are based on real people. The gods are real, and they had children with mortals. Half human, half god. We are their descendants. Their Scions.”
  • Scions are plagued by the Furies who force Scions from other houses to attack and try to kill each other. “For the first time in Helen’s life she knew what pure, heart-poisoning hatred was. She was not aware of the fact that she was running toward him, but she could hear the voices of the three sobbing sisters rise into a keening wail . . . The sisters were tearing at their hair until it came out of their scalps in bloody hanks.”
  • When Claire finds out what Helen is, she admits that she, “was a little worried [Helen] might try to drag me off to hell and drain my essence at some point.”
  • Cassandra is the Oracle. “The voices coming out of her were old and young and everything in between, all speaking in harmony . . . Cassandra’s mouth was glowing, and her hair was writhing around her head like snakes.”

Spiritual Content  

  • Helen and Orion spend much of their time in the Underworld, where all spirits go. They meet Hades and Persephone, and the god of death is mentioned.

No Parking At The End Times

Brother John claims that Jesus Christ is going to bring judgment at the end the world, which is near. Abigail’s parents believed him, so they sold everything they owned, loaded up a van, and moved 3,000 miles away to San Francisco. Now Abigail and her twin brother Alex are living out of a van. They eat in soup kitchens. They clean up in public bathrooms.

Abigail tries to look at the positive side of life. But when her brother begins sneaking out of the van at night, Abigail has to know where he goes. Soon Abigail is trying to keep her family together—but her father and mother are hyper-focused on the church, her brother is consumed with anger, and Abigail isn’t sure what is right anymore.

When the day Brother John said the world will end comes without disaster, Abigail realizes that her parents’ commitment to Brother John and his church may bring an end to her family.

No Parking At The End Times shows one family’s struggle to follow the right path. Unfortunately, their decision to follow a religious leader has led to hardship. As Abigail’s parents follow Brother John and wait for the end of the world, they stop caring for their children’s needs and lose the need to plan for their children’s futures. Although it is clear that the parents love their children, they are so focused on Brother John that they lose sight of what is really important.

Brother John is a main focal point of the story, and he uses the words of the Bible to con people into giving everything to his church. Abigail begins to struggle with her beliefs about God and in the end, it is unclear if Abigail’s faith has been destroyed by her experience.

Although No Parking At The End Times has little violence, the book is best suited for older readers because of its mature content. There is a scene where Abigail is in danger of being raped. Although it is not directly stated, it is implied that Aaron’s girlfriend is raped not only by a drug dealer but also by her mother’s boyfriend.

This story is interesting and enjoyable. However, the book revolves around a man who uses God’s word to manipulate people. Younger readers may have a difficult time understanding that Brother John is a false prophet who uses God’s word for his own gain.

Sexual Content

  • Aaron has a girlfriend who kisses him in front of Abigail, which embarrasses him.
  • At the park, a man yells at a bunch of homeless kids, “It is possible for me to rent bikes and not have you sit up here all day jerking off?”
  • A drug dealer, Skeetch, corners Abigail. “He pushes me against the sculpture hard, bruising my back and holding my hands above my head . . . He pushes me hard against the cement sculpture and laughs . . . He smiles, letting go of my hands long enough for me to reach out and claw him. His skin rips under my nails. I feel the blood. In pure instinct, I put my knee between his legs as hard as I can, again and again unit he falls on the ground.”
  • Aaron’s girlfriend talks about how she ran away from home when she was fourteen because her mom’s boyfriends, “liked me more than her. And she either didn’t care or didn’t want to believe it.”

Violence

  • It is implied that Skeetch raped Jess, Aaron’s girlfriend. Skeetch also beat her up. “Her face is swollen and splashed with cuts. A red line splits her bottom lip, darker than her hair.” Abigail wonders if Skeetch went after Jess because of her and Jess said, “Fuck that. It’s his fault. You didn’t do shit.”
  • When someone makes fun of their parents, Aaron hits him on the nose. “Mike fell back in his chair, blood streaming down his face, onto his shirt. Shane, one of Aaron’s other friends, grabbed him before he could punch Mike again.”
  • Skeetch beats Aaron so bad that Aaron ends up in the hospital. The fight is not described, but the wounds are. “His face is broken. There are cuts and bruises and his nose is bent sideways. One eye focuses on me while the other, blood red and beginning to swell, stares vacantly over my shoulder. He tries to sit up, but a painful gurgling sound brings him back to the grass.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the park where Abigail and Aaron go, there are drug dealers. One dealer, Skeetch, gives a group of street kids a “small baggie.”
  • Abigail remembers a story about when her brother was at a party and had a beer, which upset her. “Aaron tried to hide his cup, his face. But I made it a point to stare at both.”

Language

  • The teens in the story use profanity often including damn, hell, shit, and holy crap.
  • “Jesus Christ” is used as profanity.
  • Abigail and Aaron get into an argument and Aaron yells, “Jesus, why do you defend them?  They fucked up. Big-time.”
  • When two teens begin to argue, someone said, “Let’s not ruin a good night trying to figure out which one of you is the bigger asshole.”
  • Aaron calls Brother John, “the Body of Christ’s Asshole.”
  • Skeetch calls Abagail a, “fucking bitch.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Abigail’s parents often remind her and her brother about God’s word saying such things as, “God provides everything we need.”
  • Abigail wonders why her brother can’t believe in God. She thinks, “Because maybe if we both pretend for a few minutes, God will see we’re trying and do something.”
  • During the church services, people jump from their seats, drop to the floor, and worship God.  During one conversation, Brother John said, “It’s the Lord’s world. He does with it as He pleases.”
  • When Brother John admits he got the date for the end of the world wrong, he reminds people that God is good. Abigail thinks, “God is God and you do not question that goodness. Everything happens for a reason. We’re supposed to sit down here waiting until God gets ready.”
  • Abigail wonders if God is real. “Habit tells me to send a prayer, something quick and silent, shooting into the sky—but I’m not sure that will help anymore.”
  • Abigail compares her father to God. “Dad isn’t listening to what I’m saying anymore, just like God. They’re both preprogrammed to a default setting, running forward blindly.”
  • Brother John tries to convince Abigail’s parents that they need to focus on God only.  When Abigail and Aaron become a distraction, Brother John said, “God asked us to cut away the withered branches in our lives. That’s what I know.” When Abigail’s father leaves to go help his son, Brother John said, “go ahead and leave, but God isn’t going to let you come back in.”

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.”

Sanctuary Bay

Sarah thought Sanctuary Bay was her ticket to a better life. She was wrong.

When Sarah receives a scholarship to an elite school, she thinks she’s finally found a place where she can fit in. No longer seen as a foster kid, Sarah is soon initiated into a secret society, the Wolfpack, where she no longer feels like an outsider, but part of the family. Her roommates, Izzy and Karina, who are also members of the Wolfpack, show Sarah that being one of them can lead to a life of luxury—after all, the students who attend Sanctuary Bay come from affluent families. They want Sarah to be one of them.

As the mission becomes more intense, Sarah must ask herself how far is she willing to go to remain part of the group?  When her roommate suddenly disappears, Sarah wonders if she is missing or murdered.  In a race to discover what happened to Karina, Sarah must decide who to trust. And in the end, she discovers that danger and deception hide around every turn.

Suspenseful and full of surprises, Sanctuary Bay’s graphic description brings the setting alive. The reader will be at the edge of their seat wondering how the strange events all come together. The story comes alive because it is told from Sarah’s point of view and the reader gets to experience Sarah’s wonder, fear, and confusion as the plot unfolds.

Set on an isolated island with no contact with the outside world, Sanctuary Bay leaves the reader wondering if this high-tech school could be real. Add into the equation that there is an abandoned WWII POW camp and an abandoned insane asylum, and the reader must work hard to believe some of the aspects of the story. The ending is even more far-fetched than the setting of the story.

The sexual content, language, and violence, which is described in detail, is not meant for the younger reader and many older readers may not be ready for the graphic images in the story.

Sexual Content

  • Sarah was in foster care. She liked her current foster home because “no one tried to slide into bed with her. There’d been no hitting or screaming.” Later, Sarah thinks about when “a foster dad came after her a couple of times when she was seven and another place a foster kid had tried some stuff when she was eleven.” However, nothing else is said about the events.
  • In the cafeteria, Karina’s boyfriend kisses her. “Not just a quick hello. A kiss. It went on so long a couple of guys at the nearby table started to hoot encouragement.”
  • The students get a video sent to them, “At first Sarah thought somebody had managed to send a porn clip to everyone, but then she realized that the woman she was looking at was a teacher she’d seen in the halls. And the other woman getting down and dirty with her was Maya. . . One student comments, “What is it about a freckled ass? It makes me want to play connect-the-dots with my tongue.”
  • As part of a mission, Sarah must kiss Karina’s boyfriend. “Sarah slid her hands up his back and knotted her hands in his hair—so thick and silky—then pulled his head down to meet hers. . . his tongue was already brushing against the seam of her lips, urging her mouth open, then his tongue was inside, tangling with hers, his hands on her waist, pulling her body flush against his.”
  • At a party for the secret society, the students play a game. “Guys grab the end of a strip with a knot in it and tie it around your wrist. Girls do the same, except use the end with no knot. When you find out who’s tied to you—well, you take it from there. . . Girls who want girls, use the green, either end. Guys who want guys, same with the red. Experimentation, as always, is welcome.” Sarah in paired up with Nate. “Sarah knelt behind him, spreading her legs so that she held his body between them. His neck . . . she still hadn’t finished exploring it. She lowered her mouth and ran her tongue across the edge of his hairline, loving the faint taste of his sweat . . . Sarah gave him a little nip, enjoying the give of his flesh under her teeth.” The make-out scene is described in detail in three paragraphs.
  • Karina’s boyfriend strides up to Sarah and, “He didn’t say a word when he reached her. He just grabbed her butt and jerked her tight against him, then bent his head and kissed her.”
  • Sarah and Nate kiss. “He deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth slowly. It was nothing like the hard, demanding kiss Ethan had given her that night after the movie. . . She let her tongue flick against his, pulling him closer against her.”

Violence

  • Sarah’s parents are killed when she is young. “Mommy on her knees facing the hotel room wall. The finger pulled the trigger of the gun . . . Mommy collapsing on the floor. Red spilling out.”
  • When Sarah spies on her roommates, she sees a group of students burying someone alive. “As they moved across the clearing past Sarah’s hiding spot, she heard a scratching, scrabbling sound, followed by a muted scream. . . Sarah’s eyes darted back to Izzy, Karina, and Nate. They just stood there. No horror on their faces. No cry of protest.” Later Sarah finds out the person that was in the coffin is fine; burying him alive was just a prank.
  • When Sarah is found spying on her roommates, she is gagged, tied up, and thrown into an old underground Nazi prison cell.
  • Sarah is taken into a strange meeting room, where, “One of the maroon-robbed followers approached and held a clay bowl at the base of Sarah’s throat. . . Even when the blade pierced her flesh, and a trickle of her blood ran down her neck and into the bowl, she still didn’t die.” The group then asks Sarah to join a secret society.
  • Izzy tells about a time when she was date-raped. “It was going too fast for me. But he wouldn’t stop . . . I just wanted him to get off of me.” He fell and hit his head on the side of a coffee table. “There was blood everywhere and I couldn’t stop it. It happened so fast. Suddenly he was . . . dead. He was still warm and everything, but his eyes were empty. He was gone.”
  • As punishment for breaking the rules of the secret society, Grayson is branded. “. . . Revealing Grayson Chandler tied down on a filthy mattress. Naked. Her flesh covered with goosebumps, nipples erect. Eyes wide with terror. . . Sarah’s stomach gave a slow, sickening roll as she saw that the rough rope had rubbed away the skin on Grayson’s wrist and ankles, leaving the flesh raw and bleeding. . . hearing the sizzle, from smelling the smoke and the frying-meat scent of Grayson’s burning flesh.”
  • In order to bring the Wolfpack closer together, the group sacrifices one of their own. “Using a strip of black leather, they tied her wrist to an iron ring that had been screwed into the thick, dark trunk, high over her head.” Nate offers a gun to the group, asking who will pull the trigger. Karina’s roommate, “Izzy snatched the pistol. She took a step away from the group, turned toward Karina, raised the gun, and fired. . . Sara stared down into Izzy’s eyes. They were expressionless and empty.”
  • Sarah and Ethan find Izzy strapped down to a hospital bed with a port connected to the back of her head.  When she is released, Izzzy attacks a guard and bites Ethan in an attempt to get away.
  • Nate begins talking to himself. “He pushed his hand into his short dark hair and managed to grab a hunk of it. ‘Stop!’ he yanked his hand away, hair and skin and blood coming with it.” He then steps off a cliff. “Far below, on the jagged black rocks in the water, lay Nate. Blood poured from his head. His body was shattered, limbs protruding from the robe at horrifying angles. He was dead.”
  • As Sarah and Ethan are trying to discover what happened to their friends, they sneak into a secret facility. When a nurse sees them, “Sarah punched her in the face. When the woman hit the floor, Ethan jumped on top of her, covering her mouth with his hand.” They gag the woman, tie her up, and put her outside where someone will find her later.
  • A fire breaks out and Nate and Sarah begin taking the restraints off of the people. “Izzy had gotten free of her restraints, and she was beating a nurse with an IV pole. The guy was on the floor already, and his head was bloody.”
  • A man attacks Nate and Sarah. Izzy soon appears. “Izzy snarled, tearing at him with one hand, stabbing him with the other . . . the scalpel plunged into him again and again, and Sarah stumbled away, Ethan by her side, as blood spurted into the air.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Sarah meets her new roommates, she is offered a cocktail. Sarah turns down the cocktail because she, “didn’t plan on meeting the dean . . . drunk off her ass.”
  • At the school one of the teachers “does impart some insane weed” and there are parties where students drink and make out.
  • During the secret societies events, the members drink “blutgrog” which she is told has, “ground bone from the POW prisoners, and their dried blood.” Sarah’s blood is also added when she is joining the group. The drink magnifies every sensation and makes people lose their inhibitions.

Language

  • When Sarah meets a girl, the girl complains about missing shopping. Sara thinks, “That’s what we call a first-world problem, bitch.”
  • When Sarah sees her new school, she says, “No fucking way.”
  • After seeing the dean, Sarah’s roommate asks, “What kind of shoes was Farrell wearing? She’s such a shoe whore.”
  • Karina is told that her, “boyfriend is kind of an ass. . . Nice butt though.” Later, Sarah wonders, “Why is Karina with this asshole?”
  • When talking about Karina’s boyfriend, her roommate says, “And you’re like one of those battered women who stay with their abusers . . . because you loooove them. All heart and no brain.” Karina gasped and says, “Fuck you, Izzy.”
  • Sarah is watching Karina’s boyfriend and thinks, “goddamn those perfect lips of his.”
  • Sarah thinks about an upcoming Wolfpack ceremony. “Three days before I’m supposed to help kill someone, and I’m drinking a beer at a bonfire. How fucked up is that?”
  • The teens in the story use profanity habitually. The profanity includes: hell, pissed, crap, badass, ass, shit, fuck, and bullshit.

Supernatural

  • Sarah has memory waves where she is back in the memory, but she can remember everything, including taste and smells.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Prince of Shadows

Prince of Shadows puts a fresh twist on the story of Romeo and Juliet. Instead of focusing on the two original star-crossed lovers, Prince of Shadows focuses on Benvolio and Rosaline. Many of the scenes follow the play Romeo and Juliet. In several scenes, the words of the characters also come from the play; however, the author put the words into a new context which adds interest to the story.

Benvolio is trying to keep Romeo from an irrational and dangerous love for Rosaline. However, in doing so Benvolio finds that he is drawn to Rosaline, the beautiful niece of Lord Capulet. This complicates Benvolio’s life in several ways. Now Benvolio must not only concern himself with keeping Romeo safe from the Capulets, but he must also make sure that Rosaline does not come to any harm because of Romeo’s infatuation.

Romeo’s problems are only part of Benvolio’s difficulties. He must also deal with a demanding sister, a conniving grandmother, and hiding the fact that he is a thief. When night falls, the reader often sees Benvolio sneak into other people’s houses to exact revenge by stealing their possessions.

This book also explores Mercutio in more detail. Mercutio is full of fire, wit, and love. Yet Mercutio’s love is dangerous because he happens to be in love with another man. Although Benvolio and Romeo know of Mercutio’s “sinful” love, they are loyal to their friend.

Sword fighting, thievery and intrigue are abundant in Prince of Shadows. The fighting scenes add danger, but they also include descriptions of bloody wounds, as well as death. The fighting between the Capulets and Montagues happens often and is a major plot component of the story, and in another scene a character is hung because he is homosexual. These scenes are described in detail, so this book may not be appropriate for squeamish readers.

The story also contains a lot of sexual content. It explores the topic of marriage during the time period, as well as the prevailing beliefs of homosexuality. Because of the sexual content and the violence, Prince of Shadows should only be read by the mature reader. Although the storyline is intriguing and the book is fast-paced and entertaining, the subject matter is not suitable for the younger reader.

Sexual Content

  • The Prince of Shadows steals from Tybalt and then, “The next day, Tybalt Capulet’s sword was found driven an inch deep into the heavy oak of a tavern door. Pinned to it were ribald verses that detailed a highly entertaining story about Tybalt, a pig, and acts not generally condoned by either the Church or right-thinking sheepherders.”
  • Benvolio’s sister, Veronica is upset that she is being married to an old man. She is hiding from her grandmother because “she wishes to instruct me on the nature of wifely duties.” Benvolio replies, “Shall I go tell her you need no instruction on wifely duties?” Veronica slaps him and he continues, “I won’t pretend you are pure as the Virgin if you won’t pretend to care.” During the conversation Veronica said, “You’ll not be the one he’ll paw in the marriage bed . . . or perhaps you’d prefer that, Ben. Given the company you keep—.”
  • Benvolio found out that Mercutio was a homosexual by chance. “Walking in on Mercutio in close embrace with a pretty young man a bit older than either of us. I’d heard of such things, of course, but never seen, and I confess to a certain unsettled embarrassment that drove me from them—from Mercutio—for most of a week. . .”
  • Benvolio meets a girl for the first time. Before she leaves he, “bent over her knuckles and brushed my lips lightly over the skin. I kept my gaze on her as I did it, and saw the response in her. It frightened her, I saw; she might never have felt such a thing before.”
  • The Prince of Shadows breaks into a house and is surprised to find a girl in bed. “She mimed back a throat cutting, then looked at her bed companion. I admit, by that time I had begun to realize that the sheet did not by any means cover all of her, and though the darkness made it more of a suggestion of assets than a true sight of them, the room was suddenly a good deal too warm…I closed her fingers over them (coins) before lifting her hand to drop a kiss on the rough skin of her knuckles…then she sat up and…kissed me. It was surprising, and I should have pulled away for many reasons, not the least of which was my own self-preservation, but there was something darkly wonderful about the danger of it . . . for a moment I entertained a feral thought that perhaps he might now wake. . . ” Later he tells his friend about the encounter and said the girl was naked, “as sinful Eve . . . and quite a willing mouth on her, too.”
  • After Mercutio is forced to marry, he writes in his diary, “It is a bitter bed we make, and after, she weeps herself to sleep. I tell her that once she bears a living heir she can be shut of me…Men say that love is cruel, but it is the lack of it in the act that is cruelest.”
  • While Benvolio is with Rosaline, he thinks, “I wanted her, a Capulet, in ways that I had never wanted a woman before—not a hasty, impersonal fumbling in the dark, not the duty of a cold husband with an unfamiliar wife . . . something else, for the sake of passion, and fire, and challenge.”
  • When Romeo is looking for Rosaline, Mercutio asks, “So eager to deflower the girl? ‘Tis the job your grandmother set you, or missed you her message? Humiliate Capulet by showing that their precious convent-bound virgin is a trull.”
  • Benvolio thinks about Mercutio’s marriage and how “girls of means were sold or bartered.” Mercutio’s father would make sure Mercutio was married. Benvolio thinks, “I did not like to think on that unhappy wedding night. If it was consummated at all, it would be done coldly and ruthlessly.”
  • Benvolio was talking to Rosaline when his hand, “moved from her wrist, glided up her arm, and now it touched her cheek . . . I felt drugged with the tingles of pleasure of my skin on hers…My fingers trailed down, tracked the tight line of her jaw, and I felt the fast beat of her pulse.” Rosaline then backs away. Later during the conversation, Benvolio wonders, “would she resist me if I took hold of her, kissed her, bore her back to that curtained mattress? Would she cry for help, or would she sigh my name, rise to meet me, crave the same senseless release that I did?”

Violence

  • In one scene, Benvolio thinks about a bedtime story about a Capulet named Sophia. “The gruesome horror of being bricked up in a lavishly appointed room, with only a pitcher of water and a dagger for company. Once the water had gone, Sophia more than likely would have sought the dagger’s point for her final comfort . . .”
  • When Veronica threatens to hint that Benvolio is a homosexual, he reminds her about the boy, “they hanged last winter. Claiming someone a sodomite is no joking matter.”
  • When Benvolio sneaks into Rosaline’s room he thinks she is asleep, but then he, “felt the ice-cold prickle of a blade on the back of my neck.” Rosaline tells Benvolio must leave, but before he can Tybalt hears them talking and advances on her. Tybalt grabs her arm and twists it until she cries out. When she refuses to answer Tybalt’s questions that, “earned her an openhanded slap hard enough to leave a blood red imprint on her fair skin.” Later than evening Benvolio (in disguise) and Friar Lawrence go to check on Rosaline and find her, “wedged into a cold corner, knees drawn up, nightgown bloodied from her split lip and the open cut on her forehead. It would take time for the bruises to form, but her left eye was already swollen, and the right side of her jaw distorted from the beating she’d received. She held her right arm tenderly, and I saw the bloody scrapes on her knuckles.”
  • Rosaline writes about the abuse of Tybalt. “Of late, I have begun to fight back, since I had come into a height where it was possible—though strictly forbidden—to do so. I had scored him with my nails more than once, and even bruised him, but never did I hurt him enough to matter.”
  • There is a sword fight between a “Capulet pig” and Benvolio. In the end, “the sword plunged easily just below the ridge of his collarbone, angling down as the dagger found ribs and angled up . . . The two points almost meet at his heart . . . So I waited until the life had left the man’s eyes and he fell to the cobblestones, kicked his Capulet-given sword to the side, and turned just as the second man drove Bathasar back at the point of his blade.”
  • There is a sword fight between Tybalt and Benvolio. Several others join the fray. Benvolio thinks, “I wanted his blood, badly as he wanted mine.” The fight is interrupted by the elder Capulet and Montague and no one is injured.
  • Mercutio’s lover is, “on his knees, with his hands bound roughly behind his back, and a circle of armed men surrounded him.” Mercutio’s father then proceeds to beat him. “I was not sure if he could see through the torrents of blood that obscured his face.” Mercutio’s father then makes sure Mercutio watches his lover be hung from a tree. “Though his toes kicked just a few inches above the ground, it was enough . . . It took a horribly long time to be finished.”
  • Benvolio reflects on the above incident, thinking, “I thought I’d known the depths of cruelty men hide, but this . . . this was another thing entirely. I’d known all our lives that we were fragile, easily punctured flesh, but seeing the boy choke on that noose, seeing the laughter and jeers from those who’d killed him . . . hearing the thumps as rocks pelted his dying body . . . had shattered something within me . . .”
  • When Benvolio overhears his sister gossiping about Mercutio’s lover, he grabs “her by the back of the neck and dragged her squealing around the corner.” They argue and he lets her go.
  • Mercutio has a fight in a tavern. “He was spattered with fresh red, and his dagger ran with it, and the floor was thick with writhing, groaning men.”
  • Benvolio is in a sword fight and his, “blade slipped easily in, though, and I cut sideways to open the vessels. Blood gushed like a fountain, sheeting gory down his hose, and he let out a short, sharp cry as he fell to his uninjured knee. It was a killing wound, and he knew it instantly.”
  • Another sword fight happens, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. Tybalt, “yanked his blade free of my friend’s ribs. It slid out with a terrible sound, steel grating bone, and the blood that spouted out was the exact shade of Capulet livery…my ears seemed tuned only to the sound of Mercutio’s tortured, hitching breaths, and the pulse of his blood flowing to the stones.”
  • Romeo, Tybalt, Benvolio, and others get into a sword fight. Several people are killed. Benvolio, “stabbed him in the throat and ended him.” In the same fight, Romeo stabs Tybalt. “For an instant, the cut looked small, but then it parted, and the blood, oh, the blood. He fell into the arms of his adherents, thrashing in his death agonies.”
  • In another scene the Capulets and Montagues fight, which takes place over several pages. “The cobbles were already wet with blood, and bodies fell to my left under a strong assault . . . my sword slid between his ribs and out his heart, and he was down, grimacing now.” During this fight, Veronica is killed and the boy who killed her is dragged away to be hung.
  • When a priest discovers Benvolio is the Prince of Shadows, the priest gave, “a blow with his closed fist . . . his servants, as expected, took this as a sign, and instead of ripping away my mask, they closed in, fists flying as they screamed curses upon me for my insolence. I hunched in to try to ride the blows, but soon I was on my side, and the rope had been pulled tight. Air had become a frantic struggle, and I was all but senseless when I felt fingers tugging at the silk knotted around my face. It was wet with blood . . .” By the time the mask is pulled away, Benvolio’s face is so bloody and swollen that he is unrecognizable.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The characters in the book are often seen drinking and in a state of drunkenness. For example, on the first page of the book Tybalt is described as, “a drunken, undignified mess in sodden linen.” Later on in the story, Benvolio, “quaffed my wine in a choking gulp.”
  • There are several references to drunkenness. In one scene, Rosaline said, “I dismissed the tales of you as drunkard’s gossip.” In another scene, Benvolio, “stumbled to a halt, as unsteady as if I’d been into Tybalt’s wine cellar instead of his apartments.”
  • Benvolio asks the friar, “Have you been into the sacramental wine again, Friar Lawrence?” Benvolio thinks, “It was obvious indeed from the eloquence of his breath.”

Language

  • In a conversation about the Prince’s new mistress, the mistress is described as, “a woman no better than a whore.” Later in that same conversation, Benvolio’s grandmother said, “It isn’t healthy for a strapping young man to be introduced to whores at your age, before you’ve even settled on a wife.”
  • Trying to start a fight, a man calls Benvolio a, “Mongrel son of an English bitch.”

Supernatural

  • There is a “witch” who Mercutio’s wife seeks out, hoping for a potion that will help her get pregnant. Later, Mercutio sees the same witch who helps him curse those who betrayed him.
  • When Benvolio tracks down the witch, she explains the spell she gave Mercutio was made of three parts— “one faith, one mind, one flesh.” Part of the spell was cast by writing on Mercutio’s skin. “For the mind, it wrote down in his own hand . . . The other . . . the other was cast upon rosary beads.”
  • At the end of the story, the curse affects Benvolio and Rosaline. Because of the curse, they seek “comfort in each other’s bodies, heedless of consequences.” They fight to ensure they do not fall to the curse’s allure. In the end, Benvolio has to destroy the rosary that has been cursed. In order to do this Benvolio must, “thrust my whole hand into the flames. /The agony hit in an instant…I heard flesh sizzle.”
  • Mercutio and Romeo appear as ghosts at the end of the story.

Spiritual Content

  • Benvolio’s grandmother said it is good that he will be married soon because, “all men’s blood runs too hot, and the apostle said that it is better to marry than to burn.”
  • Mercutio is secretly in love. His love is, “not simply unwise, but reckoned unnatural by Church and law alike.”
  • Friar Lawrence questions Lady Capulet about Rosaline’s injures asking if violence was necessary. Lady Capulet said, “The scriptures tell us that a disobedient child should be corrected; is it not so?” Later in the chapter, Friar Lawrence said, “You were right to fear for her, but with God’s grace we may have saved her life. Her lady aunt will not wish to have Rosaline murdered this night; they might be within their right to so dispose of a rebellious girl-child, but they have not the liver for questions the Church must bring.”
  • Benvolio prays to the beloved Virgin, “for patience, guidance, and most of all, for my cousin to stop loving Rosaline Capulet.”
  • Benvolio goes to church looking for someone, “in the confessional…but I found that it must have been a busy morning for sinning. At least ten aspired to cleanse their souls before me.”
  • When Benvolio finds out that his sister has betrayed Mercutio’s secret, he thinks, “God does answer all prayers, but sometimes, he answers with a cold and remorseless denial…”
  • After Mercutio’s father beats him, no one is allowed to tend to Mercutio’s wounds. The next day, his father said, “You live to see the dawn, then. It is a sign from God that even He does not want you…Give up your sinful perversions, and embrace a life of piety and duty to your family.”
  • In reference to Mercutio, a character said, “I believe God loves all, sinners and saints, and judgment is His business, not mine.”
  • Benvolio’s sister, Veronica, writes in her diary that, “God wills that these vile, unnatural sinners [homosexuals] be condemned and cast out, and whatever Benvolio believes (heretic that he is), I believe that I did God’s business in whispering of the assignation—still best to blame fall on the Capulet whore, for safety’s sake, for Mercutio makes a bad enemy.”
  • Friar Lawrence marries Romeo and Juliet because, “their love was so strong that if I had refused to bless it, it would have been done without God’s seal; there is no doubt of it. Would you have me step aside and allow the sin instead?”
  • When Benvolio discusses Mercutio’s homosexuality, he says Mercutio, “was as he was formed, as God made him.”

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

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

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.”

Alex Rider: Never Say Die

Alex is now living in San Francisco, trying to recover from the tragic death of his caregiver, Jack Starbright. Alex was forced to watch Jack’s murder at the hands of terrorists working for SCORPIA.  With Jack gone, Alex struggles to find his place. When he gets an unexpected and cryptic email, he’s sure it’s from Jack. In an attempt to prove that Jack is alive, Alex boards a flight to Egypt and begins searching for clues to Jack’s whereabouts.

Alex’s story jumps from Egypt to France to Wales. As Alex searches for Jack, he comes face to face with twin brothers, who plan to kidnap the children of the wealthiest citizens of the world. Soon Alex is caught up in a tangle of intrigue that may lead to his death.

Packed with action, unexpected twists, and a mystery, Never Say Die will catch readers’ interest from the very first page. Alex is a strong character, who uses his brains to get out of difficult situations. The story descriptions will carry the reader into Alex’s world—a world that is often filled with fear. The evil twins and the people who help them are vicious criminals who have no problem murdering anyone that is perceived as a threat. Their willingness to kill and the violent descriptions of the creative ways they murder may cause some readers to have nightmares. Anthony Horowitz tells an engaging story that deals with terrorists, murder, and kidnapping.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A woman kills two pilots by using tetrodotoxin. It “is extremely fast-acting, shutting down a person’s nervous system in minutes. Brad struggled to his feet but died before he was halfway there . . . Sergeant Brad Perkins stared up at her with empty eyes.”
  • Later in the story, the same woman tries to poison Alex. “The deadly poison, tetrodotoxin, shot silently across the room and penetrated his jacket. Alex jerked backward, his shoulders slamming into the door. . . Slowly, he slid down to the floor and lay still.” Luckily, the poisonous dart only hits his wallet. Alex and the woman scuffle. “She was strangling him. The pupils were dancing in her eyes, and her lips were stretched in a smile as she used her weight to press him down, her hands gripping tighter and tighter.” Alex is able to grab a bedside light. “With the very last of his strength, he swung it into the side of the woman’s head. He felt metal connect with bone . . . Dragana keeled over and lay still.”
  • Alex has nightmares about his past when two men tied him to a chair and force him watch a video of “the person he most loves” die. “The car drove out of the fort and into the desert. And then, as it had done the night before and every night after . . .it blew up.”
  • Alex stops two boys from harassing a young boy. The boys retaliate. “Colin swung the knife, aiming for Alex’s chest . . . Alex took hold of his wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other . . . Colin’s hand with the knife rushed past him.” The knife accidentally “sliced across Clayton’s arm.” Colin then tries to hit Alex, who avoids the punch. “Alex was standing next to a lamppost. Colin’s fist slammed into the metal. Alex actually heard his fingers break.”
  • A man tries to capture Alex. The man with a gun tries to get out of a car when “Alex kicked out, slamming the door. The man shouted and fell back . . .” Alex is able to escape.
  • A group of men try to kill Alex. During the scene, which takes place over approximately six pages, Alex is forced to defend himself. One man is knocked unconscious when Alex drops a cannonball “on the side of his head.” Alex makes a cactus bomb and throws it at a man, hitting him in the face.  “It didn’t bounce off. . . Instead it stuck there, with at least a dozen spikes piercing his lips, his cheeks, the side of his nose and one of his eyes, each barb injecting its poison into his nervous system.” One of the men tries to stab Alex, but the man is shot. “. . . His hand became a splash of red and the knife spun away. A second shot, and he was thrown onto his back. Alex knew at once that he wouldn’t be getting up again.”
  • In order to escape from bad men, Alex makes a trap that causes an explosion. The men “both screamed and reeled backwards, crashing into each other. The whole of the bald man’s head seemed to catch fire for a few seconds . . . The other man had thrown himself down. He was rolling over and over on the carpet, his clothes blazing.” As Alex tries to escape, one of the men shoots a woman.
  • Two brothers have their father killed. “. . . Carlo was gunned down in his Jacuzzi by his own bodyguard . . . With Carlo gone, the brothers took control of the family, and the next few years were bloodier and more violent than any that had gone before.”
  • The two brothers go to the hospital to kill a woman by using a trick. “It was one of their favorite tricks, and they would take turns—one watching, one doing the actual work. The wire went straight up her nose and into the medulla oblongata, the nerve mass located at the lower base of the brain . . . she was dead before she knew what had happened.”
  • Two brothers catch Alex spying and tie him to a chair, “his hands tied behind him, the rope so tight that it was cutting into his flesh.” The brothers intend to kill him by using “cement shoes.” A man padlocks a cement block around Alex’s ankle and throws him into the ocean. Alex is saved by a scuba diver.
  • In an attempt to escape, Alex attacks a man with a nail. Alex “smiled with satisfaction as the point drove into Stallone’s neck. Stallone howled and fell back, blood spurting out between his fingers.”
  • The two brothers give a woman cyanide. “She had suddenly become very still. In fact she was staring at the ceiling with empty eyes. Her tongue was sticking out of the corner of her mouth. Her face had gone mauve.”
  • The two brothers kidnap a van full of children and hold them for ransom. When the parents try to negotiate, the brothers discuss killing one of the children. “The important thing is to make sure it’s one of the poorer children. We don’t want to upset any of the billionaires.”
  • When attempting to save the children, a woman takes out one of the bad guys. She hits him with a chisel. “But it was the wooden handle that slammed into his skull, and with a grunt, he fell to one side . . . He was out cold.”
  • As Alex and his friend lead the children to safety, the bad guys try to recapture them. The scene takes place over about a chapter and a half. A security guard dies saving Alex’s life. “Alex saw spatters of blood appear across Philby’s back, forming hideous red stains that spread through his shirt.” During the escape, Alex sets fire to a structure. “Several of the guards had been caught in the blaze. He had heard them screaming.”
  • During the escape scene, Alex puts a thermos in a train’s chimney causing an explosion. The brothers “didn’t even know it had happened. They simply felt a jolt as if some gigantic gust of wind, coming out of nowhere, had hit the Midnight Flyer on its side.” They crash into the face of a mountain. One of the men on the train knows he is going to die. “His face, already badly burned, distorted one last time in sheer terror as the steam locomotive smashed into a solid wall of rock.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the character’s “career had ended following a drunken fight with another pilot. She was twice his size, but even so, she had put him into the hospital. In fact, he was still there.”
  • A character had “drunk too much wine. The third bottle was definitely a mistake, and she had felt quite giddy as she had climbed into the taxi. . .”
  • Two of the characters help in their father’s business. “Even as teenagers, they loved the idea of becoming gangsters and had actually helped their father on occasion—for example, carry drugs inside their teddy bears on international flights.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Whippoorwill

Wally had become just another piece of junk that littered Danny’s yard until Clair took notice of the old dog and her life began to change in more ways than she could have imagined. As Clair and Danny begin to train Wally with the help of a book written by Father Jasper, Clair learns a lot about people too.

Whippoorwill explores the idea that everyone needs someone in their pack. When Clair gets a glimpse of Danny’s home life, she realizes that people as well as dogs need love and guidance. Still, Clair struggles with her feelings towards Danny. She is at times flattered by his attention, but uneasy with the fact that Danny is needy.

When Danny asks Clair to spend the day with him, she looks forward to the adventure. However, when the day ends with a police chase and Danny ends up in jail, Clair realizes that sometimes you can’t fix other people’s problems.

Dog lovers will enjoy reading Whippoorwill. Most of the action in the story takes place with Wally, a neglected dog who, with some training, turns into a wonderful dog. Clair leans much about caring for dogs—and people—throughout the story.

One of the best parts of this book is the relationship between Clair and her father. Although their life is far from perfect, they accept each other how they are. Because the story is told from Clair’s point of view, the reader gets to see her thought process and her confusion about how to navigate her first boy/girl relationship. Even though Clair is not a particularly remarkable character, dog lovers will like following Clair’s journey as she learns about Wally and about life.

Sexual Content

  • Clair’s father tries to explain teenage boys to her. He compares boys to wild ponies. “Not ponies, maybe, but something wild and just bent on . . . procreation. On moving their gene pool further into the future . . . What I mean is, girls sometimes think about love, or friendship, while guys. . .”
  • Clair kisses Danny several times. After he kisses her the first time, she thinks, “I did feel good, or curious about what was going on, and I kind of liked kissing Danny. His lips had been thin and even, not wet or sloppy at all, and his shoulders had been good when I put my hands on them.”
  • In one scene Danny pulls Clair onto his lap and kisses her. “It felt clumsy and awkward, and I wanted to get up and get away from him, but his arms went around me and then something melted in me and I gave in a little . . . His tongue flicked into my mouth and I wasn’t sure if that was something I wanted or understood, but then it started to feel natural and exciting and real.”
  • When Danny kisses Clair, “up against the wall of the bowling alley,” she begins to analyze it. “So this is what it means to kiss a boy, and this is how they do it, and this is where his arms go, and this is how he breathes through his nose.”
  • Clair’s friend tells her a story of a girl, “whose boyfriend broke up by sending a picture of himself in bed with another girl.”
  • Clair’s friend likes a guy and wonders if the guy is over his old girlfriend and, “if they had had sex.”

Violence

  • When police officers begin following Danny’s car, Danny begins speeding. When Clair gets scared, Danny stops the car, jumps out, and begins running. Some police officers chase Danny down and pin him to the ground, while another officer yells at Clair to, “get out of the car.” Clair didn’t know what was going on, and she didn’t realize the cop was yelling at her, “and that a cop I had never met had a gun pointed at me and he seemed ready to use it . . . He knelt in the center of my back. Hard. He deliberately put his full weight on me, and I felt my face go into the dirt.”
  • The book implies that Danny’s father abused Danny and his mother.
  • Danny was arrested because he, “crashed a car battery into his father’s head . . . It looked like a heck of a fight, but I’m guessing most of that was the father’s blood. From the looks of it, the father didn’t manage to bruise Danny much.”
  • Danny described the fight between him and his dad. “He came up to my room and he grabbed me by the ear. I was in bed and half asleep and he kind of lifted me out of bed by the ear. . .he’d been drinking. . .He kept flicking spoonfuls of hot water at me, so I tried to go past, to go to bed, and he grabbed me by the ear again and I swing at him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Clair’s father’s friend drinks a Budweiser and at dinner, Clair’s father drinks a beer.
  • When Danny’s phone keeps ringing, Clair asks him, “What are you, a drug pusher?”

Language

  • Clair’s neighbor, “pumped the bird at me.”
  • When Clair asks her neighbor if she could walk his dog, he replied, “You can take the effing dog.”
  • One of the characters calls his dad a “jackass.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Listen to the Moon

Twelve-year-old Merry will never forget the day a German U-boat shot down the Lusitania. That was the day her life took a tragic turn as most of the passengers on the ship died, including Merry’s mother. In an amazing turn of events, Merry is saved, only to be abandoned on the uninhabited St. Helen’s Island.

When fisherman Jim Wheatcroft and his son find Merry, she is injured, ill, and unable to talk or remember who she is. Wheatcroft’s family tries to help Merry, who they call Lucy, heal from her physical and emotional wounds. However, the family had no idea how cruel their community would become when they believed Lucy was German.

Listen to the Moon chronicles the true story of a young girl who left for England to be with her injured father and ended up on a small island during World War II. It is a story of bravery, friendship, and kindness.

The story is amazing; however, the slow pace and topic of war may make it difficult for younger readers to get through the story. Although the violence is nothing shocking, the story shows what happens to those who go to war; it also highlights the injuries and hopelessness of a boy who comes back from the war.  The reader will see the death of the people on the Lusitania, but they will also see the kindness of German soldiers as they help the young girl survive.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Alfie and a boy get into a fight at school. “Alfie was on his feet, grabbing Zeb and pinning him against the wall, shouting in his face, nose to nose.”
  • The school teacher hits students on the knuckles with the edge of the ruler when they misbehave. The teacher also “grabs [Lucy] by the arm and jerked her to her feet . . . In his fury he took her by the shoulders now, and shook her.”
  • The passenger ship Lusitania is bombed by a German U-boat and sinks. The sinking of the ship is described as well as the lifeboats leaving people to die. “The ocean was littered with wreckage as far as the eye could see, and among it were hundreds of people, swimming for their lives, many of them losing their lives as I watched.”
  • A crowd of school children closes in around Alfie. Then Lucy jumps on one of the boys. Lucy was, “hanging on to him, her forehead pressed into his back . . . Alfie was knocked over from behind to the ground. Then punching and kicking began. As he curled himself into a ball, he saw Lucy sitting astride Zeb and pummeling him, but then the others pulled her off and began kicking her to . . .”
  • A German sailor talks about sinking ships. He talks about the men who die. “You can hear them shout, hear them scream. For a sailor to kill a sailor is like killing a brother.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The doctor smokes a pike and washes his fish pie down with a glass of beer.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • As the people are dying, Lucy describes the dying people, who cries were, “begging for help from God, from anyone, help that I knew neither God nor I could give.”
  • During a sermon, a pastor talks about the German enemy. “He lost no opportunity to remind everyone of the barbaric atrocities committed by the German enemy, the bayoneting of little children in brave little Belgium, and the shameful torpedoing of the Lusitania. . . Always remember we are fighting for God and our country, against the forces of evil. Did not the Angel appear to our troops at Mons? Is not God on our side, on the side of freedom and right?”
  • Jim, the man who took Lucy in, tells his wife, “. . . there is a God in heaven, which you know I have my doubts about. Then that God of yours will look after Lucy, won’t he, even if it turns out she speaks German? God helps those who help themselves, don’t he?”
  • When Lucy thinks about her father, “I thank God I did not know much then of the dangers he was in, nor of the horrors of that dreadful war.”

Eldest

Eragon has accepted the responsibility that comes with being a Rider. As the only one who can stop the evil King Galbatorix, Eragon travels to Ellesmera to finish his training among the elves. He studies fighting, magic, and history. He grows stronger, but also weaker as the Shade’s dark magic continues to course through his veins. As its evil festers, Eragon begins to wonder if Saphira was wrong to choose him. For if he fails, all hope will be lost.

The second installment in the Eragon series, Eldest could have been cut in half and not lost anything necessary to the story. Eragon’s journey to the elves dragged on too long, as did his training. A good chunk of the book is told from the point of view of Eragon’s cousin, but his personality is flat and unengaging. There were, however, very interesting moments during Eragon’s time with the elves and the book ended with plenty of action. As with the first novel, this story has a lot of gory violence that might be too frightening for some readers.

Sexual Content

  • Eragon and his teacher wash in a stream after working out. “Going to the stream by the house, they quickly disrobed. Eragon surreptitiously watched the elf, curious as to what he looked like without his clothes…No hair grew upon his chest or legs, not even around his groin.”
  • During a festival, “the two elves raised their hands to the brooches at their throats, unclasped them, and allowed their white robes to fall away. Though they wore no garments, the women were clad in an iridescent tattoo of a dragon…Slowly at first, but with gathering speed, [they] began to dance, marking time with the stamp of their feet on the dirt and undulating so that it was not they who seemed to move but the dragon upon them.”
  • A woman “even went so far as to insinuate that one of his grandparents had mated with an Urgal.”

Violence

  • Eragon remembers a great battle he fought in. “Beyond that, he no longer believed that life possessed inherent meaning—not after seeing men torn apart by the Kull…and the ground a bed of thrashing limbs and the dirt so wet with blood it soaked through the soles of his boots. If any honor existed in war, he concluded, it was in fighting to protect others from harm. He bent and plucked a tooth, a molar, from the dirt.”
  • Eragon’s cousin, Roran, gets in many fights, lies, cheats, and kills many people with his friends. Some are in self-defense, some are initiated by him. “Sloan howled like an enraged beast, threw his cleaver, and split one of the men’s helms, crushing his skull…Sloan yanked him closer and gored him through the eye with a carving knife from his belt…almost prancing with a terrible, bloody glee.”
  • After a fight, “The boy, Nolfavrell, was kneeling by the body of a soldier, methodically stabbing him in the chest as tears slid down his chin.”
  • Ayra tells the story of a woman who murdered the man who spurned her. “She found him with the woman and, in her fury, she stabbed him to death.”
  • Eragon learns how to kill with magic. “All it takes is for a single artery in the brain to be pinched off, or for certain nerves to be severed. With the right spell, you could obliterate an army.”
  • When the braying of a donkey almost reveals his hiding place, “Without hesitation, Roran dropped to one knee, fit arrow to string, and shot the ass between the ribs.”
  • When a man finds out Roran is a fugitive, he “jabbed forward with his spear, catching the white-haired soldier in the throat. Scarlet blood fountained. Releasing the spear, Roran drew his hammer and twisted round as he blocked the second soldier’s poleax with his shield. Swinging his hammer up and around, Roran crushed the man’s helm.”
  • Before a battle, a woman poisons the soldiers on the other side. “Not a very honorable way to fight, I suppose, but I’d rather do this than be killed.”
  • There is a great and lengthy battle. “Eragon could not tell from whose mouth emanated the ravenous jet of flame that consumed a dozen soldiers, cooking them in their mail, nor whose arm it was that brought Zar’roc down in an arc, cleaving a soldier’s helm in half.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Wine/mead is consumed at many meals, by Eragon as well as Saphira.
  • Eragon and Saphira get drunk. “They abandoned their food and filled their stone tankards with beer and mead…Even Saphira took a sip of mead, and finding that she liked it, the dwarves rolled out a whole barrel for her.” They both wake up hungover the next morning.
  • A trapper says, “After a few steins of ale—to lubricate my speaking, you understand…”
  • During a feast, Eragon “drank the cup’s clear liqueur and gasped as it blazed down his throat. It tasted like mulled cider mixed with mead.”
  • Orik gets drunk on Faelnirv, “A mosht wonderful, ticklish potion. The besht and greatest of the elves’ tricksty inventions.”
  • After a battle Eragon, “took a small sip of the liqueur to revitalize himself and gasped as it raced down his throat, making his nerves tingle with cold fire.”

Language

  • Bastard is used a few times. When Roran sees the men who killed his father, he says “That’s…they’re the bastards…”
  • Ass is used to describe a donkey.

Supernatural

  • Elves, dwarves, dragons, Urgals, and many other creatures live in Eragon’s world.
  • Eragon has a premonition about a battle. When he asks his friend about premonitions, she tells him, “The elf Maerzadi had a premonition that he would accidentally kill his son in battle. Rather than live to see it happen, he committed suicide, saving his son, and at the same time proving that the future isn’t set. Short of killing yourself, however, you can do little to change your destiny.”
  • Eragon tries to bless a child in the ancient language, but accidentally curses her. His teacher tells him, “Instead of protecting this child from the vagaries of fate, you condemned her to be a sacrifice for others, to absorb their misery and suffering so that they might live in peace.”

Spiritual Content

  • An elf argues with a dwarf over their religion, since “elves do not hold with ‘muttering into the air for help.’ “
  • When Eragon learns to hear the thoughts of living creatures, he finds he can no longer stomach the idea of eating meat. “Gripped by revulsion, Eragon thrust the meat away, as appalled by the fact that he had killed the rabbits as if he had murdered two people. His stomach churned and threatened to make him purge himself.”
  • Eragon’s teacher tells him that his and Saphira’s “souls, your identities—call it what you will—have been welded on a primal level…Do you believe that a person’s soul is separate from his body?” Eragon replies, “I don’t know.”
  • When Eragon says an animal isn’t a person his teacher says, “‘Do you truly believe that any of us are so different from a woodrat? That we are gifted with a miraculous quality that other creatures do not enjoy and that somehow preserves our being after death?’ ‘No,’ muttered Eragon.”
  • The elves, “do not worship at all…if gods exist, have they been good custodians of Alagaesia? Death, sickness, poverty, tyranny, and countless other miseries stalk the land. If this is the handiwork of divine beings, then they are to be rebelled against and overthrown, not given obeisance, obedience, and reverence.”
  • Murtagh is under a spell. Eragon asks Murtagh for permission to kill him, as it is the only way to stop him. “‘It would free you from Galbatorix’s control. And it would save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Isn’t that a noble enough cause to sacrifice yourself for?’ Murtagh shook his head. ‘Maybe for you, but life is still too sweet for me to part with it so easily. No stranger’s life is more important than Thorn’s or my own.’ ”

by Morgan Lynn

Bloodhound

The second self-sufficient book in the Beka Cooper series expands Beka’s word beyond the walls of her city. Off to Port Caynn to hunt down the mysterious origins of a colemongering ring that may have the power to bring an entire kingdom to its knees, Beka can’t afford any mistakes. Pounce is off in the Devine Realm, but a new friend might be able to help her catch the Rat behind this dangerous game.

Bloodhound is an excellent book that keeps Beka’s story fresh with new characters and scenery. The language and sexual content is slightly escalated from Terrier, but the long chase at the end will have readers rooting for Beka to succeed.

Sexual Content

  • Kora tells Beka, “You told the third one you’d lop his hands off if he put them on you again.”
  • Rosto, “kissed me so very gently on the forehead. He knows I might have punched him in the gut if he’d tried to kiss me on the mouth, him with blood on his hands.”
  • Beka mentions that her adopted cousin was illegitimate. “His mother being a peasant that my lord’s father had kept for a mistress on their home estates.”
  • Beka takes a fancy to a man named Dale. When he whispers in her ear, “Suddenly the cloth over my peaches felt over-tight, and I was finding it a little hard to breathe.”
  • A friend of Beka says, “Inside I am a beautiful woman . . . The Trickster tapped me in my mother’s womb and placed me in this man’s shell.” I’d heard of many tricks done by the gods, but surely this was nearabout the cruelest.”
  • Dale sits Beka on his lap. She protests, but “then said nothing else . . . I only know that my dress, decent enough before, now seemed scandalously low cut. Moreover, from the way his arm drew its fabric and the fabric of my shift tight over my peaches, he knew I was not thinking of the cards.”
  • Dale teases Beka, kissing her fingertips and the palms of her hands. She thinks, “The peaks on my peaches went so tight I thought they might pop clean off.”
  • Beka kisses Dale several times. “And then he did kiss me. Oh, I came all undone. He wrapped me about in his arms . . . He fit his lips to mine and went very quiet and gentle, breathing my breath, settling his hold on me until we matched, twined about like vines.” Another time, “He kissed me so sweetly, his arms just strong enough as he drew me tight to his chest. His tongue slid gentle into my mouth as I wrapped my hands around the back of his head, feeling his silky hair against my fingers.”
  • Beka thinks about how far she wants to go with Dale. “Will I bed Dale? Should I? Surely what is between us cannot last . . . I think I should stop at a healer’s in the morning and purchase a new charm to prevent babies. It’s been so long since I needed one, I don’t even remember where the last one went.”
  • Beka beds Dale. “Last night was the finest I have had in my life. Dale took me to a good supper . . . After that, we returned to his room. Not that I will be writing the details of that. I’ve heard tell of folk who write little books that are nothing but what happens when folk canoodle. How can anyone bear to write such things where other folk might read them?”
  • “Dale picked up my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist slowly, as he liked to do. I’d thought that perhaps, now that we’d had a tumble, his touch wouldn’t unravel my tripes as it had before. I was wrong.”
  • Dale gives a maidservant, “a pat on the bum. I kicked him under the table. ‘I was just being polite!’ he protested. ‘Mayhap she’d like to keep her bum to herself,’ I told him. ‘If you need to be patting someone, pat me.’ “

Violence

  • Beka is attacked by a slave. “She rushed me from behind, her hands gripped together over her head in one giant fist. Only my instincts got me out of the way, or my head would have been crushed. The blow glanced off my left elbow, numbing it.”
  • Rosto tells Beka that when he found criminals using false coin, he “had them branded we did . . . A coin with an X through it, on their right hands. So every time they shake a dice box or pick up a card, folk will know.”
  • Goodwin says she used to be loose with the law, many years ago. “I ended in the gutter, buried under two corpses and not sure I wouldn’t be the third by dawn. I promised the Goddess I would change my ways if I lived.”
  • When a friend says, “Mind those saucy sailor coves, Beka. Their hands are nimble, and they mean no good to a pretty mot like you,” she replies, “I smile all the time. I just don’t do it for nonsense from coves who only mean to get under my skirts.”
  • When a group jump Goodwin and Beka, Goodwin “in a flash she had her knife at his eyes. She had her other hand dug firm into his gems. His knees buckled. His face turned red in the dim light.”
  • Beka meets several acquaintances in a gambling house. “Hanse [gave a woman] a slap on the bum that made her squeal and smack him back.”
  • While eating seafood, Beka thinks about how, “Everyone knows the reputation oysters have for putting folk in the mood for canoodling.”
  • Beka arrests men who were stealing children for the slave trade. “The redheaded one came at me first, doubtless thinking the sword would scare me off. I let him reach a bit too far and slammed him on the wrist, breaking it.”
  • Beka is part of a group of Dogs that raids the Rogue’s Court. “He carried a length of firewood gripped in both hands. It would crush my shoulder if it struck, so I darted under his swing and, one-handed, smacked both of his kneecaps with my baton. When he stiffened, his grip on his weapons going loose, I jammed the end of my baton between his thighs and yanked it up.”
  • Beka is attacked while chasing a criminal. “He thrust out with a short sword that would have skewered me, had I still be in front of it. I seized the hand on the sword hilt, slamming my baton down on the forearm just above my grip. Bone crunched.”
  • Beka finds several murdered people. “One had bought passage to the Peaceful Realms with a neck slash from a very sharp blade . . . I almost missed the death sign on the other cove, until I saw the blood that ran from his ear. I crouched to inspect the wound. At a guess, I’d say that someone very knowing in the ways of murder shoved a thin blade into the cove’s ear all the way to his brain.”
  • Pearl fights, rather than let herself be captured. “She had knives in both hands. I learned that when I caught one knife on my dagger’s hilt, and took the blade of her second knife along my right hip. It hurt like fire had chopped in to my side . . . I twisted my knife hand around her arm, trapping it. Pearl shook and thrashed, trying to make me let her go as the tide dragged on us.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Beka tells her partner, “You walk a bit, and you stop for a jack of ale.”
  • Beka talks to a cruel Dog. “I could smell the drink on him. He was swilled, and the hour not even noon.”
  • When visiting friends, Goodwin says, “I am off duty, and I will have ale.” Ale is often drunk and served at dinner and other casual events, though Beka rarely partakes.

Language

  • Beka writes, “I should have known tonight’s watch would kiss the mule’s bum when Sergeant Ahuda stopped me after baton training.”
  • Insulting, but not profane, words such as cracknob are used as insults or exclamations of disgust. Once Beka says, “he’s a lazy, jabbernob, pudding-livered scut,” and Goodwin calls Tunstall a “jabbernob.”
  • The word bastard is used twice. Tansy says, “A flea I put in my cove’s ear, not stopping the plague bastard before handling a citywoman like me!”
  • Ass is said several times. Tunstall tells a criminal that he shouldn’t want, “us chewing at your ass.”
  • The Rogue of Port Caynn calls Beka and Goodwin bitches seven times throughout the book. “I know what you two bitches are doin’, sniffin’ about my turf.”
  • Piss and summer are used often, usually in reference to work with a scent-hound or to Beka’s pigeons. “Phelan had said things with piss or scummer on them were the best. I don’t know how poor Achoo can stand it. Mayhap the smells that made me like to puke were perfume to her.”

Supernatural

  • Beka has a cat who is, “a constellation, as close to a god as makes no difference.”
  • Beka can hear the unhappy ghosts that ride pigeon-back until they move on to the Black God’s realm. “I gathered the complaints of the dead from the pigeons while they ate. There were few ghosts complaining of their lot today.”
  • Many people have variations of the magical Gift, which can be used for healing, fighting or many other things. Beka’s Gift allows her to hear bits of conversations that are picked up by wind spinners. “Stuck in one place like they are, their veils of air spinning tall or small depending on the weather, they savor the taste of other places. In return they give me the bits of talk they’ve gathered since my last visit.”

 

Spiritual Content

  • Pounce tells Beka, “Have faith that the gods know what they are doing with your life.” Beka thinks, “It never goes well for the god-chosen! Pounce can just tell the gods to leave me be.”
  • There are many gods in Tortall, such as the Goddess, the Black God and the Drowned God. Different people honor different gods, and some people are more devout than others. The gods names are also used in greetings, or as exclamations of surprise. One man tells Beka, after she is almost killed, “I would give the Trickster, the Goddess, and great Mithros some offerings, if I were you.” Beka takes his advice, “and did all the offerings to the gods that I promised in return for their help in the last few days.”
  • Goodwin tells Beka, “This stream has a sprite in it. They hate mortal magic . . . Except for the tail, they look like people.”

by Morgan Lynn

The Player King

Young Lambert Simnel, a penniless orphan, slaves away in a tavern. He’s a nobody who is treated badly by his master. Lambert spends his time working in the kitchen and trying to avoid his master’s fist. Lambert’s life suddenly changes when a mysterious friar, Brother Simonds, purchases Lambert and hides him in a guarded house. Scared and uncertain of his future, Lambert’s only desire is to return to the tavern.

King Henry VII stole the crown and pronounced himself King of England. The true heir to the throne, Prince Edward has disappeared. With the help of an Earl, Brother Simonds sets out to make Lambert the player king—Lambert must learn to become Prince Edward. Lambert doesn’t trust those around him; however, he has learned one lesson well: do as you are told. Lambert is in a dangerous game where everything is at stake; Lambert wonders if he will survive as those around him battle for power.

Told from Lamber’s point of view, The Player King is a captivating story that brings 1486 history to life.  Lambert is a well-rounded character whose emotional turmoil pulls the reader into the story. The vivid imagery and dialogue bring medieval England to life. Readers will not only learn what life was like for royalty, but also for the poorest serfs.

According to the publisher, The Player King’s is written for readers as young as eight. Even though the chapters are short, the dialogue of the characters may be challenging because of the realistic use of time period language. Avi’s use of more complex sentence structure may also be difficult for some readers. The violence is appropriate for the age group, but there are several descriptions that are gory and could be upsetting. Overall The Player King is an intriguing historical fiction that is an excellent story for more advanced readers.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • As part of the narration, Lambert said that his master was “more than happy to pound on me.”  Lambert talked back to his master’s wife and she, “pulled my hair, call me a sluggish skelllum, and predicted a quick hanging.”
  • When Lambert falls asleep during his lessons, the friar slaps him. Later in the story, when Lambert tries to run away, the friar, “Struck me hard across the face.”
  • The friar explains to Lambert what would happen if Lambert was accused of being a traitor. ”You would be hanged, but before you’d fully die, your guts would be stripped out through your stomach wall and burned before you, while your beating heart would be removed and stuffed into your bloody mouth. Finally, your body would be cut into four quarters and nailed about the town.
  • When a servant does not bow to the future king, “a soldier went and struck the man so that he tumbled to the ground.”
  • A battle is described over a chapter. When men with crossbows begin the battle, Lambert “saw some of Henry’s men fall.” During the battle, “some shields were raised. Even as they were raised, many men fell, pierced mortally by arrows.”
  • At the end of the battle, “Henry’s army pursued, chasing and hacking down my soldiers by the hundreds. Arms broken, severed. Guts tumbled. Heads rolled down to the bottom of deep gullies, where they lay forever still.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Lambert is a kitchen boy in a tavern, where customers are served drinks. The narrator tells about when friars and priests come and drink. Lambert was told to be respectful “even if they had drowned in their cups.”
  • During a play, an actor “acted drunk.”
  • During a dinner, Lambert listens to two lords talking, “. . . The way they slurred their words told me they had already drunk too much.”

Language

  • Actors perform a version of the Noah story; however, in this story, Noah was a drunk, and “God dumped a filled piss-pot over him.”
  • Master Tackery calls Lambert a “boiled bootlicker” and a “want-wit.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Actors perform the story of King Solomon with two women who both claim a child as their own.
  • Actors perform a version of the Noah story; however, in this story, Noah was a drunk. “Though God warned him a great flood would come unless he stopped drinking, this Noah drank anyway, so God dumped a filled piss-pot over him.”
  • One of the main characters is a friar who prays to God.
  • Lambert prays to Mary and asks, “that she would be by my side in times to come.”
  • Lambert feels the need to pray and thinks that Brother Simons, “had not taught me how to save my soul.”
  • Before going into battle a character said, “the Lord’s will shall be done.”

Almost Home

Sugar’s life isn’t perfect, but she’s content. She has a best friend, a teacher who encourages her to write, and a home to go to. When life throws difficulties her way, Sugar looks at the bright side. But when Sugar becomes homeless, she had a hard time finding the good in life.

Then Sugar’s mother Reba decides to move to Chicago hoping for a fresh start, but when Reba doesn’t get the job she had hoped for, she has a nervous breakdown. Sugar and her puppy Shush are moved into foster care. Throughout the story, Sugar holds on to her dreams and learns that life can be good, despite her circumstances.

Sugar is as sweet as her name. She is an engaging character that the reader will fall in love with. She pours out her feelings of fear, loneliness, and confusion through poetry, which allows the reader to understand Sugar’s thoughts and emotions. Sugar’s cute, fearful puppy is added to the mix which makes Almost Home even more enjoyable. As Sugar narrators her own story, the reader gets a glimpse of what it feels like to be homeless. Because Sugar is a sixth-grader, the story is told in a manner that is age-appropriate for younger readers.

There is much to like about Almost Home. Sugar meets interesting characters of all ages who add delight to the book. The majority of the adults in the book are shown to be kind people who only want to help. And even though Sugar’s mother Reba has a nervous breakdown, in the end, Reba shows that despite her imperfections, she truly is trying to be a better person because she loves her daughter.

Much of Sugar’s life lessons came from her grandfather, King Cole, who imparted much wisdom about not giving up. Even though her grandfather is dead, his character still shines through. Through sharing Sugar’s story, the reader will learn that sometimes taking one step takes great courage, but it’s necessary to keep moving if you are going to keep your dreams alive.

Sexual Content

  • One of the character’s dad cheated on her mother and went into hiding. Later the character discovers that after her father disappeared, he married another woman and had a son.
  • Mr. Leeland “gives Reba a too-long kiss.”

Violence

  • A boy tells Sugar, “I had a dog—it died. It keep barking, so my uncle shot it.”
  • When Mr. Leeland shows up drunk, one of the children “makes a big run at him from behind, shouts a war cry, and pushes him down. Mr. Leeland is on his face moaning.” Reba then stands on him. “She digs her heels into his back.” And then she kicks him out of the house.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sugar’s father, who she calls Mr. Leeland, comes and goes, but never stays long. “He only cared if there was food and beer in the refrigeration. . .” Later Sugar talks about when Mr. Leeland got drunk. At the end of the book, he reappears drunk.
  • Sugar is living in a shelter that does not allow drinking. Her mother, “normally doesn’t drink, except when Mr. Leeland is around, but she and this lady Evie, who lives at the shelter, they have a drink now and then in Evie’s room.”
  • One of the characters talks about her foster daughter who was on and off drugs and ended up dying of an overdose. The character tells Sugar, “Drugs are out there, and they’re looking for kids to destroy . . . You’ll never feel worse than you do on drugs. You could end up like Tonya—stone cold dead.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Sugar was born in the back seat of a car. In the narration, Sugar explains, “When I popped out and Reba saw the Sugar Shack sign, she felt it was a sign from God; right there I got my name. At least God told her to stop at Sugar. Sugar Shack Cole would have been a chore to live with.”
  • Sugar writes prayers to God. When she is in a difficult situation, Sugar “tried to pray like King Cole told me, but I couldn’t. I felt like the earth had opened up and swallowed us into a dark place—a place no prayers ever got answered.”
  • Sugar wonders, “If King Cole can see me from heaven. I wonder if God is paying attention, or if he’s off helping people who have places to live.”

 

Close to Famous

Twelve-year-old Foster dreams of having her own cooking show on the Food network. When she and her mother flee Nashville and end up in the tiny town of Culpepper, Foster worries that her dream is over. When Lester, a tow truck driver, offers to let them live in the Airstream trailer in his backyard, they take him up on his offer because they have nowhere else to go.

Foster begins to feel at home as she makes friends and gets herself a job baking for the local coffee shop. When she meets Charleena Hendley, a once-famous actress, Foster is forced to face her biggest challenge—learning to read. Close to Famous has a string of loveable characters, who each have their own challenges. Although the story does not have a fairy tale ending, the ending is surprisingly heart-warming.

In Close to Famous Joan Bauer tackles the difficult issue of domestic abuse and losing a loved one in an age-appropriate way. In the end, Foster learns the importance of never giving up, and how true friends help a person overcome their challenges. As Foster tells her story, she brings the small town of Culpepper and its residents to life. Close to Famous is an easy-to-read, engaging story that has humor, and heart.

Sexual Content

  • One of the character’s husbands had an affair and left her. “Mike Tuller was my husband, and he started seeing a supermodel while we were married . . . I was devastated, humiliated.”

Violence

  • When Foster’s mother, Ryka, tells her boyfriend that the relationship is over, he becomes violent. “Huck was shaking her by the shoulders . . . That’s when he hauled off and punched her in the eye. I did a flying leap toward him; he pushed me away.” Foster screams and the neighbors begin yelling. Foster and her mother leave.
  • Foster’s mother returns to Nashville to get some belongings. While she is there, she sees her x-boyfriend. When she returns to Culpepper, her arm has a big bruise on it. “I only saw him for an hour, and when I was heading out the door, he grabbed my arm and yanked it back hard, but I left anyway. That’s how I got the bruise.”
  • Ryka’s father was abusive. She tells Foster, “. . . he hit my mother. . . Once she called the police on him, but his cousin was on the force and he covered the whole thing up.”
  • While checking out at the grocery store, someone mentions that “Zeke got jumped at the prison. Wasn’t paying attention.”
  • A prisoner escapes and goes to the house where his family was staying, and begins yelling. The confrontation is described over several pages. In the end, the prisoner ends up leaving. When he leaves Foster says, “I heard a noise outside, sounds of a fight, then shouting, ‘I’m making a citizen’s arrest.’”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Foster and her mother acknowledge God’s existence and pray to him. While she was in a difficult situation she thinks, “I hope that God can see us through the fog. Because if he can’t, we’re in big trouble.”
  • When Foster asks if memorizing is cheating, she is told that “You use whatever God’s give you.”

5 to 1

Women rule the land. Women are respected. Women built Koyanagar into a country where women could do anything. But to accomplish this, they had to put men into their place.

If they want chance at having a better life, the boys of Koyanagar must compete for a wife. Those who do not have a wife—and do not give their wife a female child—will be forced to guard the wall. Everyone knows once you’re sent to guard the wall, it’s only a matter of time until you end up dead.

Sudasa should feel excited about having young men compete for her hand in marriage. As she watches the test though, she realizes her cousin is among the contestants and has been given an unfair advantage over the others. Someone wants to make sure her cousin is the clear winner of the test.

The only boy who could possibly beat Sudasa’s cousin is Kiren. But there’s a slight problem, as Kiren hopes to gain his freedom by losing the test. Sudasa knows that Kiren may be her only hope in avoiding a marriage to a cousin who she despises. Yet, she also knows that Kiren doesn’t want to win the test and be forced to marry her.  As she wrestles with the right thing to do—for herself and for Kiren—she discovers Koyanagar isn’t based on fairness at all.

5 to 1 is written from both Sudasa’s and Kiren’s point of view. Sudasa’s story is written in verse; however after reading the first page, the reader will be so engrossed in the story that they forget that they are reading poetry. Because Kiren’s point of view is in prose, it is easy to keep track of which character is speaking.

The world of Koyanagar is mesmerizing and unique. The characters come to life and add interest to the story. The two main characters drive the action. Both characters are struggling to do the right thing, and in doing so they capture the reader’s heart.

The only down side of 5 to 1 is the story ended without having the conflict completely resolved. The end of the book is frustrating because Kiran and Sudasa’s fates are unclear.

Sexual Content

  • In a speech, the president talks about when girls were sold, “to the highest bidder.” And some were, “raped, fated for ruin.”
  • One of the contestants tells a guard, “I bet you wish it was still the old country, huh? A man should be able to stick it to his wife whenever he wants, and if she doesn’t like it, he should be able to slap her senseless.”
  • A contestant tells Sudasa, “You’ll be the one sweating in our marriage bed.” When she slaps him, he laughs at her.

Violence

  • Abortion is talked about throughout the book. Before Koyanagar became a country, many families aborted girl children. Now women abort boy children.
  • The president of the country tells the people, “The people took their money and spent it on illegal ultrasounds. If they didn’t hear the words ‘It’s a boy,’ they spent more money on doctors who could quietly made the problem go away. If they couldn’t afford these luxuries, they waited nine months and then took care of things themselves. Some abandoned their baby girls in a park, knowing they would be sold to lands far away. Other used a towel. A pail. And a grave.”
  • There are several references to Agnimar Cliff where young men go to jump off the wall and end their life. Boys who are weak or do not want to be trained to guard the wall jump off Agnimar Cliff.
  • A boy was killed because he, “refused to tell the State where his girlfriend was hiding.”
  • Sudasa’s sister says that she would abort a baby if it was a boy. She would do this even if abortion is illegal. When Sudasa protest, her sister says, “You saw that disabled boy competing for you. Do you think a mother would want a boy like that in her belly?”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • People wanted boy children because they could, “attend their funeral pyres and release their souls to heaven.” A character gives a boy a proper funeral pyre to “free the boy’s soul for rebirth.”
  • Being invited to be a part of the marriage test is supposed to be an honor. “That’s what she keeps saying, as if the mere act of being invited to fight for one’s life is a gift from the gods we’re not supposed to believe in anymore. I don’t believe in them, but not because religion has been banned . . . I just don’t think a being that’s good and fair would lie a place like Koyanagar exist.”
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