Topic: Good vs Evil

City Spies #1

Sara Martinez is a hacker. She recently broke into the New York City foster care system to expose her foster parents as cheats and lawbreakers. However, instead of being hailed as a hero, Sara finds herself facing years in a juvenile detention facility and banned from using computers for the same stretch of time. Enter Mother, a British spy who not only gets Sara released from jail but also offers her a chance to make a home for herself within a secret MI6 agency.

Operating out of a base in Scotland, the City Spies are five kids from various parts of the world. When they’re not attending the local boarding school, they’re honing their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. These skills allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t.

Before she knows what she’s doing, Sara is heading to Paris for an international youth summit, hacking into a rival school’s computer to prevent them from winning a million euros, dangling thirty feet off the side of a building, and trying to stop a villain…all while navigating the complex dynamics of her new team. No one said saving the world was easy.

City Spies is an action-packed book that delves into the world of spies. Even though the story focuses on Sara, there are multiple interesting and well-developed characters that add depth to the story. One such character, a male spy named Mother, recruits Sara. Mother’s complicated past adds danger to the story as well as a touch of humor. Mother uses memorable sayings to help the kids remember spy skills. One is, “You don’t need any hocus-pocus. All you need to do is focus.”

The story includes many flashbacks that allow the reader to see how each person became part of the team and what their special skills are. While the characters add interest and conflict, the fast-paced plot keeps the readers guessing until the very end. The conclusion ends abruptly; the ending is logical but doesn’t wrap up all of the story’s threads. Instead, the conclusion leaves readers wondering what will happen in the next book, City Spies Golden Gate.

Anyone who loves a good spy book will enjoy City Spies because of its blend of action, mystery, and wonderfully complex characters. Even though the plot twists and turns in interesting directions, the main threads are easy to follow. Like all spy books, people die and are injured. The descriptions of death and injury are mostly told in the past tense without adding gory descriptions; however, this aspect of the story may upset younger readers. Fans of more mature mysteries such as the Theodore Boone Series by John Grisham will find City Spies an equally entertaining story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When Sara was put in a jail cell, other girls start bullying her. Emily stood up for Sara. “With lightning speed, she jabbed her thumbs deep into the sides of the larger girl’s rib cage, making her gasp for air and stagger backward. . . Emily reached over and carefully guided the other girl back to the bench, making sure she didn’t fall.”
  • On an undercover operation, Mother was betrayed by his wife. Mother’s “hands were tied behind his back, his feet were wrapped together with wire, and a rag had been forced into his mouth so he couldn’t scream for help. . . Each breath filled his lungs with smoke and brought him closer to death.” With help, Mother is able to escape.
  • While in boarding school, one of the students caused an explosion that destroyed a statue of the school’s founder. “The head had apparently been blown off in the explosion and now sat upside down in a nearby flower bed. There was still some residual smoke emanating from Mrs. Hobart’s neck.”
  • Two undercover agents are killed. “It was two days until their bodies were discovered floating in the Seine.”
  • Sara’s teammate Rio talks about a suspect. “. . . Carmichael was severely injured in an explosion when he tried to use dynamite to blow up a bulldozer at a logging site.” He died from his injuries.
  • Sara runs away from a bad guy. She tries to enter a secret passageway, but the man follows. The man “took another step, and just as he was about to reach for her, the smile disappeared and his substantial body crumbled to the floor, landing face-first with a loud thump.” Someone shot the man with a tranquilizer gun.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • While breaking into her old foster home, Sara worries that “Leonard is sitting in his recliner watching television and drinking beer.”

Language

  • Bloody is used four times. For example, when Sara tricks some of the agents, someone says, “That’s bloody brilliant.”
  • When a girl tries out for the school play, one of the teachers says, “Maybe if you had fewer desserts you’d be more princess and less frog.”
  • Someone says un-freaking-believable.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

Peter’s home is Never Land island, but his Lost Boys are starting to grow up and lose interest in island life. Before Peter can worry too much about what this means, the island is besieged by a tribe of warriors called Scorpions. With Peter wounded and the Mollusk’s defeated by the Scorpions, no one is prepared when Lord Ombra returns to the island, kidnapping Peter and his orphan friends.

Whisked away to Rundoon, the boys wonder what Lord Ombra wants from them. Peter isn’t sure if he even can do what Lord Ombra wants, but with his friends’ lives at stake, he feels he has no choice. Unbeknownst to him, Molly and her father are on their way to help. But will their appearance really be the dramatic rescue they’re hoping for? Or will their appearance actually bring about the end of the world, of light, and of the entire universe?

The third installment continues to jump from perspective to perspective, showing what’s happening from Never Land to Rundoon and places in between. However, unlike the previous books in the series, there is no main storyline to hook readers’ interest. Without one larger perspective shaping the narrative, it may be difficult for readers to become emotionally engaged in the plot.

While there is plenty of action, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, unfortunately, lacks the suspense of the previous installments. On top of this, not all the characters behave in a way that is consistent with their personalities in previous books. For instance, Smee becomes Acting Captain Smee after Captain Hook goes missing. Smee, who in previous books could barely string a sentence together or walk three feet without tripping, suddenly becomes well-spoken in his interactions with Shining Pearl, the Mollusk chief’s daughter.

One aspect parents might want to take note of is that this book continues and expands the theme of children disobeying and being praised for their disobedience. Peter disobeys Fighting Prawn and almost dies from an arrow wound; yet Fighting Prawn says, “you did well, disobeying me.” Continuing from the end of the previous book, Molly consistently throws fits, disobeys her father, and then is praised for disobeying him. These events are painted as though the children knew better, and it is unrealistic that adults would praise the children for their disobedience when it puts them and others in mortal danger.

Casual readers of this series may not want to pick up the next book, but devoted fans of the Peter and the Starcatchers series will pick up the next book, Peter and the Sword of Mercy, with the hopes that it revitalizes the suspense and character development of the first two books, rather than following in the emotionally lackluster footsteps of this one.

Sexual Content

  • Molly kisses Peter goodbye. “And then Molly kissed him on the lips. It was the first time either of them had ever kissed anybody on the lips, and it was a kiss they would both carry in their minds for the rest of their lives.”

Violence

  • A tribe of warriors called Scorpions has scars “caused by the tentacles of a particularly nasty type of jellyfish, the poison of which inflicted agonizing pain. . . its toxic tentacles searing his flesh like fire. Some men crumpled immediately to the ground, screaming; others passed out.”
  • Peter is shot by a poison arrow. “Peter felt it . . . a sharp pain like a bee sting . . . His fear turned to relief when he saw that the arrow had merely grazed him . . . Peter grunted as the muscles in his right leg suddenly contracted in violent cramps.”
  • The Scorpions attack the Mollusks. “Scorpion marksmen returned fire, sending dozens of poison-tipped arrows hissing toward the tops of the palm trees. A cream, then another, then still more—and Mollusk warriors began to fall from their perches.” The battle is described over five pages.
  • Ombra takes control of James and threatens him, in order to force Peter to obey. “‘You know I can make them suffer.’ As he spoke, Ombra/James raised his right hand, dug his fingernails viciously into his own cheek, and raked his face. Parallel trails of blood began to ooze from the wounds.”
  • While escaping from the Scorpions, a ship fires small iron balls from their cannon. It “sent a lethal hail flying across the water. The first three canoes stopped instantly as the paddlers fell backward, most of them wounded, some of them screaming.”
  • Tink helps in a sword fight by providing a bright flash of light. “Leonard and Bakari drew their own swords, and in a moment the stone corridor rang with the clash of steel on steel, swords flashing . . . The two guards screamed, covering their eyes—too late, as they were temporarily blinded. . . Leonard opened his eyes and stepped quickly between the helpless guards . . . clubbing them both unconscious.”
  • Men try to stop Molly and George from stealing a camel. “He grabbed Molly’s leg, jerking it down and back. Molly screamed in pain. George lashed out and kicked the man’s head; he grunted and let go.”
  • A guard clouts Ted. “A clout on the ear silenced Ted.”
  • Tink stops a man chasing Molly. Tink “delivered a kick to his nose that made him yelp in pain and veer sideways, his blade harmlessly slicing the air.”
  • Shining Pearl sees “the body of a pirate . . . an arrow sticking out of his chest, a reminder of the battle that had taken place here when the Scorpions had overrun the fort. Shining Pearl stared at the body. It looked ghastly pale in the moonlight.”
  • A man chases George with a knife. “George, unable to get away, closed his eyes, waiting for the pain of the blade.” George gets away.
  • The boys drop anything they can find on men who are chasing their ship. “The missiles hit two of the men on the head, causing them to fall back into their boat.”
  • When men fire on the boys’ ship, several are hit. “George heard a high-pitched scream and saw Thomas crumple to the deck, holding his leg. He felt a thud in his left arm, as though somebody had punched him; he looked down and saw blood. A second later, he felt the searing pain.”
  • The boys break Molly’s father out of prison with a cannon. “A second cannonball slammed into the dungeon wall directly outside their cell, hurling all three occupants to the ground in a hail of flying stone. . . Blood poured from Leonard’s chin, where he’d been cut by a shard of masonry, but they were otherwise unhurt.”
  • Captain Hook joins in a sword fight. “Bellowing fearsomely and wielding the sword with a pirate’s ruthless efficiency, he began hacking his way through the soldiers.”
  • Zarboff is eaten by his own pet snake. “Zarboff emitted a few panicked cries . . . And then he could no longer breathe; he could only struggle in silent horror as his beloved pet began the slow, relentless process of feeding on him.”
  • When his people are enslaved, Fighting Prawn leads a rebellion. “The three remaining Scorpion guards, clearly stunned by the revolt, at first tried to run toward the tunnel; but, finding their path blocked, had backed against the cavern wall, lashing out with whips and knives while shouting for help. But no help came, and the Scorpions were soon brought down by a hail of rocks hurled by the slaves they had once tormented.”
  • While rebelling against their captors, “Fighting Prawn and his men slammed into the gate, knocking the two Scorpions to the ground. Neither would ever get up again.”
  • Mister Grin, a giant crocodile, eats the Scorpion chief. “Fighting Prawn was knocked sideways by the mighty croc just as it reached the Scorpion chief, who drew his spear back in a desperate effort to defend himself. He had no time to bring it forward. The monstrous maw opened wide, then snapped shut. The Scorpion chief was gone.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When George hears tale of an underwater ship, he says, “I think the dolphins got into the grog.”
  • Molly and George are able to sneak off a ship because “the crew doz[ed] off after a bit too much food and grog.”

Language

  • A man says, “Who the devil are you?”
  • Captain Hook calls people “idjit” several times.
  • Tink calls people “idiots” four times.
  • A monkey tells Tink, “The birds around here are idiots.”
  • Tink calls Molly “a big stupid fish” and a “cow.”

Supernatural

  • Starcatchers are “a small group of people . . . There have been Starcatchers on Earth for centuries, Peter. Even we don’t know how long. But our task is always the same: to watch for the starstuff, and to get to it, and return it, before it falls into the hands of the Others.” The Others misuse starstuff to gain power.
  • Starstuff is golden dust that sometimes falls from the sky as meteors and “has amazing power . . . Wonderful power. Terrible power. It . . . it lets you do things . . . It’s not the same for everybody. And it’s not the same for animals as for people.” Starstuff can heal, can make people fly, or can even make people strong. Molly explains that larger quantities are more dangerous and can kill a person, or turn a fish into a mermaid, horses into centaurs, and other transformations.
  • Starcatchers have learned the language of porpoises, bears, and wolves. They work together often to find and return any starstuff that falls to earth.
  • Some fish on Peter’s island were turned into mermaids by starstuff.
  • Molly’s father turned a bird into a fairy, to watch over Peter. Her name is Tink. She calls herself a “birdgirl.”
  • Peter was exposed to a large quantity of starstuff. As a result, he can fly permanently and will never grow older.
  • A shadow creature called Lord Ombra has many abilities and seems to be more shadow than man. Lord Ombra can read thoughts if he touches a person’s shadow. He can also steal shadows, which allows him to control and/or impersonate that person.
  • Lord Ombra says “There are two conflicting sides in what you call the universe. On one side is creation, being light; on the other side is destruction, nothingness, darkness. . . I am darkness.” Ombra explains that starstuff falling to earth is what makes life grow on earth.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Lynn

Sherwood

Robin of Locksley is dead.

Maid Marian doesn’t know how she’ll go on, but the people of Locksley town, persecuted by the Sheriff of Nottingham, need a protector. And the dreadful Guy of Gisborne, the Sheriff’s right hand, wishes to step into Robin’s shoes as Lord of Locksley and Marian’s fiancé. Who is there to stop them?

Marian never meant to tread in Robin’s footsteps—never intended to stand as a beacon of hope to those awaiting his triumphant return. But with a sweep of his green cloak and the flash of her sword, Marian makes the choice to become her own hero: Robin Hood.

Marian is a captivating protagonist who struggles with deciding what is right and wrong, just and unjust. As a girl, Marian has always struggled to fit into her society because she would rather wield a sword than wait for a knight-in-shining-armor to save her. Even though Marian’s society expects her to act like a lady, Marian knows she will never fit into the typical female mold. One of the reasons Marian loved Robin of Locksley is because he never asked her “to be someone she’s not.”

Even though Robin of Locksley died in the story’s prologue, his voice is not silent. When Marian first dons Robin’s cloak, Robin’s voice guides her. Flashbacks to Robin’s and Marian’s childhood also develop both characters’ personalities. As the story progresses, Robin’s voice recedes into the background, and Marian wonders if she ever really knew Robin. Despite this, Marian deeply misses Robin’s friendship and appreciates that he never tried to change her.

Sherwood quickly grabs the reader’s attention and keeps the suspense high until the very end. The story is full of sword fights, chases, and secrecy. Spooner creates wonderfully complex characters that cannot be judged based on their appearances or their station in life. Readers will fall in love with Marian’s ragtag group of followers as they fight for justice. Through this fight, the story questions whether the law is just. Gisborne is dedicated to the law, but even he realizes “the law will never be just. Perhaps it can come close—so close the line is hard to see. But laws are written by men, who are imperfect by nature, and justice belongs to something beyond the power of men.”

The action-packed conclusion contains several surprises but also ends with a heartfelt scene that will leave readers in tears. In the end, Sherwood is a story that will stay with readers for a long time after they put down the book. Marian’s story reinforces the idea that each person needs to be true to themselves. Even though you cannot fight today’s problems with a bow and arrow, Sherwood encourages you to make an impact on the people around you.

Sexual Content

  • While confronting Marian (who Gisborne thinks is a man), Gisborne said, “You’re of noble birth. Disgraced one too many times with the household servants or else a bastard son banished when you came of age.”
  • Seild, one of Marian’s friends, is in an unhappy marriage. Seild says her husband “prefers the company of women who are too afraid to refuse him.”
  • Robin Hood tells Seild’s husband, “Only a coward leaves his wife alone while he forces himself on the servants.”
  • After Gisborne shares part of his personal life with Marian, she kisses him. “Her lips met his too strongly, the sudden need for him turning her clumsy. . . He held her a moment longer, eyes falling to her lips—and then he bent his head to kiss her. His mouth met her gently at first, but when she leaned close, when her lips parted, when he slipped an arm around her and felt her back arch, he abandoned gentility as utterly as the rest of the façade he’d worn for so many years. . . Her hips moved, tipping up like a beckoning finger, and when he felt her swell toward him he tore his mouth from hers . . . “ The steamy scene is described over two pages.
  • After Marian and Gisborne jump into a river and survive, Gisborne kisses her. “He was kissing the tears from her cheeks when he realized she was shivering, and not from his touch.”

 

Violence

  • During a war, Robin tries to protect the king. The enemy “must have killed the sentries in silence. . . Something thuds into Robin’s shoulder, sending him off balance, and he whirls, searching for the blade he knows is coming. . . It’s then that he feels the fiery lance of pain racing down his biceps and he gasps, sword dangling uselessly from his shoulder.”
  • Even though he is injured, Robin uses his arrow to save the king. “And then a blade crunches into Robin’s side and he’s knocked down against the stone with the force of the blow. He cannot move, cannot feel anything below his rib cage—there is no pain.” Robin dies. The battle is described over four pages.
  • While in the forest, Marian is attacked. “She saw a thick, blunt branch swinging out of the darkness towards her face. She moved without thought. . .The cudgel came at her again, its wielder a shadowy, wild shape that danced in her half-stunned vision.” When Marian pulls her sword, the man stops because “he was afraid.” Marian realizes that the man is Will.
  • Will and Marian continue to fight. “She dropped the weapon as his body collided with hers, and her world narrowed to a frantic staccato of gasps and grunts. . . And then Will got to his feet, and in his hand was Marian’s sword. . . she ducked easily when he rushed her, twisting so that she could land a jab of her elbow into his arm below the shoulder.”
  • During the fight, Marian “struck out at the back of [Will’s] head, momentum half spinning him so she could ready a second blow. But before she could strike, his knees crumpled and he dropped to the ground. . .” Marian ends up saving Will’s life.
  • Marian goes into the forest looking for Will. Two men see her and try to steal from her. While on horseback, Marian tries to run down the thief. “John, now flailing in the leaves, had dropped his staff – Marian threw herself down and snatched it up. . . She had the staff’s tip against Little John’s throat before he could stand.”
  • While disguised as Robin, Marian meets Gisborne. “But then something kindled in Gisborne’s dark eyes, a flash of decision or ferocity, and her instinct took over. She swung her blade up in time to deflect his blow, the clang of steel on steel bringing her back to herself.” After a brief scuffle, Marian runs.
  • Marian, disguised as Robin, hears fighting in the forest. She finds Little John “surrounded by a swarm of the Sheriff’s men. . . Every so often he landed a blow that sent one reeling back, but there were more men than could gather round him at once. . . Gisborne strode up, holding John’s staff, and swung it in a massive arc at John’s head. John grunted and dropped to his knees, his eyes glazed. . .” John passes out because of his injuries.
  • After Marian helps John, a man leaped out at Marian, and “his fist slammed into her stomach. . . She staggered back, all the air driven from her lungs. . . The world around her grew dim, the green-gold of afternoon fading into a deep velvety gray twilight.”
  • Marian as Robin flees from the castle. However, Gisborne chases her. “. . . A hand shot out of the drizzle and slammed into her shoulder. She skidded backward, breath driven from her lungs as she hit the wall. . . Dazed, ears ringing, she forced her eyes to focus in time to see the hand coming at her again. . . She ducked, and twisted, and grabbed for the arm as it passed her, and threw all her weight against the body the arm was attached to and sent it into the wall with a sickening thud.”
  • Marian plans her own kidnapping. After “Robin” drops off the ransom notice, she tries to escape from Gisborne. Gisborne “was moving, lunging at her with shocking speed. . . and then something wrapped around her throat and hauled her backward, chocking. Gisborne had the edge of her cloak, and with a second heave he flung her down to the ground and rolled on top of her . . .” Robin “swung its hilt with all her strength into the side of Gisborne’s head. . .” Robin escapes. The scuffle is described over three pages.
  • While robbing a wealthy man, Robin and her men cut the horses’ traces so the carriage stopped moving. “Little John felled one of the remaining guards with one sweep of his staff, and by the time the other guard reached for his sword, Marian was standing in front of him, bow drawn, arrow just a breath away from his nose.” No one is seriously injured.
  • Seild’s husband, Owen, raises his hand to strike her. Robin Hood shoots an arrow. “Its point pierced Owen’s hand in the dead center of his palm, causing the man to stagger back and fall with a howl of surprise and pain, clutching his wrist with his good hand.”
  • While fighting a war, Gisborne was scarred. He said, “The Saracens poured oil from a jar down my face and tied me over a lamp so that I could feel its heat rising against my skin, and had to hold myself back against the ties or else be burned. . . they cut the bonds. I was too weak to stop myself from falling against the burning lamp.”
  • Marian accidentally drops her Robin Hood mask and a guard finds it. When the guard pulls his sword, Marian shoots an arrow at him. “The force of the arrow’s impact had knocked him back against the wall, and he stayed leaning there, mouth open. . . he moaned and slumped toward the ground.” The guard dies from his injuries.
  • Robin Hood and his men plan to steal gold, but they end up walking into a trap. When Robin Hood realizes it’s a trap, she yells to the others to flee. “One of the guards screamed a moment later as he fell, bleeding from a shallow cut across his face. . .”
  • Robin Hood is left to fight Gisborne on her own. “She swung hard, with the momentum of her whole body, as Gisborne’s next blow came down at her. The force of her parry knocked him back a step, and Marian scrambled back. . . His sword came down like an elemental force, but Marian saw the shift in his feet and the tension in his arm and she was ready. . . Steel met steel with a clash that numbed Marian’s arm.”
  • When Robin Hood flees, Gisborne shoots an arrow. “The point had broken off when she’d rolled, but when she looked down a bloody, splintered thing protruded from her chest. He’d shot her in the back, and the force of it had driven the arrow straight through her. . . His eyes moved from his hand to her face, and then down to the mess of blood and splintered wood at her chest.” As Gisborne looks at Mariam, “something heavy swung into view and collided with the side of Gisborne’s head, knocking him flat.” The fight scene is described over six pages.
  • When Marian is accused of being Robin Hood, she is sentenced to hang. Her men and Gisborne attempt to free her. “. . . Before Marian could recover, [Gisborne] pulled her sideways and dropped her neatly and abruptly off the edge of the platform and into the mud.” Marian is grabbed and pulled underneath the platform.
  • Gisborne fights the sheriff’s men. “Gisborne flung himself down onto the wood to avoid two more swords, spraying blood onto the planks from a gash in his neck.” Marian jumps in to help Gisborne.
  • While trying to free Marian, the scene turns into chaos, which allows Marian and Gisborne to flee. When their pursuers get close, “a hard body collided with hers and slammed her to the ground. . .” As arrows fly toward them, Marian and Gisborne jump off a cliff into a river. The final escape scene is described over ten pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After Marian is told about Robin’s death, a physician gives her something that makes her sleep. Later her maid gives her “herb-laced wine.”
  • When Marian is upset, her maid gives her a “cup of well-watered ale.” The ale has “draught” that makes Marian sleep.
  • Occasionally the adults have wine or mead. For example, Marian thinks back to when her mother would give her father a “mug of watered ale” to ease his tension.
  • Marian runs into a castle guard that was “slumped on one of the tables . . . drunk, and out of his head.”
  • When robbing a wealthy man, John “had liberated a cask of wine.”

Language

  • Damn is used seven times. For example, the sheriff yells at his men, “Kill him—now, you damned slackwits!”
  • Ass is used once and hell is used twice.
  • “God’s bones,” “God’s knees,” “oh God,” “Christ” and other like phrases are rarely used as an exclamation.
  • “Mary’s tits” is used as an exclamation twice.
  • When Will doesn’t want to help Gisborne escape being hung, Alan says, “He just saved her life. You really do have shit for brains.”

Supernatural

  • Some believe Robin’s spirit has returned; however, it is really Marian in disguise.

Spiritual Content

  • When Robin’s uncle died, Robin was told, “Your uncle was much liked, before he went to be with God.”
  • While engaged, Robin and Marian had “never lain together, both too conscious of the laws of God and man. . .”
  • Occasionally Marian prays. For example, when Marian goes to help a friend, she prays, “God what am I doing? It’s Robin—Robin’s the one who should be here.”
  • When Robin’s mother died, “people kept saying [Robin] should be happy she was with God.” Marian replies, “Or I could be like Father Gerolt and give you a sermon about God’s plan. Don’t despair, my child, for it is not for us to know the will of heaven.”
  • After injuring a guard, Marian prays “to God that he lives.”
  • When Marian goes to see the injured guard, a monk tells her, “Now it only remains to wait, and to pray for God’s mercy. If the wound begins to heal, he may live. If the wound poisons his blood. . . he will go with God.”
  • The monk moves with difficulty. When Marian asks after his health, the monk tells her it is a “test God has granted me.”
  • Gisborne tells Marian, “Because the law will never be just. Perhaps it can come close—so close the line is hard to see. But laws are written by men, who are imperfect by nature, and justice belongs to something beyond the power of men.”

 

Don’t Call the Wolf

Lukasz has lived the life of a nomad ever since he and his nine older brothers were forced from their mountain homes. As the last of the famous Wolf-Lords, a group of dragon slayers, they’ve roamed the country hunting dragons, falling in love and being put on display as a distinct race. But one by one, Lukasz’s brothers are called back to their mountain home to slay the beast that forced them out in the first place: the Golden Dragon. Now, two decades later, Lukasz finds himself following the same path, searching for his brother, Franciszek. But when Lukasz starts his journey he encounters a girl that will change everything for him.

That girl is Ren, the queen of the forest. Ren is a shapeshifter, who is able to change into a lynx whenever she needs to. Since monsters have begun to spread throughout the woods, Ren has offered safe haven to all the animals of the forest. Though young, she’s determined to protect her home, no matter what it takes. But, when the Golden Dragon shows up to burn her forest, Ren realizes she can’t fight alone anymore. When she meets Lukasz, she strikes a deal with him: slay the Golden Dragon and she’ll help find Franciszek.

However, that may not be as simple as it sounds. Unlike his brothers, Lukasz has no desire to slay the Golden Dragon. He just wants to find Franciszek and leave. Even if Ren and Lukasz have begun to fall in love with each other, he may very well break her heart in the end.

Don’t Call the Wolf is a standalone novel that’s well-written and well thought out. It’s a story about two worlds, the human world, and the fairy tale world, colliding unexpectedly. Lukasz is a Wolf-Lord, a dragon slayer, both an ally and enemy to Ren and her animal family. Throughout the novel, the disparity between humans and the rest of the natural and magical world is constantly shown, especially the distrust between the two groups. Through this, the novel explores how people can be too quick to judge or be wary of anything different or unfamiliar.

The story’s message of prejudice is where the novel is the strongest, as it weaves together characters that come from a variety of backgrounds and that overcome those prejudices to not only continue their journey but to become friends. A few even go so far as to sacrifice themselves for others. These characters, while not as fleshed out as they could be, are endearing because of this. The main characters, Ren and Lukasz, are the strongest of the cast; each character has flaws as well as realistic fears and desires. For instance, Lukasz can’t read, but this is an endearing flaw that he tries to overcome. Ren deals with being called a monster by the humans that live in her forest, and she must fight against that label.

Don’t Call the Wolf is a retelling of the Polish fairy tale The Glass Mountain. The story is full of adventures in the magical forest, and romance that is excellently paced. The character development is similarly strong, and Ren is fabulously fierce. Don’t Call the Wolf is a great read for anyone looking for a touch of magic in a novel. With a strong setting, elements of a fairy tale, and a theme of overcoming prejudice, fantasy lovers will want to pick up this novel.

Sexual Content

  • Ren watches as Lukasz kisses a monster. “Eyes still locked on Ren, it kissed him [Lukasz]. His arms came up, encircling it. And to Ren’s disgust, he kissed it back.” When thinking about the kiss later, Lukasz thinks it should have been Ren kissing him. “He wished she had been the one to kiss him.”
  • Ren and Lukasz develop a romance. While camping in a forest, Ren “felt a stab of jealousy as Lukasz lowered himself beside Felka to talk. His eye caught hers across the clearing, and Ren turned quickly back to Czarn.” Felka is a human from the only village in Ren’s forest. Later, when Ren is watching Lukasz, she thinks, “Then she ran a hand over the stubble edge of his jaw. She loved his face. She loved that crooked tooth. Ren wondered, suddenly, if she loved more than that.”
  • Lukasz’s older brother, Franciszek, asks Lukasz, “You love this girl [Ren], right?”
  • At the end of the novel, Ren and Lukasz plan to marry. When Lukasz jokes about going to propose to her, Ren says, “No. I think I will.” Then, they kiss. “He leaned down and kissed her. She ran a hand over his cheek, through his hair.”

Violence

  • Throughout the novel, the main characters fight monsters. The first time Lukasz sees one, he notes, “Some were burned beyond recognition, others had whole limbs hacked off. Some had parts of their skulls cleaved away, bits of gray brain and viscous blood spattering their shoulders. Their faces, frozen, still stretched into the tooth-baring, agonized grimaces of death.”
  • While fighting a dragon, Lukasz’s hand is badly burned. “Lukasz screamed. He was on his knees, screaming. Coughing. Tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping off his chin.”
  • As a lynx, Ren attacks a strzygoń, a monster, “Its re-formed limbs could not match the strength of her forelegs. She bit down. Hot blood splashed over her face.” Just after this, Czarn, a wolf loyal to Ren, attacks another strzygoń. “The fight was short. And bloody. One of the bulkier strzygi managed to take a chunk out of Czarn’s ear before the wolf’s powerful jaws closed around its throat and severed its head.”
  • When Ren meets a human girl named Felka, Felka tells Ren, “You ripped his face off!”
  • Koszmar, a soldier that accompanies Lukasz, is startled and shoots a tree branch. “Koszmar shrieked and fired an entire round of bullets into it before realizing it wasn’t another monster.”
  • After Koszmar is killed by a strzygoń, a strzygoń spawns from his corpse, “Then a chest and shoulders emerged, tearing the ribs wide. A head unfurled, with hair congealed in clots. Slick rivers of blood coated naked spine.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After getting his hand burned by a dragon, Lukasz is put in a hospital. He’s given opium for the pain. Doctors “kept him knocked out with opium for a full two weeks. For the pain, the doctor had explained.”
  • When thinking about his brothers, Lukasz thinks, “Rafał lay upon the beds of Miasto tattoo parlors, Eryk bought a vodka distillery, and Anzelm drank most of it.” Later, Lukasz thinks of himself, “Lukasz was twenty, bored, and a little tipsy.”

Language

  • Bastard and bullshit are used a few times. For example, Lukasz talks to a dragon he’s fighting. He says, “Come on, you feathery bastard.”
  • Damn is used frequently. For example, while fighting another dragon, Lukasz thinks, “Where is the damn sword?”
  • Lukasz constantly says “God.” When he is talking with his older brother, he says, “My God, Rafał.”

Supernatural

  • This novel is filled with magical creatures from old European legends.
  • Dragons are all over Lukasz’s country. When Lukasz is hunting a dragon, he sees, “It was huge, orange, covered in feathers and scales. It had a curved beak and a quizzical, birdy look in its eye. It chirped again.”
  • Lukasz is a Wolf-Lord, a famous dragon slayer. During a lecture, a professor describes the Wolf-Lords, “By tooth or by claw, they promised. The Brygada Smoka. The last of the Wolf-Lords, and the greatest dragon slayers in the world.”
  • Ren’s forest is filled with strzygoń, a type of monster that was once human. When Ren encounters one in the forest, she sees, “It stood on all fours, joints locked. With the bulging eyes of a goat, oblong pupils in slate gray, it considered her. It put its head to the side, feathery brows jutting over those terrible eyes. It looked almost like an enormous moth, and again, Ren trembled.” When strzygoń appears in the forest, they crawl out of pits. “A pit opened up, earth crumbling away in its center, ringed with orange flames and twisting roots. It gaped wide in the forest floor.”
  • Ren can shapeshift into a lynx. When she goes to fight a monster, she shifts. While shifting Ren’s “knees shot to her chest and her spine curled up. Her muscles expanded, snapping into place around her limbs. Power tore across her shoulders. Fur raced over her skin.”

Spiritual Content

  • Ren has the power to baptize strzygoń, monsters that were once human. When she encounters a group of strzygoń, she says, “Your time here is finished. I. . . I baptize you.” Once that is said, the strzygoń all crumple and their souls go to either heaven or hell.

by Jonathan Planman

Off the Hook

Investigators Mango and Brash are on the hunt for Crackerdile, who has been turned into a bucket of dough. With the help of the plumber who has been combined with a snake, Crackerdile plans to find the perfect secret lair and recruit more villains. But first, Crackerdile must find a way to change forms because “no one’s going to want to join a team led by a soft pile of mush.”

Before Mango and Brash start their investigation, they are given new V.E.S.T.s. However, once outside the science lab, the new V.E.S.T.s cause problems of their own. For instance, Mango and Brash are mistaken for investment bankers and must attend a board meeting, which is a complete bore.

As Brash and Mango are stuck in the meeting, Crackerdile figures out a way to make himself into Waffledile. Then, Waffledile kidnaps a scientist. With the scientist’s help, Waffledile grows to a huge size. But then Waffledile eats Brash. Is there any way to stop Waffledile? And how can Mango free Brash from Waffledile’s stomach?

Off the Hook is a graphic novel that is laugh-out-loud funny. The combination of human and animal characters blends to create a ridiculous story that uses wordplay to add humor. While readers will enjoy all the wordplay, parents might not like the references to butts.

The imaginative story comes alive in brightly colored artwork that shows the characters’ wide range of emotions. The text is large and uses different font sizes, which help emphasize the characters’ emotions and important aspects of the story. Another positive aspect is that the human scientists are a diverse group of characters with a wide range of skin tones. The end of the book shows how to draw Waffledile and includes a few riddles.

The illustrations and the unique storyline of Brash and Mango will appeal to even the most reluctant readers. Each page has 3 to 11 sentences. The sentences range from one word to more complex sentences. The story does an excellent job of giving enough background information so readers who are new to the series will understand the plot. However, for maximum enjoyment, the series should be read in order.

Off the Hook will appeal to even the most reluctant readers because the plot is more silly than serious. Readers may not understand all of the humor regarding investment bankers, but they will still enjoy the silly antics of Brash and Mango. Parents who want their children to read a graphic novel with a more positive message should add the Hilo Series by Judd Winick to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Crackerdile prods Brash with an electric shocker. Then Crackerdile ties up Brash and drops him off a train. Crackerdile blows up the bridge and the train crashes in a puff of smoke. Later, the reader finds out that this five-page scene was a simulation.
  • The plumber tries to hit Brash and Mango, but instead, he breaks a window. The plumber’s snake arm whacks Mango over the head with a stop sign, “Wham Wham Wham.”
  • Waffledile puts an electrical cord around a huge chicken’s neck. He threatens the scientist’s chicken, “You’re going to make me as big as you! Giddy up! Ha Ha! I feel like a cowboy.”
  • The plumber’s snake arm ties Brash and Mango to a pole.
  • Waffledile grows so big that he destroys a roof. The construction workers begin throwing tools and bricks at Waffledile.
  • Waffledile eats Brash. Mango dumps concrete on Waffledile. Then the plumber crashes into the statue of Waffledile and pulls Brash out of its stomach.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None.

Language

  • There is some humor about butts. For example, as a scientist is flushing Brash and Mango down a toilet, she says, “Hold on to your butts.”
  • After Waffledile eats Brash, Waffledile says, “You can’t dump concrete on me and save your partner. But let me go, and I’ll barf Brash back up! Or you know, he could come out the other way.” A reporter on the scene says, “Inquiring minds want to know. Do waffles have butts?”
  • Darn, drat, dang, and dagnabbit are occasionally used as exclamations.
  • The characters sometimes call other people idiots. For example, Crackerdile says his team’s mission would be “the total annihilation of idiot law-doers!”

Supernatural

  • Crackerdile is “a former-agent-turned-radioactive-saltine-cracker.” In this installment of the series, Crackerdile is a bucket of dough.
  • One of the villains is a “plumber whose arm was combined with a snake, giving him grappling hook powers.”
  • Crackerdile is cooked in a waffle iron. He says, “I, Crackerdile, have been reborn as . . . Waffledile!”
  • Dr. Jack Hardbones is a “news helicopter but also a skilled surgeon.” He can change back and forth from a human to a helicopter.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

Peter has been having a grand old time on his island, dubbed Never Land, despite some squabbles with the pirates who live there. However, when a strange ship docks looking for the starstuff, Peter’s peace is shattered. He overhears a strange shadow-like creature threatening Molly, and makes a snap decision to follow the ship to London in order to warn her.

Peter is not prepared when he reaches London. He has to keep Tink, his fairy or birdgirl, hidden. He doesn’t have shoes or a coat, he doesn’t know where Molly lives, or how to survive on the streets of London. Obstacle after obstacle gets in Peter’s way. Will it be too late to save Molly from the shadow thief and its strange powers? And will Peter ever get back to Never Land, to rescue his friends who’ve been captured by the pirates in his absence?

Peter and the Shadow Thieves is packed full of adventure from start to finish. This installment jumps from many different third-person points of view, allowing readers to see what’s happening on Never Land, with Peter and Molly in London and with the bad guys all at once. While the changes in perspective are clear, readers might not enjoy jumping from the main thread with Peter and Molly in England to Never Land every so often, as it reduces the suspense of the main storyline.

While Peter further learns the importance of working together, Molly uncharacteristically throws a tantrum, reveals the starcatchers’ secrets, and nearly ruins her father’s important mission. Despite her childish behavior, her father forgives her and thanks her for her bravery, which is not believable.

However, fans of Peter and the Starcatchers will be pleased with the second installment in the series. Readers will get to see all the beloved characters from the first book, along with some new friends and a frightening new villain. Timid readers may have nightmares about Lord Ombra, the terrifying shadow thief, who can steal shadows and control minds. More adventurous readers will be thrilled at the continuous suspense, twist and turns, and non-stop adventure that is thus far the hallmark of this series.

This book wraps up its major plot points while leaving plenty of questions that will leave readers eagerly reaching for the next book, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. With plenty of action but not much violence, this is a great series for those readers itching for more exciting adventures who may not yet be ready for more mature content.

Sexual Content

  • When a mermaid kisses someone, they give the person the ability to breathe underwater for a short amount of time. When rescuing one of Peter’s friends, a mermaid kisses him so he can breathe underwater. “A kiss. His first, actually. Soft lips, right on his. Suddenly his lungs stopped burning.”

Violence

  • It’s mentioned in passing that when Mr. Slank was stuck at sea, he had been “forced to kill and eat” the other man he was stuck with “so he could stay alive.”
  • When rescuing his friend, Peter is almost captured by Captain Hook, but Captain Hook is distracted by Tink. Captain Hook, “clapped the hand to his eye, which had just received a hard poke from a tiny but amazingly potent fist.”
  • A man clouts Peter on the ear. “Kremp scuttled over and clouted Peter on the ear. Fortunately for Peter, Kremp was an inexperienced clouter, and it was not too painful.”
  • When escaping prison, “Peter felt a hand grab his left leg; he kicked it free. He turned the key, and the shackle on his right ankle opened . . . Peter kicked with all his strength, heard a loud ‘Ow!’ and a curse below him, and then shot upward, away from the chain and the shackles.”
  • One of Molly’s maids threatens her with a knife. The maid “had crossed the room, bringing the point of the knife to within inches of Molly’s face.” Molly is unharmed.
  • While trying to escape a shadow thief, a man “fell down the steep staircase, his head hitting the stone with a sickening sound.” The man dies on impact.
  • While escaping the men who kidnapped her mother, Molly is grabbed by one of the bad men. Molly “opened her mouth and bit down on [his hand] with all her strength. The hand was yanked away as the owner screamed in pain, and Molly, with a last, desperate wiggle, fell through the hole.”
  • Molly’s friend George tackles a man in her way. “Unfortunately, Magill was considerably taller than George’s usual targets; George had connected, noggin-first, with Magill’s right knee. The collision proved extremely painful for both parties. Magill yelped as he skipped sideways on this left foot, both hands holding his knee. George thudded to the ground, moaning, clutching at his throbbing skull.”
  • Molly’s father is shot. “Molly heard the shots and screamed as she saw her father crumple to the ground.” He survives.
  • When Slank captures Molly, Peter kicks him. “‘Hello, Slank!’ shouted Peter, delivering a high-velocity kick to Slank’s head as he shot past.”
  • A bear named Karl attacks the bad guys. “With a swipe of his enormous paw, he sent the closest of the rifles skidding across the dirt like a twig.”
  • Peter is shot. “UNNNH. Peter did not hear the shot that hit him; only his own grunt as the bullet tore through his left shoulder, hurling him forward onto the trunk. He slid facedown onto the dirt, wondering why he didn’t feel anything . . . His left arm didn’t work. He rolled sideways and the world became a red blur as the pain suddenly shot from his shoulder, surging through his body.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sailors are fond of grog, an alcoholic drink. A sailor “kept his face turned away . . . fearing the captain would smell the grog that had put him to sleep on his watch.”
  • When a deckhand tells a far-fetched tale, the other sailors “were convinced he must have gone mad, or gotten into the grog.”
  • A sailor thinks he sees something strange, perhaps a bee, though there are no bees at sea. In response, the captain takes “him off his ration of grog. He’s too young for grog if he’s seeing bees.”
  • A homeless drunk tells Peter, “Sometimes, when I has me rum, I sees things that ain’t there.”
  • When they reach London, the captain keeps his sailors on his ship because “once they’d gotten ashore and filled their bellies with grog, it was only a matter of time before they were wagging their tongues about the ship’s strange voyage.”
  • It’s mentioned in passing that, “Most of the crew had gathered forward along the rail to watch a bloody, drunken brawl taking place outside the Jolly Tar, a notorious dockside pub.”
  • It’s mentioned that “some sailors, having overdone the grog, slept against the wall of the Jolly Tar; one was passed out in a wheelbarrow.”
  • A clerk keeps ducking beneath his desk to sneak gulps of alcohol. “The clerk ducked down behind the counter, and Peter heard the sound of liquid being swallowed.” The clerk makes a bargain with Peter. He will mail Peter’s letter if Peter takes his flask to a nearby bar and gets a refill.

Language

  • Captain Hook calls his men “idjit” several times.
  • Tink is a jealous fairy. She calls one of the mermaids a “fat grouper” twice, and she calls Molly a “cow” twice.
  • Captain Hook hatches a plan to catch the boys, and says, “I have you now, you little devils.”
  • When Molly’s friend George smacks his head on a windowsill, Tink comments, “Another idiot.”

Supernatural

  • Starcatchers are “a small group of people . . . There have been Starcatchers on Earth for centuries, Peter. Even we don’t know how long. But our task is always the same: to watch for the starstuff, and to get to it, and return it, before it falls into the hands of the Others.” The Others misuse starstuff to gain power.
  • Starstuff is golden dust that sometimes falls from the sky as meteors and “has amazing power . . . Wonderful power. Terrible power. It . . . it lets you do things . . . It’s not the same for everybody. And it’s not the same for animals as for people.” Starstuff can heal, can make people fly, or can even make people strong. Molly explains that larger quantities are more dangerous and can kill a person, or turn a fish into a mermaid, horses into centaurs, and other transformations.
  • Starcatchers have learned the language of porpoises, bears, and wolves. They work together often to find and return any starstuff that falls to earth.
  • Some fish on Peter’s island were turned into mermaids by starstuff. “Peter could see the tiny figures of a half dozen mermaids sunning themselves on the broad, flat rock they favored.”
  • Molly’s father turned a bird into a fairy, to watch over Peter. Her name is Tink. She calls herself a “birdgirl.”
  • Peter was exposed to a large quantity of starstuff. As a result, he can fly permanently and will never grow older.
  • A shadow creature called Lord Ombra has many abilities and seems to be more shadow than man. Lord Ombra can read thoughts if he touches a person’s shadow. He can also steal shadows, which allows him to control and/or impersonate that person.
  • In an attempt to escape prison, Peter uses his locket of starstuff. The result is that he, the guard, and the other prisoners that Peter is chained to all float into the air and fly for a few minutes before the starstuff wears off. When others hear what happened, “the word ‘witchcraft’ is whispered by the crowd.”

Spiritual Content

  • When a man asks a shadow thief, “Who the devil are you?” the shadow thief responds, “Not the devil, but a good friend of his.”
  • When Molly’s father hears the starcatchers’ mission was a success, he says, “Thank God.”

by Morgan Lynn

Lovely War

In a hotel room in Manhattan in the midst of World War II, the Greek gods Aphrodite and Ares are caught in an affair by Aphrodite’s husband, Hephaestus. Hoping to understand Love’s attraction to War, Hephaestus puts Aphrodite on trial. Her defense is to tell the tale of one of her greatest successes, the intersecting love stories of Hazel Windicott and James Alderidge, and of Aubrey Edwards and Colette Fournier. Aphrodite’s witnesses are Ares (god of war), Apollo (god of music), and Hades (god of death). Each contributes their own different, but overlapping, perspectives to the proceedings.

The story begins as piano player Hazel and soldier James meet at a parish dance and fall into instant, dizzying love, only to be separated three days later when James is sent to the front. Desperate to distract herself from anxiety about her soldier’s well-being, Hazel joins the YMCA where she meets Colette, a singer who lost her whole family in an attack on her home in Belgium. There, they happen upon ragtime musician Aubrey, a Black soldier who desires to make a name for himself on stage and on the battlefield. Aubrey and Colette bond over their music and realize their affections go beyond an appreciation for each other’s talents.

While the story addresses dark and violent subject matter due to its historical period, the frame narrative allows for light moments as well. The banter among the gods, and their respective belief that their part of the story is the most memorable, allows the mood to lift as needed. The darker moments hold meaning within the larger narrative and the smallest joys are heralded as gifts from the gods.

The human characters hold their own amongst their immortal narrators. Each character is likable and humorous in his/her own way. Over the course of the war, Hazel emerges from her meek demeanor, learning to stand for what she sees is right, while not losing her innocence and goodness of heart. James is goofy and sincere, making his experience in combat all the more tragic, as he must reconcile that what he does on the battlefield does not have to mean a loss of himself. Colette is strong-willed and a fierce defender of her friends, though internally she fears that anyone she loves is destined to die. She opens up, however, to the charming dreamer Aubrey. Aubrey’s experiences with racial violence show that the enemy to their happiness is not only the German soldiers they encounter on the battlefield but also those who perpetrate violence and discrimination against black Americans within their own neighborhoods and war camps.

Teenage readers who enjoy romance, Greek mythology, and historical fiction may enjoy this book. It is recommended that readers proceed carefully, as the book does address racism and racial violence as well as the terrors and destruction of war. Despite the hate and violence which surround them, the couples find their way back to love amidst it all. Their fragility as mortals in wartime allows for precious love to shine, as even the impermeable gods come to admire. After Aphrodite reminds Hephaestus that the mortals die, he responds, “They do. But the lucky ones live first. . . The luckiest ones spend time with you.”

Sexual Content

  • Two characters are briefly described as having an affair. “In an instant they are in each other’s arms. Shoes are kicked off, hats tossed aside. Jacket buttons are shown no mercy.” Their kisses are “like a clash of battle and a delicious melding of flesh, rolled together and set on fire.”
  • Athena and Artemis are called, “Those prissy little virgins.”
  • Some of the gods make brief jokes about paying attention to women’s bodies.
  • Hazel’s attraction to James sparks “a series of little explosions” which “began firing throughout her brain and spread quickly elsewhere.”
  • Stéphane admires Colette’s spine and thinks that “he could run his fingers along her back.” He does not act on his thought.
  • Colette is attracted to Aubrey’s musical talent, saying, “It was sexy. And so was its athletic high priest at the piano bench.”
  • During an attack on Aubrey, a racist soldier implies that Aubrey is after white women. Aubrey retorts asking if the man has “ever been with a black girl.” When the soldier laughs, Aubrey “had no illusions about her being a willing participant.”
  • Joey assumes an encounter between Aubrey and Colette was sexual in nature. He asks Aubrey, “Did you . . .?” Aubrey informs him, “It’s not like that,” and then scolds him for presuming that Colette is a “hooker.”
  • Aubrey hides so as not to be seen by a supervisor and realizes “he was free to ogle Colette from the shoulders down just at that moment, and he took advantage of it.”
  • Colette tries to understand Hazel’s fear about meeting up with James. Colette assumes that Hazel’s fear might be due to the possibility of one of them “taking advantage” of the other. Hazel admits that “if anyone found out, there’d be such a scandal.” She explains, “When I’m around James, I do the most outrageous things.”
  • Colette recognizes that being “alone in the dark” could lead to “dozens of ways a young man could try to take advantage of this situation,” although nothing comes of it.
  • A couple says goodbye, and “the brief kiss she gave him at the door was filled with neither passion nor desire, but sweetness, affection, gratitude.”
  • Hazel removes her stockings at the beach, and it is said, “The sight of her bare feet was just about enough to give poor James a stroke there on the spot.”
  • Hazel is pushed into James’ arms and, “The feel of her body pressed against his went through him like an electric shock.” They hold each other for a moment, spinning in circles.

Violence

  • There are multiple instances of racial violence perpetrated against Aubrey and his bandmates. There are also third-party historical sources referenced. Words such as “darkie,” “coon,” “negroes,” and “colored” are frequently used by other characters to address these men. At one point a southern soldier states, “An ape’s an ape.” Other racist comments permeate the experience of the black soldiers at home and abroad.
  • The black soldiers face fears of waking to a “lynch mob.”
  • The narrator describes an instance of police brutality. “A white police officer had entered a black woman’s home without a warrant, searching for a suspect. When she protested, he beat and arrested her, dragging her from her home though she wasn’t fully dressed. When a black soldier saw this and tried to intervene to defend the woman, the white policeman pistol-whipped the black soldier, seriously injuring him.” She then briefly mentions the “shooting that followed” which killed many people.
  • When addressing the possibility of looking at white women, Aubrey states, “No pretty face is worth swinging from a tree.”
  • The “Rape of Belgium” is described in detail over five pages. The narrator notes that German soldiers “pulled men from workplaces and homes and hiding places and executed them in the streets. Women, children, and babies were executed too. As old as eighty-eight. As young as three weeks.” Later, Aphrodite goes on to reference “the stories of women raped, children crucified, nailed to doors, of old men executed. . .”
  • The story frequently finds itself in the midst of trench combat. There are descriptions of the training process, of learning how to kill another man with minimal remorse, and of soldiers often encountering death and the bodies of those lost in battle. The men learn about the effects of gas attacks and how “those poor buggers in the first gas attacks drowned in their own blood.” At one point the trenches are described as “slick with blood.”
  • James imagines his own brother ending up the way his fellow soldiers have. “He saw Bobby’s burnt and blood-soaked body lying in the mud at the bottom of a trench.”
  • The soldiers travel “past live horses and dead horses and trucks and motorcycles.”
  • Multiple racially motivated murders take place in the camps. Two men are “strangled” and the discovery of one body is described over 6 pages. Aubrey and Lieutenant Europe come to the realization that “that was blood on the snow. His head. His face. His bloated, blackened face.” They assume the killers “beat his face in with their rifles.” They note, “You almost wouldn’t know it’s him” and they “gently [close] his gaping lower lip to hide the horribly broken jaw.”
  • Aubrey is held at gunpoint by a racist soldier who says, “We ain’t gonna let you Negroes get a taste for white women.” Aubrey took the man’s gun and “pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver against his victim’s temple.” Then, Aubrey warns his attacker not to mess with the Black soldiers again.
  • The narrator cynically describes how little detail is provided in the notifications of soldiers’ deaths, explaining, “They never said, ‘hung for hours on a barbed wire fence with his bowels hanging out, pleading for rescue, but nobody dared go for fear of hostile fire.’”
  • James partakes in trench warfare. He is a sniper and frequently must shoot German soldiers. After he shoots a man, “a red throat pours blood down a gray uniform.” James actively tries to not think about what he is doing in order to protect his friends.
  • A flamethrower is used in combat. The soldiers try to distinguish the fire, and the narrator notes that “the smell of flesh on fire reminds James of food, of cooking meat.” Ares goes on to narrate that “Chad Browning has stopped his screaming. His clothing is half melted away, half fused to his skin.”
  • Hazel is sexually assaulted by a prisoner of war. The attack is thwarted quickly but not before, “He licked her lips and teeth with his foul tongue, then forced it inside her mouth.”
  • Multiple explosions occur throughout the text. For example, after one explosion “the smoke lifted, and James scrubbed the grit from his eyes, Frank Mason wasn’t there anymore. Just a fire, a helmet, a torn pair of boots, and a little charred prayer book.” It is later implied that there would not be a body to bury.
  • Later, another explosion occurs. “The engine and the first two cars were annihilated. The cars beyond buckled and crashed into one another. Soldiers and war workers were thrown all about the cars. Shards of glass from shattered windows flew like shrapnel. Colette emerged unscathed, for Hazel had thrown her body over her friend’s.” James must treat Hazel’s injuries. Hades goes through the necessary course of action to “apply pressure to the bleeding and summon a medic. Clear airflow, release tight clothing.”
  • Hazel receives a blood transfusion. She notes the “tubes of red blood dangled from jars mounted to a metal frame and ran, Hazel realized, into a needle injected into her arm.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A character jokes about how the soldiers of the 369th “were knocked on their backs by the routine daily allotment of wine for French soldiers.”
  • While under treatment for shell shock, James is given sedatives.

Language

  • The narrator quotes real news articles about the 369th infantry; these include racist comments and one censored use of the n-word.
  • Offensive terms for opposing soldiers are often used. These include “Jerry,” “Russkies,” “Fritz,” and “Boche.” They refer at one point to Kaiser Wilhelm as “Wee Willie Winkie.”
  • Audrey calls the racist behavior of another soldier “shit” twice.
  • A trainer tells soldiers that in the event of a gas attack, “‘If you’ve lost your mask, you still stay calm. If all else fails, piss on a hankie and breathe through that.’” He warns that they will “break out in damnable sores everywhere” and that they “hurt like hell.”
  • Joey calls Aubrey a “jackass.”
  • Men are called “bastards” twice.
  • Aubrey calls his own behavior “damnably stupid.”
  • There is one use of the oath “Chrisssake.”
  • Emile regrets not being injured sooner, saying, “But non, you stayed away, leaving me healthy and sound, so the Germans could piss on me with their shells and bullets year after year…”
  • Aphrodite calls her husband a “blooming ass.”

Supernatural

  • Spirits occasionally observe their loved ones from the afterlife. At one point, James feels Frank’s presence and begins speaking to him. James wonders if he is going mad.

Spiritual Content

  • The story is told from the rotating perspectives of four Greek gods. Their influence and powers are often employed as catalysts for plot developments.
  • Hades comes dressed as a Catholic priest, as that is how he presents himself to humans.
  • Many of the human characters are Christian and are described praying, visiting churches, and lighting votive candles. They also reference Christian stories and practices.
  • After losing everyone she loves to the war, Colette struggles with her faith. She believes herself to be a “plaything to a vindictive god.” She calls god “it” and explains that “a loving god would never allow this. And if there was no god at all, surely chance would occasionally favor me, non?”
  • After standing up to an authority figure, the narrator says that Hazel “wasn’t a Catholic, but at the rate she was going, she probably needed a priest to take her confession. Before she was struck by lightning and cast down to hell.”

by Jennaly Nolan

 

14+    480   4.7   4 worms   AR   hs  (World War I)

Diverse Characters, Strong Female Character

 

 

 

 

 

The Hunters

Hal and his fellow Herons have tracked Zavac across the ocean, intent on retrieving the stolen Andomal, Skandia’s most prized treasure. Even though a fierce battle left Zavac and his fellow pirates counting their dead, the rogue captain managed to escape right through the Skandians’ fingers. If they hope to bring Zavac to justice and reclaim the Andomal, the Herons must take to the sea. But the challenge ahead is a dangerous one that could very well take out Hal’s entire crew.

In the first installment of the Brotherband Series, it was difficult to keep track of all of the characters. However, the main characters are now well-rounded individuals and their unique traits are beginning to shine. Hal has grown into a confident skirl, who knows his crew, which allows him to assign each person a job that is best suited to his/her talent. Even though Lydia is a girl, during battles she contributes because her skills are extremely useful. Readers will enjoy the interplay between the Herons and laugh at some of their mischievous ways.

While the second installment of the series, The Invaders, was slow and uneventful until the end, The Hunters has the perfect blend of suspense, character development, and battles. The Herons work as a team and show the importance of hard work, friendship, and loyalty. One of the best aspects of the series is that everyone has a valuable skill and that skill does not have to revolve around fighting. For example, Edvin cooks, knits, and steers the Heron. Even though the crew teases Edvin about his knitting, in the end, even Edvin’s knitting is used to benefit the entire crew.

The Brotherband Series brings to life the sea-faring warriors of Skandia, while teaching important lessons about working as a team and valuing others. The Hunters quickly captures the readers’ attention and keeps readers hooked by introducing interesting characters and conflicts. Even though all of Flanagan’s books end in an epic battle, each battle is realistic, unique, suspenseful, and told without gory details. The book’s conclusion is both heartwarming and humorous. After finishing The Hunters, readers will be eager to pick up the next book in the series, The Slaves of Socorro.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Thorn and Lydia go after Rikard, who hears them and jumps to his feet. Lydia reacts and “her arm whipped forward and the long dart hissed away through the morning air. It flashed at knee level between Rikard’s legs, tangling between them.” Rikard falls “flat on his face.” Torn “hauled the pirate to his feet, then hit him with a thundering left, sending him crashing back to the ground once more.”
  • A pirate overhears a man talking about his pirate ship. The pirate walks into the man. “Nobody noticed the thick stiletto that he slid into the old man’s side. Pegleg’s gasp of pain was lost in the tavern’s bubble of shouting, drunken voices.”
  • When a pirate sees Rikard walking down a dark alley, he “stepped forward and rammed his knife up and under the other man’s ribs, shoving and twisting until it reached, and stopped, his heart. Rikard shuttered briefly. . . his hands went to the blood welling from the terrible wound.”
  • A sentry detains the Heron. Upset, Thorn “stepped toward the guard. His left hand flashed out to grip the spear at its midpoint, thumb down. Then he twisted his hand and the spear upward in a half circle and jerked backward, all in one rapid motion. . . Thorn had leveled the razor-sharp point at the captain’s throat.” The Herons are eventually allowed to pass.
  • Doutro has the Herons’ crew arrested. In order to get Hal to reveal where the crews’ valuables are hidden, Doutro has Hal beaten. “Hal tried to duck the first blow, but the man behind him held him still. The big fist exploded off his cheekbone. He grunted in pain.” Hal is beaten until he is unconscious. The description of the beating is described over several paragraphs.
  • Doutro has Lydia taken to his house because he is thinking about selling her as a slave. As Lydia tries to escape, a young man tries to stop her. She knocks him off balance and then “hit him on the side of the jaw with the heel of her open hand, fingers spread to increase its rigidity.” The man blacks out.
  • The Herons are put in a prison cell with another man. When the Herons escape, Stig hit the other man “with a blinding right cross that sent him sprawling. Luckily, there was a pile of dirty straw to break his fall. He lay spread-eagle on it, out cold.”
  • As the Herons leave the prison, the guards “went through the guardroom like a hurricane. . . In seconds, they were sprawled unconscious on the floor.
  • Pirates attack a merchant ship. The Herons jump in to help the merchants. Lydia uses her atlatl and “one of the longboat’s crew rises to his feet in agony as the dart transfixed him. Then the pirate crashed over, falling on the rower in front of him. . .” Hal uses a huge crossbow to shoot at the pirates. “The helmsman collapsed over the steering oar and the longboat swung wildly.”
  • After several pirates have been injured or killed, some of the Herons board the longboat. “Thorn and Stig moved forward like a two-man battering ram. The huge club and Stig’s whirling ax swept away anyone who tried to oppose them. . .” In the end, many of the pirates jump into the river to avoid being killed. The battle is described over 8 pages.
  • A group of pirates attack the Herons in an ally. Stig attacks a pirate and “the two blades rang together and shrieked against each other as Stig’s axe slid down the sword’s crosspiece. . .[Stig] grabbed the swordsman’s right hand with his left, twisting it down and around, bending the wrist back. The man howled in pain and inadvertently leaned forward to try to lessen the twisting pressure. . . Stig head-butted him in the face and jerked his wrist one more time.”
  • Seven pirates try to stop Stig’s movement. “The first man to move had taken two paces when Stig’s sword darted out and back. The thug clutched at his chest, a surprised look on his face, he crumbled to his knees.” The pirate dies.
  • Thorn arrives and sees the Herons are in danger. “Thorn kept coming, his massive club-hand rising and falling, then sweeping from side to side, smashing ribs and skulls and arms as he scattered the gang, spilling them like ninepins before him. . . The shaggy old sea wolf, transformed into a terrible and terrifying instrument of violence, simply lunged the club-hand in a straight-armed punch at the terrified thug. It hit him in the chest and hurled him backward. . . the man flew between them [Hal and Lydia], smashing into the brick wall with a sickening sound, then sliding to the ground as his knees gave way.” The fight scene is described over three pages.
  • The book ends with an epic ship-to-ship battle between the Herons and Zavac’s pirates. Hal shoots a giant crossbow and “the bolt streaked away and plowed through the packed men in the bow of the ship. . . He figured that first bolt had killed or wounded at least four men. . .” As Hal shoots the crossbow, Lydia uses her weapon to shoot darts at the men. One of Lydia’s darts hits Zavac’s first mate who “staggered and fell.”
  • Some of Zavac’s men were able to board the Heron by making a bridge of oars. In man-to-man combat, Hal uses a spear and “thrust quickly, hitting him [the pirate] in the thigh. The Magyaran dropped his spear, reached to clutch the wound in his leg and toppled off the oars into the sea.”
  • Hal’s crewman, Ingavr “swung the oar at full length, smashing it into them, sweeping them from their unsteady foothold. One fell back aboard the Raven, three of his ribs fractured by the oar. The others went into the sea.”
  • Hal rams the Raven with his boat. “Heron’s sharp prow sliced like a giant blade along the starboard bank of oars, smashing and splintering them as she went, hurling the oarsmen off their benches as the butt ends of the oars jerked forward and smashed into them. The air was filled with the shouts of injured men and the grinding, smashing sound of the oars as they flew into splinters.” Two men are injured and two men are knocked unconscious.
  • The Herons board the pirate ship and begin swinging their axes. A pirate stabs Wulf with a sword and “blood welled out.” Thorn helps the two boys. “Thorn swung a backhanded stroke across his head, shearing through the helmet.”
  • Zavac tries to kill Hal. Zavac “suddenly thrust down with a convulsive heave, putting all his weight behind the knife. Hal just managed to twist his body to the side. The dagger scored a shallow cut across his neck and he felt the hot blood flow from the cut.”
  • Thorn appears and puts a hook on Zavac’s arm. “Zavac screamed in agony as the two-piece clasping hook clamped down on his forearm like a vice. Hal actually heard several small bones cracking as Thorn increased the pressure. . .” Zavac is left to go down with his ship. This final battle is described over 26 pages.
  • Tursgud, the Heron’s nemesis, acted belligerently and Ingvar’s massive hand, balled into a fist, flashed up in a thundering, devastating uppercut. It caught Tursgud on the point of his jaw, picking him up and hurling him backwards for several meters. He slid across a table, collapsing it, then crashed into the ground. . .”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Thorn goes into a tavern to see if he can get some information on a pirate ship. The patrons were drinking ale.
  • A pirate goes into a tavern and “he signaled the tavern keeper for another jug of brandy.”
  • While trying to sleep on the Heron, Hal hears “drunken voices of sailors heading back to their ships after an evening in the taverns close to the waterfront.”
  • When the Herons return home, the town throws a party. “There were platters of roast vegetables and barrels of ale and wine for those who wished it.” Several of the adults drink the wine.

Language

  • The Skandians often use their gods’ names in exclamation. For example, “For Gorlog’s sake” is used as an exclamation three times. “Lorgan’s ears” and, “Oh Gorlog help us,” are both used as an exclamation once.
  • One of the Herons’ crew calls someone a “treacherous cow.”
  • Several times someone is called a fool.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Zavac “wore on the gods of several different religions, none of which counted him as a devoted follower. . .”

Peter and the Starcatchers

Peter thinks life cannot get any worse after he and some other boys from the orphanage are dumped on a ship. They’re told that they are bound to become servants to a cruel king. But then strange things start happening on the ship: flying rats, talking porpoises, and a mysterious girl named Molly. The strange occurrences all center around one heavily guarded trunk. But when Peter tries to investigate, Molly gets in his way.

Molly’s father is a starcatcher, with a very important mission. He’s supposed to be transporting precious cargo on another ship. When Molly discovers the two trunk got switched and the precious cargo is on her ship, she knows she must guard it from an overly curious orphan boy. However, when the porpoises tell her a pirate is coming for the treasure, Molly may just have to trust Peter in order to stop the powerful treasure from falling into the wrong hands.

The first half of Peter and the Starcatchers bounces between Peter’s, the pirate Black Stache’s, and Molly’s father’s perspective, creating a fast-paced narrative as the three ships maneuver to steal or protect the treasure. The second half of the book takes place on a remote island, after Peter’s ship crashes onto an island reef. Again, the perspective changes frequently from a wide host of characters, but rather than being confusing, the changing perspectives create excitement and allow readers to see what is happening all over the island. Each character is developed enough to have a unique voice, and readers will enjoy watching as each person fights for a different goal.

The story has plenty of action and suspense, which may frighten more timid readers. Anyone who enjoys a swashbuckling adventure will be delighted by the frequent twists and turns as the different parties clash in their struggle for the treasure. By the end of the story, the island becomes quite crowded with people vying for the treasure, including: Peter and the other orphan boys, Molly, Black Stache and his pirates, the island natives, a group of newly-created mermaids, and Molly’s father with his team of Starcatchers. Each group is well-developed and richly described. Readers will love seeing the story from each group’s perspective—even the groups they are rooting against!

While the large cast of characters doesn’t allow for every individual to be deeply developed—for example, most of Black Stache’s crew are stereotypical pirates—every character is colorful and the more prominent characters are well-developed. Peter and Molly are both very likable and are realistically portrayed. For example, they act bravely but admit to being afraid. They also admit when they make mistakes and learn the importance of working together.

While Peter and the Starcatchers shows the importance of working together, its biggest successes are its wonderful cast of colorful characters and a nonstop, zig-zag plot that is packed full of adventure. This is not a traditional Peter Pan stories, but a delightfully creative take on the original tale. Readers will enjoy when aspects of the original story (mermaids, a crocodile, and a one-handed pirate) are revealed. While there are sequels, all of the main story lines are neatly tied up in this book, allowing readers to decide if they want to be satisfied with this adventure or reach for another.

 Sexual Content

  • Peter overhears Molly’s governess and Mr. Slank in a cabin. Molly’s governess says, “Oh, Mr. Slank! . . . You are a devil!” To which Slank replies, “’That I am . . . And you know what they say! . . . the devil take the hindmost!’ Then Peter hears Mrs. Bumbrake emit a very un-governess-like squeal, followed by what sounded like a slap, followed by some thumping, then more squealing, then more thumping and then much laughing.”
  • The pirate Black Stache has a secret weapon called “The Ladies.” Instead of normal sails on his pirate ship, “the sky above the pirate ship was filled with an enormous black brassiere—an undergarment of fantastic size, as if made for a giant woman. The twin mountains of fabric, funnel-shaped, pointed and bulged ahead of the breeze.”
  • Peter meets a mermaid. “She did not appear to be wearing any clothes, her only covering coming from her lush cascade of hair. Ordinarily this second thing would have gotten Peter’s full attention, but he was much distracted by the third thing, which was blood seeping from a deep gash in her forehead.”
  • A mermaid saves Peter from drowning. “Her mouth was touching his mouth, and—the strangest thing—her breath was becoming Peter’s breath.”

Violence

  • Grempkin, a man from the orphanage, likes cuffing boys on the ear when they annoy him. “ ‘OW!’ said Thomas, upon being cuffed a second time by Grempkin.”
  • Slank, the man in charge of Peter’s ship, also likes cuffing boys’ ears. “
  • When a man tries to abandon ship, a guard stops him with a whip. The man “had taken perhaps three long strides when the whip cracked . . . and wrapped itself around this man’s ankle like a snake. The sailor crashed to the deck . . . [Slank] drew back his leg and kicked the would-be escapee hard in the ribs.”
  • Molly tells Peter about His Royal Highness, King Zarboff the Third, and how, “if you don’t salute with these three fingers when you say his name, and he finds out, he has these very fingers cut off.”
  • When pirates board Molly’s father’s ship, the captain’s “men fought courageously, but the pirates outnumbered them two to one. He could not stomach watching his men be slaughtered in a hopeless cause.” The captain surrenders.
  • Molly and Peter try to throw the trunk with the treasure overboard. “Molly screamed as Slank, grabbing her by her hair, yanked her away from the trunk. Peter lunged forward, grabbed Slank’s arm, and sank his teeth into it, tasting blood. Now it was Slank’s turn to scream.”
  • Pirates board Peter’s ship, and Molly defends the trunk. “She lunged toward Stache, her green eyes blazing with fury. Before Stache could react, she had knocked him away from the trunk, her hands clawing at his face . . . his screams mingling with the roars of the giant, who had lunged forward to grab the escaping girl, only to be attached by the pirates who’d been watching him.”
  • Peter’s ship sinks in a storm. “The Never Land broke apart, whole sections of the deck tearing loose, the masts splintering like twigs. A crewman was pitched, screaming, into the sea; he was followed by another, and then another.” The boys manage to climb into a dory and survive.
  • Slank and his giant crewman, Little Richard, try to steal the trunk from mermaids. “The instant he moved, another she-fish . . . hissed and darted forward, snakelike, opening her own hideous mouth and clamping her needle-sharp teeth down on his right forearm. Slank whirled to shoot it, but Little Richard, bellowing in pain, moved faster; he brought his massive left fist down on the she-fish’s head. She emitted a blood-chilling screech and fell away into the dark water.” The struggle is described over two pages.
  • The mermaids attack again. “The water boiled ominously around them. Little Richard screamed as he was bitten on his right leg, then his left.” Little Richard survives.
  • Slank crashes the dory into a mermaid. “The bow lifted slightly, avoiding a direct collision with the trunk, but striking the defiant mermaid. Slank felt the thud in his feet. That’s one less to worry about.” The mermaid is knocked unconscious.
  • Slank holds a mermaid captive, “holding the knife at her neck.” The other mermaids try to rescue her. “From time to time the knife cut, or the whip connected, each time drawing a scream. The water around the longboat grew cloudy with blood. But the mermaids kept coming, coming, frothing the water around the unsteady longboat.” The fight is described over two pages.
  • Peter is knocked unconscious. “The clublike wooden handle of Little Richard’s whip, two feet of two-inch-diameter oak, slammed into Peter’s skull from behind. Peter instantly crumpled to the shallow water, unable to break his fall, and lay face down, motionless.”
  • Peter and Molly attack Slank with coconuts. “Blood streaming down his face, Slank lunged to his feet, flailing his arms as he staggered toward the lagoon, the children still clinging to his back and bashing him with coconuts.”
  • Slank threatens Molly with a knife, “leaving a thin line of blood on Molly’s neck.”
  • Molly fights to escape. “Slank grunted in pain as Molly drove her left heel into his nose, blood spurting instantly, the shock weakening his grip just enough for Molly to yank her right foot free of his grasp.”
  • When Peter jumps out of the way of Black Stache’s sword, Black Stache accidentally kills Fighting Prawn, the leader of the island natives. “In fact, [Peter] flew straight up, but so quickly did he launch himself that Stache never really saw it, and thus had no chance to stop the thrust of his sword, which continued right through, plunging deep into the chest of Fighting Prawn.”
  • Peter duels with Black Stache. “Peter twisted his body and shot to his right, and as he did he switched his knife to his left hand and slashed downward with it, and it happened too fast for him to see, but he could feel it as he flashed past, feel the knife finding a target, and then, as he shot upward, he heard the scream, and turned to look down upon the vision of Black Stache, holding his sword in his right hand, and looking in horror at the bleeding stump where the left had been.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Alf, a sailor, often desires grog (rum mixed with water, a popular sailor drink). “Are we done, then? . . . Because I could use some grog.”
  • The captain of the Never Land is known to have “never bothered to learn even the basics of seamanship, choosing instead to occupy his time consuming vast quantities of rum.” He is never shown drinking but he appears several times, stumbling around and giving nonsensical orders to the crew.
  • A sailor claims a spell was cast on him to make him fall asleep. Another sailor scoffs. “Not hardly. Too much rum, that’s your magic spell.”
  • The men on watch “found some rum somewhere” and are “flat on their backs, snoring.”
  • Peter plans to put the man on watch to sleep, by spiking his food with rum. “Peter was still not sure exactly what rum was, but he knew two things about it . . . The first was that sailors loved to drink it, and gulped it down whenever they had any. The second was that it made them sleep.” He knows the cook has a barrel of rum because “the cook spent far more time drinking rum than cooking.”
  • When pirates board, Slank tells them, “We have a few women . . . And plenty of rum. But if you think there’s treasure on this old scow, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”

Language

  • A man tells Peter that his ship will be traveling for five weeks, “If a storm doesn’t blow you halfway to hell.”
  • Slank asks, “What the dickens are you doing?”
  • The pirates often call each other names, such as “bag of lice.”
  • Idjit is used several times. Captain Stache shouts, “I DON’T WANT YOUR BLEEDIN’ HAND, YOU IDJIT! . . . I WANT THE BLEEDIN’ SPYGLASS.”
  • Moron is used once. A pirate says, “You rock-headed, lobster-brained MORON!”
  • Peter calls Molly a rat, after she threatens to tattle on him.
  • Molly’s father thinks “damn” when he hears pirates are coming, and thinks “damn” again when someone nearly catches him.
  • Devil is used a few times. To distract a giant crocodile, Alf shouts, “COME ON, YOU DEVIL!” Slank later calls the mermaids “she-devils.”

Supernatural

  • A magic trunk does strange things to people who touch it. When Alf touches it, “Alf could see light now, swirling around his head, colors and sparkles, moving to music, dancing to the sound of . . . bells, yes, it was bells, tiny ones, by the sound of them.”
  • Peter sees “a rat floating in midair. Peter blinked his eyes, but there was no question: the rat was suspended in space, as if hanging from a string, but there was no string. As Peter and the guard stared at the rat, it waved its legs slowly, almost languidly, as if swimming, and began to drift toward the doorway.”
  • Starcatchers are “a small group of people . . . There have been Starcatchers on Earth for centuries, Peter. Even we don’t know how long. But our task is always the same: to watch for the starstuff, and to get to it, and return it, before it falls into the hands of the Others.” The Others misuse starstuff to gain power.
  • Starstuff is golden dust that sometimes falls from the sky as meteors and “has amazing power . . . Wonderful power. Terrible power. It . . . it lets you do things . . . It’s not the same for everybody. And it’s not the same for animals as for people.” Starstuff can heal, can make people fly, can make people strong. Molly explains that larger quantities are more dangerous and can kill a person, or turn a fish into a mermaid, horses into centaurs, and other transformations.
  • Starcatchers have learned the language of porpoises, which are extremely intelligent creatures. They work together often to find any starstuff that falls in the ocean. Molly speaks with a porpoise several times, in their language of clicks and squeaks.
  • Some fish are turned into mermaids by starstuff. “They were changing. And fast. They still had their tails, though these had grown longer and more graceful. In their midsections, their bodies narrowed and their skin changed abruptly, from rough green scales to a white, fleshy smoothness. . . a distinct head appeared, separating from the trunk by a slender neck. . . The mouth became smaller, and a bulge of flesh started to protrude above it; ears were sprouting on each side of the head.”
  • Molly’s father turns a bird into a fairy, to watch over Peter. “The fairy, in a shimmer of gold, sprang from Leonard’s hand and darted to Peter, flitting around his head, filling his ears with her magical bell sounds.”

Spiritual Content

  • Molly tells Peter that there seems to be a larger battle going on in the universe over the possession of starstuff. “‘Just as we have the Others and the Starcatchers here on Earth, there seems to be something similar going on up there.’ [Molly] pointed toward the sky.”

by Morgan Lynn

 

The Strangers

What makes you you? The Greystone kids thought they knew. Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best—acting silly and being adored. They’ve been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom.

But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children reach the Greystone kids, and they’re shocked by the startling similarities between themselves and these complete strangers. The other kids share their same first and middle names. They’re the same ages. They even have identical birthdays. Who, exactly, are these strangers?

Before Chess, Emma, and Finn can question their mom about it, she takes off on a sudden work trip and leaves them in the care of Mrs. Morales and her daughter, Natalie. But puzzling clues left behind lead to complex codes, hidden rooms, and a dangerous secret that will turn their world upside down.

The Greystone kids discover a portal to a parallel universe that is frighteningly different from their own world. While The Strangers has an interesting premise, the story leaves readers with too many questions as well as some frustrating, unrealistic details. For example, several times the kids travel to the parallel world while Mrs. Morales waits in the car. And when Mrs. Morales unknowingly goes to the parallel universe, she doesn’t realize that she is in a different world. Instead of fully developing the parallel universe, the characters spend little time there. Most of the action comes from figuring out what happened to their mother and how they can decode their mother’s message.

Each chapter of the story switches between Chess’s, Emma’s, and Fin’s points of view. Each character’s picture appears at the beginning of the chapter, which helps the reader keep track of the changing point of view. Each character brings an interesting perspective to the story and allows readers to see how the events affect each person differently. In addition, key ideas and events are often repeated in order to help readers keep track of all of the important developments.

The Strangers will appeal to both mystery and fantasy fans. However, the complicated plot, difficult vocabulary, and switching points of view make The Strangers appropriate for strong readers. Full of interesting plot twists, The Strangers ends with a cliffhanger that will leave readers wondering what happens next. The Greystone kids’ story continues in the second book in the series, The Deceivers.

Sexual Content

  • Natalie’s mother is a private detective who “spies on men who are—let’s just say they’re not very good husbands. Mom gives the wives proof, so they have the upper hand in the divorce.”

Violence

  • The Greystone kids find out that their father was “killed.” When they find out, Chess says, “Dad’s car wreck wasn’t an accident? And Mom never told me?”
  • The Greystone kids’ mother was put on trial in front of the entire town. “The guards began marching away, shoving a few more people for no reason, as if the guards were just overgrown playground bullies.” The kids run from the guards and are never caught.
  • When Joe introduces himself to the kids, “rage swelled within him [Chess] now. He slammed the palms of his hands as hard as he could against Joe’s chest.”
  • In order to escape the guards, the kids begin throwing smoke bombs. No one is injured.
  • As the kids run from the guards, they enter an abandoned house. “Then a horrid thud sounded behind them. Daylight streamed in through a crack in the wall that hadn’t been there a moment before. Chess looked back and saw the blade of an ax coming through the drywall.” The kids are able to escape.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When the kids go to a parallel universe, the air smells strange. They discover that the air makes people feel a particular feeling.

Language

  • Natalie tells her mom, “Not everyone goes around telling anyone who will listen what a scumbag their husband used to be.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation

Decades ago, Albert Einstein devised an equation that could benefit all life on earth—or destroy it. Fearing what would happen if the equation fell into the wrong hands, he hid it away.

But now, a diabolical group known as the Furies are closing in on its location. In desperation, a team of CIA agents drags Charlie into the hunt, needing her brilliance to find it first—even though this means placing her life in grave danger.

In this adventure that spans the globe, Charlie must crack a complex code created by Einstein himself, survive in a world where no one can be trusted, and fight to keep the last equation safe once and for all.

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation starts with an epic chase scene and continues the fast-paced adventure until the very end. The story is told from Charlie’s point of view, which makes her relatable despite the fact that she is a genius. Even though she is intelligent, Charlie doesn’t always know what to do. But when it comes to difficult situations, Charlie can visualize numbers in her head, which allows her to solve complicated problems. This talent comes in handy when she uses a cipher to reveal Einstein’s message.

Charlie wants to keep Einstein’s equation out of the hands of terrorists and hostile governments, but she’s not sure the U.S. government can be trusted. Charlie is cynical when it comes to the U.S. government. She says, “America’s priorities are pretty darn clear: The first thing we do with any major discovery is try to kill people with it.”

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation deals with some mature topics including religious extremism, death, and Charlie’s complicated family life. The intense fight scenes, life-or-death chases, and the death of several characters may upset sensitive readers. In addition, the complicated plot is best suited for strong readers. However, readers who are ready for more mature content will have a hard time putting the book down because of the action and mystery.

Charlie’s journey takes readers on a suspenseful trip that will keep readers guessing until the very end. Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation will entertain mystery fans. At the end of Charlie’s adventure, she realizes that “all the talent in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you squander it.” The conclusion wraps up all of the story threads and also leaves readers wanting to know what will happen next. Readers will be eager to pick up the next book in the series, Charlie Thorne and the Lost City.

Sexual Content

  • Charlie teases her brother Dante, saying, “Jeez, you might know a whole lot about terrorist cells, but you don’t know much about women. That was a full-on ‘I wish Dante would say to heck with the regulations and just kiss me’ look.”
  • Dante tells Charlie to go to bed, but she will have to share the bed with his partner agent Milana. Charlie says, “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be in there with her? You could do a little smooching before bed.”

 Violence

  • At Einstein’s request, his friend Ernst began burning Einstein’s papers. Ernst “continued feverishly stroking the flames, even as he heard the men break down the front door and shove Helen aside, even as they burst into the room and pulled their guns and screamed at him to stop, right up until their leaders clubbed him from behind, crumpling him to the floor.”
  • Charlie wants to steal the pool guy’s truck. When he refuses to give her the key, Charlie “lashed out a leg and swept the pool guy’s legs out from under him. . . He slipped and landed flat on his back.” Charlie shoves the guy into the hot tub and then takes off.
  • The KGB captures an American spy, who “cowardly offered secrets in return for his life. The old man and his fellow agents listened as the American spilled his guts—and then they killed him anyhow.”
  • The narration states, “The world’s most infamous serial killers had all been unimpressive losers who had been unsuccessful at just about everything except murdering helpless people.”
  • A terrorist steals one of Einstein’s books. When “the young archivist instinctively moved to protect it. . . he [Marko] punched the archivist in the face, then drilled a fist into his stomach as he reeled backwards. The archivist went down, whacking his head on a table. . .”
  • Charlie tries to get Einstein’s book back. She grabs a skateboard and jumped on a railing. “Then she rode down quickly grinding along the rail, bearing down on Marko . . Charlie bounced off the railing, hitting Marko with the full force of her body. The two of them tumbled across the asphalt.”
  • When Marko recovers, he “lowered his shoulder and rammed into her [Charlie]. . .He knocked the wind out of her while sending her falling backward into the trunk of a parked car. The trunk caught her. . . sending a lightning bolt of pain up her spine.”
  • Marko tries to escape Charlie but she uses the skateboard to trip him. “He flew forward, the rage on his face now giving way to surprise. . . Marko plowed headfirst into a lamppost, hitting so hard that the sound rang across the parking lot. . .She grabbed a handful of his hair, and with a surge of adrenaline and rage she’d never known she had, she slammed his head back into the lamppost again.” One of Marko’s companions kills him and then tries to kill Charlie. The chase scene is described over six pages.
  • In order to escape Dante, Charlie “drove her knee into her brother’s crotch.” Dante runs after her. “Charlie was thrown several feet by their combined momentum and crashed into a kiosk selling fresh fruit.” Dante wrestles her to the ground and drags her to a safe house.
  • When entering the safe house, the terrorist attacks Dante and Charlie. Dante is “beaten down and a gun was pressed against her [Milana’s] head.” One of the terrorists “kicked Dante in the stomach so hard it made Dante curl into a ball.” In order to escape the terrorist, Charlie“grabbed the mug and smashed it on Alexei’s temple, sending him reeling. Then she threw it at Vladimir, hitting him in the face.” As Charlie and Milana run, Charlie can hear the sound of fighting and guns being fired.
  • As Charlie and Milana try to escape, Dante “fired down, directly through the floor. There was a scream of pain from below, and then Dante dove away as more bullets tore upward through the floor. . .” The fight with the terrorists is described over 20 pages.
  • The terrorists kill a CIA agent. A terrorist says, “The brown man? He’s dead. We tossed him in the bathroom.”
  • When Charlie and Milana run from the terrorists, Charlie runs into a fruit stand. “The owner grabbed her arm roughly and raised a hand to strike her . . .” Milana stops the man and “wrenched the man’s arm so hard that he howled in pain, releasing Charlie.”
  • When the terrorists catch up to Charlie and Milana, Charlie threw chili powder into a man’s eyes. “Oleg roared in pain and stumbled forward blindly. Milana spun around and drove a knee into his crotch, folding the man like a hinge.” Charlie throws boiling water in a terrorist’s face. The scene is described over two pages. Both Charlie and Milana escape.
  • The CIA looks at the security video from the safe house. An “unknown figure . . . shot both of the agents before they could even react.”
  • While leaving a church, “three of the pilgrims pounced on her [Milana], knocking her to the ground. . .” Charlie was hit and “her legs were swept out from under her, her face was slammed into the cobblestones, and a gun was pressed against the back of her head.” Then the Mossad arrested them.
  • In order to free Milana and Charlie from the Mossad, Dante shoots one man “in the shoulder, spinning him and dropping him to the ground.” The Mossad lets the two go free, but then there is a high-speed chase.
  • In a multi-chapter conclusion, Alexei, a rogue CIA agent, the Mossad, and Charlie’s group race to get Einstein’s work. The rouge agent shoots and kills a man sitting in a car. Agents shoot at each other and someone points a gun at Charlie’s head.
  • Milana tries to catch Charlie, but “bullets stitched the earth around her, and she felt a sting as one caught her thigh. . . The bullet had only nicked her, although it still hurt like heck.”
  • The rogue CIA agent, John, catches up to Charlie. Charlie punches John. “The punch caught him off guard, but he rolled with it and then came in low. He drove his fist into Charlie’s solar plexus, then caught her with another blow that floored her.” A bullet hits a propane tank and there is a strong explosion. “The explosion roared over her [Charlie] and blasted John off his feet, slamming him into a tree with such force that his bones snapped. . . His spine had been broken when he had been thrown into the tree. . . John felt a sudden rush of heat and smelled something burning close by. . . Within seconds, the flames leapt up all around him. John screamed, but no one heard him.”
  • While trying to flee Jerusalem, Milana and Dante have to get by the security guards. “The CIA agents caught the poor security agents by surprise, rendering them unconscious within seconds.” Then the terrorists show up and open fire. “The CIA agents emptied their guns. One after the other the Furies screamed in pain and dropped. Alexei was the last to go.” When one of the Furies shoots toward a fuel tanker and “emptied his clip. . . The tanker exploded. A ball of fire raced toward the plane. . .” Charlie, Milana, and Dante escape. Three people die. The scene is described over seven pages.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Albert Einstein was gravely ill, his doctor gave him morphine.
  • Alexei goes into a bar and talks to a man who has been drinking. “At first Alexei thought the [man’s] story might be the ravings of an alcoholic.”
  • Einstein’s friend believed he had failed Einstein. A few months after Einstein’s death, his friend died in an alcohol-related death.
  • Several men who are part of a group of terrorists have been in jail for drunk driving. One of the men spent time in jail because of public intoxication.
  • After a fight with a terrorist, Charlie takes ibuprofen for the pain.
  • The terrorist discovers a man works for the CIA and, “The Furies, drunk and vengeful, had shown no mercy. . .the Furies were brutal.” The CIA agent’s body was unrecognizable.

Language

  • The story has a lot of name calling including: creep, idiot, jerk, slimeball, and stupid punk. For example, Charlie calls a pool guy a “sexist jerk.”
  • Crap is used four times. For example, Charlie drove her friend’s “crappy car.”
  • Charlie tells a CIA agent, “I nearly killed myself trying to save your stupid butt. What kind of idiot jumps in front a moving truck?”
  • God is used as an exclamation once.
  • Damn is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Alexei is planning on bombing a large city “teeming with people of inferior races. . . He would destroy them all. The day was close. Alexei knew it. God had willed it.”
  • Alexei believes that immigrants are “rats” and his job is to wipe them out. “God had chosen him to do it.”
  • While trying to escape the terrorists, Charlie was “praying her math was right.”
  • Charlie “wasn’t religious . . . And now, here she was sitting inside one of the most important churches on earth. It occurred to her that maybe she should take that as a sign and pray for Dante.”
  • Einstein “didn’t believe God played dice with the universe.”
  • Charlie thinks about God and Einstein. “Einstein had been a religious man, but he had claimed the God he favored was that of Baruch Spinoza, who had declared, ‘God is in the details, the beauty, the math of the world.’”
  • While looking for Charlie, Alexei, “Prayed to God that he would get to Charlie Thorne before the Mossad.” When Alexei finds Charlie, he thinks, “God smiled on him again.”

 

We Unleash the Merciless Storm

We Unleash the Merciless Storm is the second book to take place in Medio, a world ruled by a wealthy inner city and divided by walls. In Medio, wealthy men take two wives—a Primera and a Segunda—who have trained their entire lives to fill these positions. Meanwhile, rebellion brews in the outer lands, and the rebel faction, La Voz, plans to strike on the capital. In We Set the Dark on Fire, Dani Vargas becomes a Primera to the powerful and dangerous Mateo. Dani becomes involved in a world of espionage and subterfuge while falling in love with Mateo’s Segunda, Carmen. We Unleash the Merciless Storm picks up right where We Set the Dark on Fire left off, following the aftermath of the car explosion that ended the first book.

Half of the story is told from Carmen’s perspective. When she returns to the headquarters of La Voz, Carmen discovers that the organization’s leadership is on thin ice, with distrust and skepticism everywhere. After having her loyalties questioned in light of her relationship with Dani, Carmen leaves the La Voz camp and steals back into Medio’s central city to find Dani. After a perilous journey, Carmen and Dani are reunited and must go on the run to escape the government’s police. What follows is a climactic battle as Dani and Carmen fight to stay together while turbulent change spreads across Medio.

Readers who enjoyed We Set the Dark on Fire will enjoy this second installment, which concludes the story of Dani and Carmen’s relationship. Their passionate love is the heart of this story, and readers will be rooting for this couple as they overcome adversity.

The political undertones of this book are similar to those of the first installment, as the characters rail against oppression and a corrupt government. A wall divides Medio, and the rebels must sneak past border patrol agents and hide from the police.

Readers will enjoy seeing Carmen’s past explored in more detail. Carmen, who has been raised by La Voz and taught to put the cause first, often feels conflicted about her loyalty to Dani, which is just as strong as the loyalty she feels to the rebellion. She also feels conflicted about the number of violent acts she has committed as a La Voz agent and wonders what Dani will think of her. The moral conflict over violence forms a large part of the story. La Voz’s leader says, “The goal of true resistance is not violence. It’s not about blood or death. The goal of true resistance is peace. Abundance. Violence is only a means to an end.” Throughout the story, La Voz agents strive to stay true to their morals and find that it is often difficult.

 

We Unleash the Merciless Storm is not quite as intriguing as the first book and includes less of the captivating world-building and detail that marked its predecessor. Still, the plot moves quickly and readers will be eager to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. Part apocalyptic love story and part espionage spy thriller, this sequel will satisfy fans of the first book.

 

Sexual Content

  • Carmen remembers Dani looking at her like she’d “never kissed her dizzy.”
  • Someone calls Carmen a “whore,” and she thinks, “Like being a whore wasn’t condoned by [the government]. Like girls weren’t sold to the highest bidder to warm the beds of the men who would never deserve them.”
  • Carmen and Dani kiss and “Carmen could taste the truth on Dani’s tongue. There was no stopping now; there were only hands and lips and hair and hips and the feeling of drowning and coming up for air all at once.”
  • Dani and Carmen share a bed. “[T]heir noses were brushing each other, and Dani’s hands rose up to bury themselves in Carmen’s hair, and there was no pain in the world, no grief, no sadness, there was only the charged space between their lips, and every day Carmen had wanted this stretching out behind them.”
  • When Carmen and Dani kiss, “their lips met like a lightning strike, thunder reverberating through their bodies as they pressed frantically into each other, hands tugging at clothing and hair, mouths open in agony and relief as the friction built to a fever pitch between them.”
  • Dani and Carmen have sex, but the act is not described in detail. Afterward, “Carmen felt she was being left somehow cleaner than she had been found. Purer. How could something that was said to be so wrong do all of that? How could something the gods supposedly denied feel like a baptism? How could it feel like faith?”

Violence

  • Dani hears gunshots as La Voz has a shootout with “border patrol agents who’d followed them from the wall [and] entered the camp, guns blazing.”
  • Carmen must kill a captured border patrol agent to prove her loyalty to La Voz. She “reached forward without hesitation and opened the officer’s throat. He slumped to the ground, his blood spreading slowly at their feet.”
  • Dani’s weapon of choice is throwing knives that are dipped in various poisons. The poisons have the power to kill a person instantly, send them to sleep or send them into madness.
  • Dani throws a knife at the president, and watches “the president of Medio reach for his throat, his eyes uncomprehending, and pull out the blade.” The wound itself is not fatal, but “the poison was already spreading through his veins.”
  • During the final battle, Dani hits a soldier with a poisoned knife that causes madness, and he “was roaring, his rifle in his hands, spraying bullets in every direction.”
  • A man is shot, and “the bullet ripped through [his] chest, sending him to the ground, blood splattering and pooling and absolutely everywhere.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a dignitary function, Carmen sees the President of Medio “as he took another goblet of wine and downed it in one gulp before grabbing another.”
  • The president is clearly drunk, and later he stands in the entrance to a grove, “his fly comically open, swaying on the spot.” Carmen thinks he is a “drunken, cowardly fool.”

Language

  • Profanity is used very rarely. Profanity includes bitch, damn, and hell.
  • Someone tells Carmen, “Not only are you a traitorous bitch, but you’re a whore, too.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The beginning of the book contains a myth from Medio, which tells the story of the Salt God and the Sun God. The Salt God calls upon a man and a girl, and “the spirits within them came forth, meeting the god’s spirit of pure light as at last his human form was abandoned forever.” At the end, the man and the girl say they will be the voice of the people. This myth is said to be the origin of the rebel organization La Voz. (“La Voz” is Spanish for “the voice.”)
  • Carmen looks at the wall that separates Medio, which some people believe was built by gods. She thinks, “She didn’t believe gods had built the wall. She believed men had made other men do it.”
  • Carmen looks at statues of deities, which include “the goddess of secrets and the god of the harvest” and “the four capricious children of the god of fermentation and fertility, who were said to be present at every feast or festival ever held.”
  • Carmen says, “The gods were only stories told by people in power to make oppression seem glorious, fated. Carving their likenesses is the very thing keeping the people broken and suffering? Cut off from the resources that could save them? It was nothing more than a cruel joke.”
  • Carmen tells Dani, “There isn’t a god or a person living who could keep me from coming back to you.”
  • A miracle is described as “an act of a god, when [the people] had too long believed all their gods had abandoned them.”
  • Carmen prays “to the gods Dani believed in, the ones Carmen never could.”

by Caroline Galdi

Payback

After a serious betrayal from one of their former friends, the clones of Project Osiris are on the run again. Now separated into pairs, Eli and Tori and Amber and Malik are fighting to survive in the real world.

Amber and Malik track down the one person they think can help them prove the existence of Project Osiris, the notorious mob boss Gus Alabaster, also known as Malik’s DNA donor. But as Malik gets pulled into the criminal world—tantalized by hints of a real family—his actions put him and Amber in greater danger.

Eli and Tori get sucked into even bigger conspiracies as they hunt down Project Osiris’s most closely guarded secrets—including the question of who Eli’s DNA comes from? With a surprising new ally and another cross-country adventure, the four will have to work together to overcome the worst parts of themselves if they are going to end Project Osiris once and for all.

Payback, the fast-paced final installment in the Mastermind Series, shows what happened to all the other Osiris clones. The beginning of the book focuses on Malik, Tori, Amber, and Eli. Malik and Amber spend time with the criminal that Malik was cloned from; until Malik finally realizes that he is not the same as the criminal who shares his DNA. On the other hand, Eli makes a surprising discovery about the person he was cloned from.

While Payback has several surprising twists, some of the plot is redundant and the events don’t shed much light on the characters. Despite this, there is enough action and suspense to keep readers interested. However, because of the backstory, readers must read the Mastermind books in order in order to enjoy Payback.

The books’ narrative repeatedly talks about how the characters were excellent at criminal behavior because their DNA came from criminal masterminds. However, the conclusion contradicts these statements by claiming that the characters’ DNA does not determine their behavior. The conclusion also leaves many questions unanswered, which may frustrate readers. Instead of having a solid conclusion, the book ends without tying up all of the plot threads.

One surprising aspect of the Masterminds Series is the unexpected pockets of humor. Even though the characters are often in danger and running from their enemies, readers will find themselves laughing out loud because of the characters’ interactions. While the series has some flaws, the unique premise, the interesting characters, and the plot twists will keep readers turning the pages. Readers looking for another fast-paced adventure should add the Wizard for Hire Series by Obert Skye to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While helping someone load groceries into their car, someone tries to nab Tori. Tori “reaches into the grocery bag, pulls out a glass jar of pickles, and swings it at her attacker, catching him full in the face. He staggers back, dazed, his sunglasses askew.” Tori is able to escape.
  • Amber begins working at a soup kitchen. A police officer comes in looking for a man who is eating there. When the policeman shoves the man, Amber gets angry. “The big tray of mashed potatoes is in my hands before I even realize what I’m doing. I heave it over the plastic sneeze guard, raining the entire load down on the advancing cop.” Then she runs away.
  • Eli thinks he is a clone of the Crossword Killer who killed nine people. “The lives he took were not in pursuit of any goal, regardless of how horrible or lawless. He killed for the sake of killing.”
  • Someone binds Tori to a chair. Eli tries to fight her attackers. “I pick up the nearest object—a floor lamp—and swing it at them. . . The bigger one grabs it and hauls me in like a fish on a line . . . Powerful arms imprison me, and soon I find myself duct-taped too, my arms locked behind my back.”
  • An adult tells Eli and his friends about a younger brother that went to jail for “petty theft. He was killed by another inmate.”
  • While the kids were trying to steal a boat, a fisherman tries to stop them. “. . . A metal toolbox swings up and around, catching him on the side of the head with a sickening thunk. He drops like a stone. . .”
  • Malik tries to get Robbie, another Osiris clone, to go with him. Robbie refuses, and Malik tries to “tackle him and hold him underwater for a few seconds. . . I pull him, choking and gasping, out of the drink.” Robbie freaks out and “he pounds his fists against my [Malik] chest and face.”
  • The Purples try to nab the kids. As the Purples get closer “the metal pole of a large beach umbrella swings out of nowhere, catching the two Purples full in the face. Both men drop to the beach, unconscious.”
  • C.J. Rackoff also tries to stop the kids, but Malik rams “his head full force into Rackoff’s jaw.”
  • Eli’s “father” points a pistol at him. Right before he is about to shoot, “Hector slams into my one-time father from the side, jarring his gun arm. With a sharp crack, the shot goes off.” The bullet hits a huge aquarium, and a rush of water and fish come pouring out. Afterward, “the ginormous manta ray [takes] up half the lobby floor. That’s when I notice a pair of feet sticking out from under it.”
  • During the struggle, Hector is injured. “Hammerstrom’s [Eli’s father’s] bullet must have grazed him, because he’s got an angry red line stretching from the corner of his mouth to his left ear.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • The kids worry that Dr. Bruder from Project Osiris will give them a drug. Dr. Bruder has “fancy pills designed to make us kids forget things Osiris doesn’t want us to remember.”

Language

  • There is minimal name calling, such as idiot, jerk, morons, nitwit, slimeball, doofus, loser, and bonehead.
  • Both “oh my God” and “OMG” are used as an exclamation one time.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • While trying to steal clothes, Tori sneaks onto a balcony. On an adjacent balcony a woman comes out and Tori prays “that the woman goes back inside before it occurs to her to glance to the right.”
  • Eli’s father tries to kill him. When he’s uninjured, one of the adults says, “thank God!”

Mare’s War

Mare’s War is a Coretta Scott King Award honoree and a tale of family, history, and resistance. Told in alternating “then” and “now” perspectives, the book follows Mare’s time in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II and as well as a road trip she takes back home to Bay Slough, Louisiana with her grandchildren in the present day.

The “now” sections are told from the perspective of Octavia, who is 15 and struggling to learn how to drive and fit in as a teenager. She tells about her conflicts with her older sister, Talitha.  Both sisters’ perspectives are given through postcards they write home to their mom and friends. Octavia does come to appreciate Talitha, at one point saying, “I’m actually kind of proud of my evil sister.”  Talitha is nearing her 18th birthday, and (through Octavia’s eyes) the readers see her struggles with boys, friendships, and growing up. Both sisters are reluctant to go on this road trip with their grandmother, thinking it will be boring, but the trip eventually brings the three women together, all with a greater appreciation for each other and their stories.

The “then” sections are told from Mare’s perspective. The story follows her from basic training all the way to Birmingham, England, and Paris, France. After an incident with Toby, a man her mother is involved with, Mare lies about her age to join the Women’s Army Corps. While she worries about her younger sister Josephine, Mare finds freedom and agency through her time in the army. She is relegated to some unsavory jobs as a member of a Black women’s unit.  In addition, Mare compares the discrimination she faces in the Southern U.S. to what she experiences in the military. When she returns home to Bay Slough, she sees how much has changed.

Mare’s War includes themes of family, growing up, and the importance of history. These themes teach readers to understand Talitha, Octavia, and Mare as they learn from each other. The reader sees the various forms of discrimination Black women experience at all ages, from the 1940s to the present day.

Mare’s War is an engaging story and one of the few books that address Black women’s role in World War II. However, the difficult scenes with Mare and Toby may upset younger readers even though these scenes are sexually charged, but not explicit. Mare’s sections use a form of African American Vernacular English, which could be confusing to readers who are unfamiliar with the dialect. At times, the easy-to-follow plot is slow. However, the characters make the story interesting and worth reading.

Sexual Content

  • When introducing Mare, Talitha and Octavia talk about finding her “panties” in the bathroom that have a “fake butt” attached. They describe them as “fanny pants”
  • There are two scenes where Toby, a character from Mare’s arc, makes unwanted sexual advances on Mare and other young women. “Toby been bumping me, touching me, cutting his eyes at Mama when he thinks she don’t see. He’s been talkin’ filth to Josephine…”

Violence

  • Mare’s younger sister Josephine (“Feen”) hides under the bed while Mare and Toby interact. Mare knows she must keep Josephine safe, so she defends herself with a hatchet. “[Toby] smacks me in the mouth before I can get my hand up. Feen hasn’t stopped screaming, but I have. I tighten my hands on the hatchet.” Mama eventually saves Mare and Josephine by shooting Toby, but he survives.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Present-day Mare is a smoker, so there are many scenes that involve her and cigarettes.
  • Toby drinks and smokes in ways that impact his personality, character, and actions. Mare describes Toby. “I can smell that nasty pipe Toby always be smoking… his voice is slurred.”
  • While out at dinner, seventeen-year-old Octavia drinks an alcoholic beverage with Kahlua in it.
  • While out in London, Mare and her friends go to a cafe and a club where Mare drinks for the first time. She is 18, so it is legal, but the scenes do depict her enjoying drinking. When she first drinks, Mare says “when I take a sip, it’s not too bad at all.”

Language

  • Dad says Mare drives “like a bat out of hell”
  • When Mare goes out in London, she is racially targeted. Someone says “forgot who you are, n——found out you can get a white girl here. Been seeing you and them other c—ns of yours stepping out with them English whores.” Some of these words appear more than once in this section.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Toby attacks Mare and Josephine, Josephine prays to Jesus asking him save her.
  • While Mare is in service, she communicates with Sister Dials, a religious figure.

by Talia Marshall

 

City of Villains #1

Mary Elizabeth Heart is a high school senior by day, but by night she’s an intern at the Monarch City police department. She watches with envy from behind a desk as detectives come and go, trying to contain the city’s growing crime rate. For years, tension has simmered as the city’s wealthy elite plan to gentrify a decaying neighborhood called the Scar—which once upon a time was the epicenter of all things magical.

When the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful businessmen goes missing, Mary Elizabeth is thrilled when the Chief puts her on the case. But what begins as one missing person’s report soon multiplies, leading her down the rabbit hole of a city in turmoil. There she finds a girl with horns, a boyfriend with secrets, and what seems to be a sea monster lurking in a poisonous lake. As the mystery circles closer to home, Mary finds herself caught in a fight between those who once had magic, and those who will do anything to bring it back—even if it means creating a few monsters along the way.

This dark, fairytale-inspired world explores the reimagined origins of Maleficent, Ursula, Captain Hook, and other infamous Disney villains. Readers who expect to walk into a world of Disney characters will be disappointed to discover that while the characters are named after Disney characters, they are normal humans. To make matters worse, at the beginning of the story, a slew of characters are introduced, but most of them have only a brief appearance which leads to confusion. In addition, the characters are so underdeveloped that readers will have a hard time connecting with them. While the story is told from Mary Elizabeth’s point of view, her insight into her friends’ true personalities also adds to the confusion.

The setting of the story is unclear because it references the United States in modern day, but it also is a world that magic used to exist in. Like the characters, the world building is underdeveloped. Unlike most Disney stories, City of Villains revolves around teenagers who hang out at bars. Plus, Mary Elizabeth is an intern at the police station which gives her access to some brutal murder cases, including her own family’s murder. For example, the police are attempting to solve a gruesome case that involves a murderer leaving gift-wrapped body parts all over the city.

City of Villains will leave many Disney fans disappointed. The plot takes the reader on a winding and confusing journey through a world with little magic. The gruesome murder scenes, the underdeveloped characters, and the unrealistic conclusion make City of Villains a book that is best left on the shelf. Readers who want a fairytale-inspired story should check out Fairy Tale Reform School by Jen Calonita or the Once Upon a Con Series by Ashley Poston.

Sexual Content

  • Mary Elizabeth and her boyfriend kiss, but the kiss is not described. For example, “James and I pause to kiss while Ursula stops to answer a call on her cell.”
  • When a girl is reported to be missing, the chief of police doesn’t want to investigate. “The last thing I need is drama over a girl who’s probably in a hotel room with someone she met in some club last Saturday night, picking up parasites from the questionable bed linens.”
  • Mary Elizabeth argues with a boy at school. He tells her, “I think what Mr. Iago is getting at is that your need to engage in confrontations with me boils down to attraction and sexual tension. . . if you didn’t have that ugly birthmark and weren’t totally concave in the chest area, I might consider relieving all that tension for you.”
  • While in a bar’s bathroom, Mary Elizabeth sees writing on the wall. It says, “For a good time call Mary Elizabeth.”

Violence

  • While working at the police station, Mary Elizabeth learns about a case. “Body parts showing up all over the Scar . . . So far there’s been a thigh, an arm, a hand with the fingerprints cut from the skin. . . they come in these boxes wrapped up like holiday gifts, frozen in dry ice.”
  • A new package arrives. “A hand rests in the center, mist rising all around it as the dry ice burns off. Its fingernails are blackened and congealed blood crusts at the wrist. It’s discolored gray, and the middle finger is pointed straight upward, flipping the chief the bird.”
  • At school there is a scuffle between two boys. “Stone slams into Lucas Attenborough, who pushes him back easily, so Stone falls onto his back, loses his breath, and looks up at us in panic. Lucas gives him a kick that’s more symbolic than painful.”
  • When Mally isn’t invited to a party, she shows up with her pet bird, Hellion. Mally’s bird “flew everywhere, digging his talons into the rose blossom cake, knocking over the vat of ginger beer, pecking into the chestnut-toasted suckling pig.” Later, Mally “cut Flora’s break lines, left a roadkill on Fauna’s doorstep, and bleached Merryweather’s grass.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s parents and sister are murdered and Mary Elizabeth sees some crime scene photos with “all that blood.” She also learns that the man who killed them “just wanted to know what it would feel like to take lives.”
  • In a vision, Mary Elizabeth sees Mally, who is trying to tell her something. “She is yanked out of the chair. She slaps against the plastic seat and whacks heavily against the floor, and then she slides along, head lolling to the side, eyes unblinking and open.”
  • Bella, a young police officer, accidentally shoots someone. “I was aiming for his leg, but I killed him.”
  • Bella tells Mary Elizabeth about a trucker who “kidnapped a couple people, and then left their remains outside of Las Vegas.”
  • The police arrest a man who “had a kill kit in his vehicle: ropes, hacksaw, trash bags. . . and we found trace elements of Ursula’s blood in his shop and on his clothes.”
  • The person who helped kidnapped Mally and Ursula tells Mary Elizabeth, “I thought they’d be drugged, poked with needles, dosed with forgetful serum, and then returned home. . . I had no idea it would turn out this way, that people would actually be monstrously altered.”
  • While trying to free Mally and Ursula, men try to stop Mary Elizabeth. “I kick the gun out of one man’s hand and then punch and duck and swerve but feel something hit my chin and something else grab me by the back of the head. . .” Ursula jumps into the fight. “She swings her arms out and the men go flying, making hard thudding noises as they hit the wall. She makes a rising motion and the men get up like marionettes, doing jigs. They are horrified and helpless as their bodies are flung to and from.”
  • While trying to escape, Mally “hurls blue lights at him. She hits him and he is singed and within seconds has disappeared.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend James’s hand is hit with darts. His hand begins to shrivel. In order to save his life, Mary Elizabeth grabs an ax. She swings “high and brings the ax down, severing James’s hand from his arm. . . He screams as I take off my belt and loop it around his arm tightly as I can.”
  • At the end of the battle, the police show up. “Pieces of broken glass and bodies are strewn everywhere. Medics have begun to collect Kyle’s men one by one and puts some into ambulances, while others are covered in blankets, a signal that they will need to be collected for the morgue.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend is “the son of a drug-lord/murderer.”
  • Mary Elizabeth and her boyfriend see a man who is “wasted.”

Language

  • The teens often call each other names such as doofus, idiot, moron, jerk, prick, loser, and crazy witch.
  • Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes asshole, damn, bitchy, hell, pissing, and jackass.

Supernatural

  • Magic used to exist, but now the only place that is magical is the Ever Garden. “Once someone tried to sell hot dogs from a cart and was hurled out by a redwood.”
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend shows her a blue ball of light. “So I keep looking at this light until I’m part of it, until I am the swirl and I can see it isn’t just a flat blue. . . It’s alive and beckoning, its fingers reaching for me. Half a second later, the light shoots into my chest.”
  • Due to a magical experiment, Mary Elizabeth’s best friend, Ursula, is changed. “She has tentacles, black ones that look to be part of a backless dress.” At one point, Ursula “changes from a human to an eel to a giant floating jellyfish and back to a human in a matter of seconds.”
  • While looking in a mirror, Mary Elizabeth sees a reflection of a different version of herself. She can step through the mirror into another place. She pushes the glass and “the glass gives, turning opaque like silver satin as my fingers disappear to the knuckle.”
  • At one point, Mary Elizabeth levitates.
  • Mary Elizabeth’s boyfriend uses magic to put her to sleep. “He presses his lips against mine and pulls me in close. . . He pulls back, puts a thumb to my forehead. . . ‘Sleep,’ he says, and blue light shoots into my head. The world abruptly fades to black.
  • Mally turns into a “badass” dragon.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Criminal Destiny

The clones of project Osiris are now free – but they’re being hunted. After their narrow escape from their “perfect” hometown, Eli, Tori, Amber, and Malik are finally in the real world and are determined to expose the leaders of the other world, Serenity. They decide to track down Tamara Dunleavy, the mysterious billionaire and founder of Project Osiris. Evading capture by breaking laws and sneaking into houses, hotels, buses, and cars—are they becoming the criminals they were destined to be?

What they learn will change everything and lead them straight back into the Plastic Works and the heart of the experiment in order to uncover the deadly criminals they’re cloned from—and find evidence that will convince the outside world to believe the truth. But the outside world isn’t exactly what they expected. Strangers aren’t just unfriendly, they’re dangerous. The wrong move could send them right back into the arms of Dr. Hammerstrom and leave them trapped in Serenity for good.

The story revolves around five characters—Eli, Malik, Hector, Tori, and Amber—and each chapter changes between these characters’ points of view. This allows the reader to understand each character’s thought process, which helps build their character. Each person struggles with the knowledge of being cloned from a criminal, but each one reacts to it differently and sometimes in surprising ways.

The story Criminal Intent has non-stop action as the kids discover how the real world works. As the kids try to navigate the real world, their misunderstandings lead to some hilarious comments. The kids truly believe that they need to break Rackoff, one of the criminals a kid is cloned from, out of prison in order to have a future. His escape is “a ticket for eleven clones to be able to prove who they are, and what’s been done to them. And maybe, just maybe, have a future.” Because of this belief, the kids are willing to commit crimes in exchange for his help.

While the conclusion is somewhat far-fetched, it also has several surprises and ends with a cliff-hanger. The kids are so busy evading the Purples, the police, and other people, that they do not have time to learn anything about Project Osiris. Unfortunately, the kids’ only plan is to find help from one of the criminals that they were cloned from. While Criminal Intent has humor and action, the kids have no real idea how they are going to have a future separate from the scientists from Project Osiris, which includes their parents. Instead of solving any problems, this action-packed story sets up an exciting third book, Payback.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The Purple People Eaters try to capture the kids. When a Purple tries to grab Tori, Malik “barrels out from a group of students and makes a bull run at him. Malik crashes headfirst into the Purple’s midsection. . . the element of surprise knocks him on his butt.”
  • As the kids try to escape, a Purple grabs Malik. “Secret Agent Man gets Malik in a headlock. And the next thing he knows, his own car is coming at him, chewing up turf. The rear door swings open, catching him in the side of the head.” The kids escape without seriously injuring anyone. The scene is described over three pages.
  • While in Denver, the kids see a man being mugged in an alleyway. “Scruffy has the suit guy up against the wall and is holding the knife to his back. . .” Amber jumps in to help. “Scruffy wheels and now the knife is pointing at Amber. . . She starts lecturing the crook in what sounds eerily like her mother’s teacher voice.” The confused crook runs off.
  • The kids see a man digging through their backpacks. Amber goes after the guy. She jumps over a table and her “front foot gets tangled with his two fleeing ones. We both go down . . . there’s a thwack as his head hits the base of the tree.” The man is knocked unconscious and the kids take off.
  • A group of teens is lounging around the kids’ car. “Amber reaches out, grabs the leader’s leg just above the boot, and gives a mighty yank. He comes flying off the hood and lands in a heap on the pavement on the parking lot.” When a teen tries to grab Amber, “Malik’s fist shoots out like a battering ram, catching the kid full in the nose.” The teenagers back off and leave. The scene is described over two pages.
  • The kids’ research who they were cloned from. One of the men was sentenced to “over three hundred years behind bars. . . He was stabbed to death by another inmate last year.”
  • Late at night, Tori sees a man enter the hotel room. She grabs a metal wastebasket. “I’m out of bed, across the room, and swinging my weapon at the shadowy figure.” The person turns out to be her friend, Eli. His head is bleeding, but not hurt badly.
  • While trying to help someone escape from prison, the kids steal a postal service truck. Malik threatens the driver with a crowbar. “Malik drops the crowbar and enfolds the postal worker in a wrestling hug. George struggles against him, but Malik is just as big as he is, and strong. . .” Eli uses a maneuver he learned on the internet to make George pass out.
  • When the Purples find the kids, someone grabs Eli “strangling [him] with [his] own collar.” Eli gets the syringe and “wielding it like a knife, I get to my knees and stab it into my enemy’s thigh. He stops dead, letting out a gasp of pain that’s instantly familiar.” The man “collapses to the ground out cold.”
  • Bryan, a Purple, grabs  Tori and Eli rushes to help. “I come up behind him and stab the needle into the back of his shoulder. . . Bryan drops like a stone.”
  • Eli threatens a pilot with the syringe, so the pilot flies Eli and Tori away. When they get to their destination, Eli pricks the pilot “with the needle, careful to inject a small amount of tranquilizer into the back of his neck.” The escape scene is described over seven pages.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When the Purples find the kids, a doctor tries to tranquilize the kids with a “syringe filled with some kind of cloudy liquid.” Eli is able to get the syringe and he uses it on several people.

Language

  • Malik thinks about his friend Hector. “Poor stupid, pain-in-the-butt little Hector, who died during our escape from Happy Valley.” Later when Malik discovers Hector is alive, he says, “I wasted a lot of sad on your unworthy butt.”
  • There is some name calling, including pinheads, dimwit, moron, idiot, jerk, and stupid
  • While trying to steal a truck, the victim tells Malik, “you’re bat-poop crazy.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Shadowcaster

Alyssa ana’Raisa, the reluctant heir to the Gray Wolf Throne, must overcome the impossible. After suffering the loss of her sister, brother and father, as well as an attempt on her own life, she wants nothing more than to end the war that’s consumed her world for decades. To protect her mother and her friends, Lyss will do whatever it takes to strike a blow against Arden.

Halston Matelon is simply trying to survive the king of Arden’s wrath. Once Hal’s father betrays the king, a target is put on Hal’s back, forcing him into dire situations that could end his life. But when Hal’s captured by an enemy commander, he must confront his own prejudices, as well as a budding, forbidden love for the woman who bested him.

Breon d’Tarvos has stayed far away from the front lines of the war. Performing as a street musician for a little bit of coin, Breon has managed to survive on the streets. Yet that all comes to an end when he’s pulled into an assassination attempt on Princess Alyssa. Now Breon is on the run, hoping to escape to a safe haven on the coast. But nothing is ever that easy.

Shadowcaster is a great follow-up to Chima’s first entry in the Shattered Realms series, Flamecaster. Following three main characters, Lyss, Hal, and Breon, the story unfolds in the northern Queendom of the Fells. Whereas the first book focused on the fanatical religious state of Arden, its prejudices against wizards, and the political intrigue of King Gerard’s court, the sequel explores the different cultures of the north, where wizards are both respected and free, and where many cultures co-exist.

Each of the main characters is linked to the various themes present within the story. For instance, Lyss’ storyline explores dealing with grief. Throughout the novel, Lyss’s motivation stems from the deaths of her family, and she’s forced to confront the pain of finding out her brother may still be alive.

The theme of confronting prejudice is squarely placed in Hal’s storyline. When Hal is captured by Lyss, he is forced to see the northerners as people, and he even falls in love with her. This opens Hal’s eyes to the idea that his prejudices are wrong.

Breon’s story focuses on struggling to survive. As a poor street musician, Breon fights to get food on a daily basis. He also struggles with addiction to a drug known as “leaf.” With little money, no home, and few friends, Breon represents the civilians who are trying to survive amidst a war. Each of these themes is well written, and each is powerful in its own right.

Lyss, Hal, and Breon are all likable, relatable characters. Lyss is relatable because she struggles to fit into people’s expectations of a princess. Rather than lead, Lyss wants to continue as a soldier, fighting for what she believes in. Both Hal and Lyss want to protect their family. Plus, Hal is fiercely loyal to his men, wanting to protect them in dire situations. Breon, while suffering from drug addiction, is likable for his desire to make honest coin and to live with his sweetheart, Aubrey. These three, combined with some thrilling battle scenes, will keep readers on the edge of their seats. In addition, the romance between Hal and Lyss will leave readers wanting more. Their romance sets a fun, exciting pace that ends in a cliffhanger. Readers will look forward to continuing this epic story continues in the third book, Stormcaster.

Sexual Content

  • Lyss has a crush on her friend, Finn. Later on, she admits to herself, “She’d had a crush on Finn sul’Mander since she was eleven years old.”
  • When Finn gets engaged to Julianna, they were “blushing and Finn was smiling. Julianna held up their joined hands to display her engagement ring.” Later on, Lyss watches as “He kissed Julianna again. And again.”
  • The diplomat tells Lyss, “You’re not the beauty that your mother is, or your sister, Hana, may she rest in peace, or your cousin Julianna—such a lovely girl—but there’s a lot can be done with the proper staging.”
  • Hal overhears Bosley, a member of Lyss’ squad, talking about his conquest of Lyss. Hal thinks, “Bosley had described a series of recent trysts with her in embarrassingly graphic detail. Maybe customs were different here in the north, but it seemed crude and dishonorable to share that.”
  • Hal thinks, “If Bosley was sleeping with his commanding officer, the last thing Hal wanted was to get caught in that crossfire.”
  • Hal and Lyss begin a short romance. After falling on top of her by accident, Hal thinks, “it took everything that was in him not to finish their match with a kiss.” Later, Hal thinks, “The truth was, he wanted to kiss this northern girl, and go on from there. He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever known.”

Violence

  • In a battle between squadrons, Lyss sees Hal “lean down from his horse and scoop up a soldier who was staggering around aimlessly, blood pouring from a head wound.”
  • In the Clans, a group residing in the Fells, the amount of braids one has indicates how many people they’ve killed. Less notices “The many braids in Shadow’s hair were evident that he rarely said no to a fight, and that he usually came away with a kill.”
  • Hal thinks back on the people he’s killed. “Several times in the past, Hal had discovered that the man he’d just killed was actually a woman.”
  • When thinking of his friends, Breon thinks, “And Goose? He’d cut your throat for a wad of leaf, but other than that he’d always been a harmless sort.”
  • In an assassination attempt on Lyss, one of her squad is hit with an arrow. Lyss “ran her hand over his uniform tunic until she found the arrow shaft embedded in his right lower back.” Just after that, she’s attacked again. An assassin strangles her, and “his fingers didn’t loosen until Lyss’s shiv transfixed his throat and blood spilled over her leathers.”
  • In the city of Delphi, the residents have been fighting back against Arden’s occupation. The former mayor “was found dead in an alley, his throat cut, his body wrapped in an Ardenine flag.”
  • When arguing with Hal, Lyss tells him, “When Princess Hanalea was murdered, your king sent her head to her mother in a golden casket with a note, in case she didn’t give credit where credit is due.”
  • Sasha tells Breon that he’ll be executed for the attack on Lyss. She says, “But two of her escorts were killed in the attack. That ought to be enough to hang you.”
  • Someone says, “Whenever Montaigne got a little down, he just murdered a few people, and that set him to rights.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Breon and his friends often use leaf, which is a street drug. Breon thinks, “People said that leaf fried the brain, and maybe that was true. He could quit anytime, and maybe he should.”
  • On a trip to the coast, Breon thinks, “Or maybe it just seemed longer because Breon has passed much of the trip in a pleasant haze of leaf.”

Language

  • Ass is used several times. For example, when trying on a pair of pants, Breon thinks, “he had to cinch in the breeches to keep them from sliding down his bony ass.”
  • Asshole is used several times. Lyss tells off someone, saying “At least that’s fixable. Being an asshole isn’t.” Asshole is used a few times in the novel.
  • Hell and damn are used a few times. For example, when asked if he’s a wizard, Breon retorts, “Damn right I am.”
  • Sasha tells Breon, “Poke me, and I’ll poke you back, you scaly, scum-sucking sneaksby.”

Supernatural

  • Flashcraft refers to magical items that are created by the Clans in the Fells. Lyss receives a flash craft locket. “When she touched it, the portraits would shift, displaying first one person and then another.
  • In Arden, wizards are called mages and are typically slaves.
  • Hal, who is from Arden, believes witches like Lyss can turn humans into animals. However, this isn’t true.
  • Mystwerk is a school where wizards learn magic.
  • In the Fells, the ruling line of Queens can see wolves that bring prophetic dreams and visions. Less tells Ash, “I just keep having these dreams, where everyone’s dead and I’m all alone on Hanalea Peak, just me and the wolves.” Just after that, Ash tries to soothe her with his magic. Lyss snaps at him, “Stop soothing me!”
  • While Breon is imprisoned someone threatens to use magic on him to get him talking. Breon thinks, “What did he mean by persuasion? Magic? Torture? Hypnosis? Could this mage really make him tell the truth?”

Spiritual Content

  • A dedicate at a temple hands out food to those who need it. Breon notices “The dedicate offered a blessing along with the bread and fruit.
  • The Church of Malthus is the state religion of Arden. Lyss asks Hal, “Is there any way your war-weary people and your bloodthirsty church would allow them to live?”

by Jonathan Planman

 

 

 

Erak’s Ransom

What does it mean to earn the Silver Oakleaf? So few men have done so. For Will, a mere boy and apprentice to the most difficult Ranger to please, that symbol of honor has long seemed out of reach. If he is to ever earn it, he must prove himself in ways he never imagined.

Now, in the wake of Araluens’ uneasy truce with the raiding Skandians, there comes word that the Skandian leader, Erak, has been captured by a desert tribe. The Rangers, along with a small party of warriors, are sent to free him, but the desert is like nothing these warriors have seen before. Strangers in a strange land, they are brutalized by sandstorms, tricked by one tribe that plays by its own rules, and surprisingly befriended by another. Like a mirage, nothing is as it seems. Yet one thing is constant: the bravery of the Rangers.

Erak’s Ransom goes back in time, before the fifth and sixth installments of the series. When Erak is taken captive, the Skandians ask for the Araluens’ help. For the first time ever, Halt, Horace, Will, and Evelyn travel together. The interplay between the characters is interesting. Readers will appreciate seeing how people from different cultures can respectfully work together without having to hide their beliefs.

Like the previous books in the series, the story ends with an epic battle. However, one of the best aspects of Erak’s Ransom is the political negotiating, the clashing of beliefs, and the honor of desert tribes. Even though the story’s plot is complicated and there is a huge cast of characters, readers familiar with the characters will not have difficulty understanding the plot. The Araluens, Skandians, and two desert tribes come together to defeat an evil raiding party. Each group has a different strength, and all contribute to freeing Erak and defeating evil.

Erak’s Ransom is another fast-paced story that readers will not want to put down. Although male friendship is highlighted, Evelyn’s strong personality also comes to the forefront and shows how women can be capable leaders. Erak’s Ransom will leave readers wishing they could sit around the campfire and have a conversation with the Araluens and the Skandians because at this point in the series, they seem like trusted friends.

Sexual Content

  • At Halt’s wedding, “there had been the inevitable tearful flouncing and shrill recriminations when the girlfriend of one of the younger warriors from Sir Rodney’s Battleschool had caught her boyfriend kissing another girl in a dark corridor.”

Violence

  • A group of men finds a caravan that was slaughtered. “Horses, mules, camels and men were scattered about the desert, lifeless shapes surrounded by darkening patches of dried blood that had soaked into the sand… The men and animals had been killed, and then hacked in a senseless frenzy. There was barely a body with just a single killing wound.”
  • Will shoots an arrow near Umar’s grandson. Angry, Umar’s “fist struck Will backhanded across the jaw. He staggered and fell, the bow dropping from his hands… Will, stunned by the blow, tried to regain his feet but a savage kick from Umar winded him and sent him sprawling again.” Umar stops when his wife yells at him.
  • While the Araluens, Skandians, and Arridis are traveling together, they are attacked. The group makes a shield wall. Gilan and Halt use their bows. “Already, half a dozen riderless horses were running wildly with the group charging from the front, their riders lying in crumpled heaps in the sand behind them… The battle became a heaving, shoving, hand-to-hand melee, with curved swords rising and falling, hacking and stabbing along the line. Men cried out in pain on both sides as they went down, then cried out again as comrades and foes trod them down in their efforts to reach the enemy.” Both sides lose men. The attack is described over four pages.
  • The Araluens, Skandians, and Arridis surrender. The leader of the other army imprisons those who will be valuable to sell as slaves. Everyone else is left without shoes and water. The leader says, “You’re brave enough now, boy, but wait ‘til your tongue is dry and swollen so large that it fills our throat so that you can hardly breathe. Wait ‘til your feet are torn and blistered by the heat and the rocks. Your eyes will be blinded by the glare of the sun and you’ll wish your leader had allowed me to kill you here, and now.”
  • The captives are bound, and “The guards mounted and herded their captives on foot toward the camp… Urged on by spear butts and curses, they stumbled on the uneven ground.” When the captives arrive at the camp, they see Erak. “…He was seated on the ground, chained between two noisy, complaining camels. His face was bruised and his hair matted with dried blood. One eye was almost closed and there were whip scores on his arms and back.”
  • Tualaghi forces the captives to walk for three days. “If anyone falls—and inevitably they did, since they were kept off balance by having their hands tied together in front of them—he was immediately surrounded by riders jabbing with lance points or striking down at them with the butts of their spears.” The men are bruised and sore by the time they arrive at their destination.
  • Halt upsets the Tualaghi leader. Two men grab Halt, “forcing him forward and down until he was on his knees in front of Yusal. The Tualaghi Aseish then rained closed-fist blows on Halt’s face, left and right, striking again and again until the Ranger’s face was cut and bleeding and his head lolled to one side… he crumbled to the sand, facedown, and semiconscious.”
  • When a woman looks at Yusal, he “had her savagely whipped.”
  • When the prisoners are taken to be executed, “there were those who chose to jeer at the prisoners and throw stones, clumps of earth or garbage at them.”
  • Will and Aloom try to find a vantage point so they can see the captives. Three of the enemies appear and “crowded upon him (Aloom), swords flashing, rising and falling as they attacked.” In order to help, Will jumps and “landed feet first on the shoulders of the Tualaghi leader. The man gave a cry of shock and pain and crumpled beneath the force of Will’s body. Will heard the snap of bones breaking somewhere, then a sickening thud as the bandit’s head slammed into the hard, rocky ground.”
  • During the fight with Will and Aloom, Will uses his saxe knife, and “the Tualaghi gave a short cry, half surprise, half pain, and sank back against the wall, his sword dropping from his hand…” The three Tualaghi are killed, and Aloom is severely injured and eventually dies from his wounds.
  • Will watches as Aloom “coughed and scarlet blood stained the front of his robe.” Will must leave Aloom in order to help the captives.
  • Will shoots the executioner. “Only then did those on the platform see what had been visible to the crowd in the square: the gray shafted arrow buried deep in the executioner’s chest.”
  • Will shoots an arrow at Yusal. The arrow “took him in the muscle of his upper left arm… He screamed in pain and fury…” Yusal flees, but “there were still armed Tualaghi all over the platform, threatening his friends.” Will shot arrows until “the guards began dropping with shrieks of agony and terror.”
  • A Tualaghi strikes his sword at Horace, and “a thin red line formed immediately, then blurred as blood began to well out of the cut… Horace simply brought the massive brass-pommeled hilt back in a short, savage stroke, thudding it into the man’s head.”
  • Evelyn uses her sling to fling a stone at Yusal. “A solid smacking sound could be heard clearly around the square. Then Yusal’s hands dropped and revealed a mask of blood covering his eyes and upper face, flowing down to soak into his blue veil… He fell full length to the hard ground below.” Evelyn uses her sling to drop another man. The man “doubled over, clutching his face and moaning in pain.”
  • Toshak, a Skandian traitor, tries to run from the fight. Erak “launched himself at Toshak, the sword swinging down in a blow that would have split the traitor down to the waist. There was a massive ringing clang as Toshak caught the blow on top of his double-bladed ax head… With a mighty roar, Erak used his left arm to thrust himself up from the cobbles while he drove the sword deep into Toshak’s unprotected body.” Toshak dies. The battle is described over three chapters.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Wine and barrels of ale are served at Halt’s wedding.
  • When a couple of Skandians meet a desert people, one of them replies, “Don’t know how you all keep going without a good drink of ale… Settles the mind in the evenings, ale does.”
  • A dying man is given “a few drops of clear liquid” to relieve his pain.
  • At a celebration, the Skandians are given “brandy made from fermented dates and peaches.”

Language

  • The exclamation “Gorlog’s beard” is used occasionally. “Gorlog was a lesser Scandian deity who had a long beard, curved horns and fanglike teeth.”
  • “God’s above,” “good God,” and “my God” are used as exclamations a few times.
  • Several times someone is called an idiot. For example, Halt wonders why he needs to invite “the Iberian ambassador and his two idiot daughters to my wedding.”
  • Evelyn “frightened the devil out of” a guard.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • A diplomat thanks the lord for Evelyn’s character and courage.
  • A group of raiders are referred to as “the Forgotten of God.”
  • When Will begins a journey, he says, “I’ll see you in a few days.” The person replies, “I hope the god of journeys wills it so.”
  • When Will appeared, Halt “whispered a prayer of thanks.” Later, Halt puts his bound arm on the execution block and “prayed that his friend had got the message.”
  • The desert people “believed that djinns and devils and spirits all lived in these ancient mountains.”
  • The Skandians believe “that if they were to die in battle without a weapon in their hand, their soul would wander for all eternity.”
  • After Evelyn negotiates successfully, Halt says, “Lord forgive me, I’ve created a monster.”

Flamecaster

Set in the world of Chima’s critically acclaimed Seven Realms series, Flamecaster is the beginning of an exciting new series full of suspense, magic, love, and danger. War has overtaken the realm, leaving two young, yet determined characters on their own in their fight against the cruel king of Arden.

Ash wants nothing more than to get back at the king that murdered his father. But after he’s forced into hiding, that goal only gets farther out of reach. Once he gets close to his father’s murderer, will he succeed in getting revenge? Or will he sacrifice his life for nothing?

Ash isn’t alone in his hunt for revenge. For as long as she’s known, Jenna Bandelow has had a strange magemark on the back of her neck. When the King’s Guard begins hunting for a girl with a mark like hers, Jenna must figure out why she’s being hunted. Does it simply have to do with the fact she’s been fighting against the king of Arden? Or is it something more? Danger lurks around every corner, and Ash and Jenna will need each other if they are to survive.

Flamecaster, a fantastic first book in the Shattered Realms Series, follows Ash’s and Jenna’s quest to take down the ruthless King Gerard. The engaging story is full of wizards, intrigue, revenge, and multifaceted characters. Both Ash and Jenna are interesting, complex characters who become King Gerard’s victims and lose those they love. Told from both Ash’s and Jenna’s point of view, it’s easy to understand each of their motivations as they grow and become obsessed with killing King Gerard. Both are angry and hateful after King Gerard kills people they love, which fuels their desire for revenge. While working towards their ultimate goal, each finds themselves alone, yet determined. Flamecaster weaves a compelling mystery, but doesn’t conclude with a typical resolution. Instead, some of the story arc is left with unanswered questions which will leave the reader eager to read the next book in the series, Shadowcaster.

 Chima’s expert storytelling allows the story to unfold gradually and with humor. Even though the story pairs Ash and Jenna as lovers, the focus remains on survival and intrigue. Another positive aspect of Flamecaster is the world-building, which builds on the previous series, the Seven Realms series. This is constantly in the background, as the war personally impacts both Ash and Jenna. Through the war, religious and cultural differences between the two nations emerge. This highlights how in the Fells wizards are free and help rule over the Queendom, yet in Arden wizards are enslaved and distrusted. Overall, the backdrop serves well to push the story forward.

The theme of revenge is prevalent, as both Ash and Jenna are fueled by their desire to get revenge against King Gerard. Luckily this theme isn’t overbearing, and is paired well with the theme of hope. The universal theme of hope wins out in the end, as Ash and Jenna learn to overcome their doubts and survive their time in Arden. Flamecaster is both fast paced and engaging, a story that will entertain both Chimas’s loyal fans as well as readers new to the fantasy series.

Sexual Content

  • Ash was in a relationship while attending an academy. He thinks, “Suze was a plebe at Isenwerk. She and Ash had walked out together for a few months, but had recently called it quits. At least he had.”
  • In the past, King Gerard attempted to marry the Queen of the Fells. Ash’s father says, “Your mother rejected him in a very public way.”
  • Ash comes to buy poisons from Taliesin, his mentor. She tells him, “Other young men your age come to me seeking love potions. I suppose you’re not in need of those.”
  • During a staged fortune-telling, a seer tells a young man the fortune, “says, ‘I’m not going to sleep with you anymore, you faithless bastard.’”
  • Someone says “The northerners spend their days picking wildflowers and dreaming and their nights fornicating under the stars.”
  • Ash and Jenna share a romance. After making love, Jenna tells Ash, “It’s just—in Bruinswallow, I think we’d be considered married.” The love making isn’t described, only implied. Later, Ash thinks about his feelings for Jenna, “I am in love with this girl.”

Violence

  • In a confrontation with King Gerard, Ash sees him die. Ash, “flattened himself against the tower wall to avoid being struck as the king screamed past him like a falling star. The screaming ended abruptly when he hit bottom.”
  • While battling priests, Ash kills some of them. Ash attacks one priest and “immolated him before he hit the floor.”
  • Ash is a trained killer. Ash thinks that he is “good with poisons, garrotes, and the small daggers known as shivs. Poisons were his weapons of choice.” Later, Ash tells someone, “Consider how many premature deaths I’m preventing. The lives I take are balanced by those I save.”
  • A young boy throws some sort of powder in Ash’s eyes. “When the trailing edge of it caught him [Ash] in the face and in the eyes, it was as if someone had taken a torch to him.”
  • Ash is forced to put down a horse. Ash, “insisted on doing it himself, by using magic to stop the blood as it rushed through the great artery in his neck. It was a painless death, as far as he could tell, but that didn’t make it any easier.”
  • In a conversation about Delphi, Clermont, a Guard Captain, says, “When things get really bad, I just kill a few Delphian rats. That never fails to raise my spirits.”
  • During a royal party, one of the king’s thanes kills some of the king’s guard. The thane “turned, a blade in each hand, and cut the throats of the blackbirds nearest to him.”
  • King Gerard has his mistress killed. Ash remembers, “But Estelle was dead—killed for the crime of hosting an assassination attempt on the king.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a tavern at an academy, Lila sees a fellow student drunkenly fall into a chair. She watches as, “He all but fell into it, clunking his mug down on the table. It was nearly empty.”
  • Ash thinks about Lila, his classmate. “Drunk or sober, Lila didn’t miss much.” Just after that, Lila says, “A girl can learn a lot from a drunken southerner.”
  • After a fire breaks out in the palace kitchens, Ash, “realized that Hamon was blaming himself and his drinking for the fire.”
  • Destin notices that “The more Clermont drank, the louder he talked.”

Language

  • Lila calls a fellow student, “Ardenine swine.”
  • Ass is used frequently. For example, someone tells Ash, “You have to keep moving or grow a crop of moss on your ass.”
  • King Gerard calls his queen, “You stupid slut of Tamron.”
  • Clermont, a guard captain in the city of Delphi, cusses out a waitress. He says, “You tell that insolent whey-faced tavern rat. . .”
  • Marin Karn, Destin’s father, talks about Lila. He says, “The bitch has a mouth on her that’s going to cost her if she isn’t careful.”

Supernatural

  • Wizards, also known as mages, are commonplace. They are not welcomed in every country. Ash Hanson and Destin Karn are wizards. Ash thinks, “Wizards were arrogant by nature.”
  • Wizards often see a glow around other wizards. Ash notes, “Western wizards glowed a cool bluish-white. Strangward’s aura came closest to that. He lit up the entire room with a brilliant white glow. The other delegates glowed a faint red, like dying coal.”
  • Talismans often are used as protection against magic. When Lilia is interrogated by a mage, “The Talisman at her neck sizzled against her skin. Protection against magic.”
  • Talismans are usually created by the Clans in the Fells. Lila thinks, “Crafted of rowan, ebony, and ivory, it had been given to her by her clan friend and sometime partner, Shadow Dancer.”
  • Dealing with a wounded ankle, Ash thinks, “A wizard can’t use his gift to heal himself.”
  • In Arden, Wizards are shunned and are generally considered to be demons. When King Gerard confronts Ash about being a “demon,” Ash says, “Hang on—you think I’m an actual demon?”
  • Destin often uses magic to interrogate people. Destin thinks, “That made torture unnecessary for the most part, unless he was dealing with other mages, who could resist his mind magic.”
  • When trying to interrogate a boy, Destin “released magic into him, let if flow as if to fill him up, then reached through it to find the boy’s mind. And couldn’t. He tried again, and it was like searching an empty room.”
  • Jenna has a unique ability to speak to dragons. When Flamecaster, a dragon, speaks to her, she thinks, “At first, she thought he [the dragon] was asking for help, but then she realized that it was offering help.”

Spiritual Content

  • Arden is heavily influenced by the Church of Malthus, the dominant religion. God is the main deity of the Church of Malthus.
  • The Maker is the main god of the Fells, a nation to the north. Jenna Bandelow tells her father, “The Maker helps those who help themselves, isn’t that what you said?”
  • King Gerard asks of one of his subjects, “Are you saying that you will not submit to the command of your sovereign, anointed by God?”
  • Ash saves the palace cook, Hamon, from a fire. Hamon says, “They say it was a miracle. Come here, my boy, so I can feel of you, for surely you were the instrument of Holy Malthus in this.”
  • The Church of Malthus paints mages as demonic. Someone says, “Magic, my lord? I want nothing to do with that. The Fathers say that mages are idolators and devils.”
  • Priests of the Church of Malthus are often referred to as crows. Someone says, “Those black-robed crows of Malthus can prattle on about martyrdom and Paradise all they want. I’m not signing on.”

by Jonathan Planman

The Four Guardians

When Prince Leo’s devious cousin seizes control of Singara, Leo is forced to escape into enemy territory until he can return and claim the throne. Trapped among his enemies, Leo discovers they know a lot more about him than he knows about himself. With some guidance from unlikely allies, Leo is poised to fulfill a destiny greater than he ever imagined.

Can Leo harness his power, stop a war, and prevent a monstrous demon from escaping and destroying the world? In the second book of the Pride Wars series, Leo’s identity as a Spinner—once thought to be his greatest curse—may just become his greatest weapon.

When Leo flees Singara, he goes into enemy territory and learns about the neighboring Maguar tribe. The Four Guardians mixes fierce battles with scenes where Leo learns more about being a Spinner. With the help of a Maguar ally, Leo learns that he is a Shakyahs—a Spinner who is able to bring Jins to this world. While Leo hopes that the Maguar’s Shakyah, the Twelver, will help him stop the war, it soon becomes apparent that the Twelver’s one true desire is revenge.

Leo’s quadron joins him on his quest and are dedicated to keeping Leo safe, even if that means death. Once they make it to enemy territory, two spiritual guides help Leo understand what it means to be a Spinner. Unlike The Spinner Prince, the second book digs deeper into understanding the Maguar god, Alayah. The story highlights the importance of faith, and readers will recognize areas that are similar to the Bible. As one character says, “Yet faith is the most basic thing there is. Faith is the crying of a cub for its mother. Faith is one candle in overwhelming darkness. Faith is the light of Alayah in every living thing. Every breath, and every step we take, is an act of faith.”

The Four Guardians battles are fierce and may frighten some readers. The Maguar Shakyah, the Twelver, only has one true desire, which is to kill the demon Hasatamara. However, this desire has made the Twelver a truly evil enemy who is willing to bring death to anyone who opposes her. Unlike the Twelver, Leo’s journey is based on the desire to save lives and bring both tribes together. That is why Alayah praises Leo for showing “humility, bravery, and compassion, even toward your enemies.”

The action-packed sequel, The Four Guardians, allows the reader to step into an imaginative world that has clear villains. While the story has some surprises, the long explanations of Spinners and Alayah slow down the plot. In the fight against good and evil, Leo is an imperfect character who relies on his friends to guide him. Readers will enjoy the relationship between Leo and his friends and celebrate their wins. The complicated plot, large cast of characters, and spiritual content make The Four Guardians better suited for strong readers. The Four Guardians doesn’t resolve any conflicts, but leaves room for another sequel.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Leo and a group of his friends travel into enemy territory. When they arrive, “The Maguar rushes Anjali with astonishing speed. He guides his spear to the edge of Anjali’s throat. The tip is made of sharpened flint… The Maguar spits at her feet.” The Maguar takes them captive.
  • Anjali makes a deal with the Maguar leader, who wants to kill all of them. She says, “I have a deal for you. If one of you can defeat me in combat—no weapons, no claws—you can feed three of us to your slaycons, except him [Leo]. You will take him to your high command.”
  • Anjali fights a Maguar. They get into combat position and “with blinding swiftness, she [Anjali] fires a double strike: a blow beneath his ribs with her fist and a simultaneous uppercut to his chin with her left. Then she sweeps one of his legs, sending the stunned Maguar sprawling to the ground… In less than three seconds, the Maguar is a heap of striped fur on the ground.” The two continue the fight for two pages. The Maguar wins the fight when “the Maguar catches her on the shoulder with a double kick, knocking her off balance… She crashes to the ground with a yowl. Knowing the danger she’s in, Anjali rolls away, but not before the enemy drives a devastating kick to the side of her head. Anjali flops to the ground and doesn’t move.”
  • After the fight, Anjali jumps up and “tackles the leader [Kaw]… Anjali thrust a fist at his head, pounding his muzzle into the earth. She follows up relentlessly, thumping Kaw again and again and again until he goes limp.”
  • When Leo and his friends are taken to a village, an archer fires. “The arrow punctures Zoya’s ear, pinning it to the tree. She winces but makes no complaint.”
  • When a Singa looks Mandar in the eye, “the elder strikes Mandar in the face, raking his muzzle with extended claws. Mandar yowls and crumples to the ground.”
  • Leo and his friends are offered a squirrel for a meal. “Zoya bites the head and half the body from the squirrel…” Singas don’t usually eat rodents.
  • The village leader wants Leo to trust a Maguar named Wajid. The leader “removes the bone dagger strapped to his chest. Before I know what has happened, Abba swipes my hand and then Wajid’s hand… pressing my stinging palm into Wajid’s.” Mixing blood will bond the two.
  • As Leo and his group are traveling, they are attacked by slaycons. Anjali’s “first and second arrows find two slaycons behind their foreleg, penetrating their hearts and killing them instantly… One beast, punctured with three arrows, floats away in water tinted with its own blood.” During the fight, “Stick’s face is sprayed with slaycon blood. His cry of complaint is drowned out by the wail of the wounded beast. It spins for a bite at Wajid as we roll by, but Wajid swings his weapon and chops off the slaycon’s lower jaw.” Stick is bitten in the leg, but the others are uninjured. The slaycon attack is described over seven pages.
  • When Mandar reports to Tamir, Tamir wants to keep Mandar’s secret from being told. Tamir’s daughter “draws a blade and strikes the unarmed Mandar… Dead. Tamir steps over Mandar’s fallen body. Amara sheaths her blade and follows.”
  • When Abdu finds Leo and his group in a temple, he goes to hit Wajid, but a Jin stops him. The Jin’s “moves are unnaturally quick, flashes of silver and white in the dim firelight. She grabs Abdu’s attacking arm and redirects his motion until he is off balance. In a blink, she steps behind the big Paladin and sweeps his legs, sending him crashing to the floor.” The Jin changed from the form of a squirrel to a lion until all of the attackers are defeated. The fight is described over two pages.
  • When Tula, who is a Jin, begins to shift, he “must be destroyed before the transformation is complete.” Two other Jins attack and “pounce on their fellow Jin. The battle is brutal and swift… Kaitan finishes Tula off by stomping on his skull with a sickening crunch of bone.”
  • When the Paladins try to bind Leo and his group, a Jin “rises up in Leo form and throws a surprised Paladin away. She does the same to one after another, throwing, flipping, knocking them to the ground… In seconds, eight Paladins are sprawled out on the grass, gasping and confused.”
  • Wajid and the other Paladin lift Leo, and “they dangle me over the edge of the tower… The two Paladins pitch me over the edge of the tower.” One of the Jin transforms and saves Leo.
  • The Paladins “waste no time marching my friends to the edge of the tower and hurling them both into the air. Stick wails like a wounded cub…” A Jin of a spider saves them.
  • When birds attack Leo and his friends, the spider “pulls them close and spools the beasts in layer after layer of webbing. He mercifully lowers his prisoners to the sea face-up, so they can breathe.”
  • More birds attack and “the minokaw latches on to Zoya’s arm with its foot, digging sharp claws into her flesh. She yowls. Stick sinks his teeth into the minokaw’s foot while Wajid sends three rapid punches into the minokaw’s stomach until it releases Zoya. . . Magmar drives his two feet into the minokaws’ chest, killing them instantly.”
  • Leo is told how the demon Hasatamara came to be. Before he was a demon, he killed his brother.
  • Leo and his friends hide in a cave, but soldiers find them. “Magmar drops from the ceiling and quickly pins one intruder to the floor, while Wajid tackles the other… Wajid’s challenger wriggles free and knocks Wajid to the ground, then swings a blade at Magmar. The giant spider dodges the attack and seizes the soldier by the throat.” No one is injured.
  • Leo’s mother is thrown over a cliff. “Mira plunges below the edge of the cliff and out of sight. Magmar bounds after her, but he’s too late.” The Red Firewing saves Mira.
  • Leo and his friends battle the Maguar leader and her friends over several chapters. During the fight, soldiers “roll Magmar to the lip of the cliff, brutally stabbing and tearing his body as they go. Screeching with pain and fury and gushing blood… a badly wounded Magmar tumbles over the edge to the sea, where he will surely meet his death on sharp rocks.” Several people are killed.
  • When Leo is about to lose the battle, he calls for a legion, and “the whole battlefield trembles and shifts like ripples of wind on water. All at once, millions of mice rise up from the dirt, announcing themselves with terrible squealing.” The mice swarm the soldiers, “pulling warriors down, filling their mouths and ears, smothering and suffocating.” Leo calls off the mice before the men are killed.
  • During the battle, a group of Maguar helps Leo. “…Not only Abba but several members of his family are among the dead.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Zoya calls her brother “brick brain” once.
  • The Maguar calls Leo’s race “demonics.” In one scene, a Maguar calls them “stinking, sneaking, demonics.”

Supernatural

  • The Maguar leader wants to find the Axis of the Ancients. “Somehow the Axis makes it possible for the Four Guardians to be on earth at the same time without killing the Shakyah or causing devastation to the world around them.” The Maguar leader is hoping the Four Guardians will go into battle with her.
  • Leo is a Spinner who is compelled to tell stories. When they are telling a story, a vision appears, which only the Spinner can see. When the story ends, “a character or creature is always left behind when the disease hits me. These beings are faded, ghostly, and freakish.” Leo tries to hide the fact that he is a Spinner, but he often has these visions. When a character from the vision appears, Leo can talk to them.
  • Leo learns that Spinners “are gateways to and from another world. The fictions are gifts from Alayah, sent through Spinners, gifts of wisdom and truth. For a few powerful Spinners, beings from the stories are pulled into our world to protect and serve the one who brought them here.”
  • When a Spinner is a Shakyah, they have special power. When they say, “the name of a Jin, it is flesh and blood like all creatures in this world. When its earthly body is destroyed, or when the Shakyah who brought it dies, the Jin returns to the haven.”
  • Leo has dreams that “let me see things that have happened, or things that will happen.”
  • Hasatamara is a demon locked inside a mountain. “Hasatamara is the fabled sea demon who was drawn onto land by the salty scent of blood spilled in a prehistoric war… He rose up with a mighty wave and flooded much of the earth.”
  • When Leo spins a story, a ghostlike, transparent tortoise appears. When an archer shoots at his friend, Leo says the tortoise’s name. “The Black Tortoise’s name is accompanied by a thundering boom, like having your head dunked underwater. The air ripples outward from Lamasura [the tortoise]. Everything becomes deadly still, frozen in time.” Leo is able to grab the arrow and save his friend. Then, “the boom sounds again, and things return to normal.”
  • When a being comes from “the Haven, a world beyond ours,” they are called Jin. The being wants to return to their world. In order to send them back, Leo only has to say “I am willing.”  When he says the words, “Instantly a fluttering sensation fills my chest. A cavity of light blasts out of my ribs. The brightness swirls and expands until my upper body is replaced by a vision of the Haven, where countless beings orbit an unearthly light.” The tortoise steps into the light and disappears.
  • Leo discovers that “if Jin are kept in this world too long, they become sick. Eventually they shift and become servants of the demon.”
  • Lamasura, one of the Four Guardians, can bend time.

Spiritual Content

  • Singas believe that the Maguar’s god, Alayah, is a “make-believe god.”
  • Leo questions, “If Alayah is so powerful and so good, couldn’t Alayah free the Jin?” Leo and a Jin discuss Alayah’s nature and how Alayah wants people to decide to do what’s right.
  • The Jin of a spider appears. The Jin, Magmar, is known for being deceptive. Leo wonders, “If Alayah is tricking him again by sending him here. Maybe what the spider means for bad, Alayah will use for good.”
  • Daviyah was a Maguar who died and “Daviyah’s spirit dwells in the Red Firewing, like all he Shakyahs before him.”
  • One of the Jin says, “The Ancients say if we trust Alayah with every step, Alayah makes the path clear.”
  • A Jin says, “Trust in Alayah with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”

The Siege of MacIndaw

The kingdom is in danger. Renegade Knight Sir Keren has succeeded in overtaking Castle MacIndaw and now is conspiring with the Scotti. The fate of Aralean rests in the hands of two young adventurers: the Ranger, Will, and his warrior friend, Horace. Yet for Will, the stakes are even higher because inside the castle, held hostage, is someone he loves. Now the time has come for this once apprentice to grow up.

Will and Horace join together to free Alyss, defeat Keren, and return the castle to its rightful leader. Along the way, Will and Horace must work with the Sorcerer of the North and the Skandians. As the allies work together, they learn that things are not always as they seem. The group of unlikely allies will put their lives on the line when they siege the castle MacIndaw.

Fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice series will enjoy this action-packed story that shows Will’s and Horace’s personal growth. They are no longer apprentices who can rely on others for advice. In order to survive, they need to use their individual strengths to overcome Sir Keren. Unlike previous books in the series, Sir Keren is a well-developed villain who shows moments of weakness and uncertainty. Sir Keren’s behavior highlights the importance of keeping a vow and the unintended consequences of being an oath breaker.

The sixth installment of the Ranger’s Apprentice series is full of action, intrigue, and unexpected twists. The story explores how people react to things that they don’t understand. When strange lights are seen in the forest, people believe that a powerful sorcerer is using black magic. Will and Horace are able to use this belief to their advantage. Even though the reader knows that the “sorcerer” uses illusions to trick people, the illusions still add interest to the story.

 The Siege of MacIndaw ends with an epic battle. However, the battle for MacIndaw is more violent, bloody, and descriptive than the previous books. In The Siege of MacIndaw both Will and Horace have grown into adults, so the story hits on more mature topics such as loyalty, love, and sacrifice. However, the story leaves the reader with a satisfying picture of Will and Horace, who have built a stronger friendship and turned into trustworthy men who have each other’s backs. The Siege of MacIndaw will satisfy fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice series and leave readers reaching for the next book, Erak’s Ransom.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The Skandians plan to sell Buttle into slavery. When the Skandians’ ship begins to sink, they unchain Buttle. He “seized his chance. He grabbed a knife from one man’s belt and slashed it across his throat. Another rower tried to stop him, but he was off balance, and Buttle struck him down as well. Then he was over the rail and swimming for the bank.”
  • A Skandian wearing a horned helmet questions Horace’s ability to lead. “Horace stepped forward, grabbed a horn in each hand and lifted the helmet clear of the head. Before the man could properly protest, Horace had slammed the unpadded heavy iron headpiece back down, causing Nile’s knees to buckle and his eyes to cross slightly under the impact… He felt the iron grip seize his beard and was jerked violently forward.”
  • Will, Horace, and a group of Skandians ambush a party of Scotti in order to get information. Will shoots an arrow at a Scotti general, and “the arrow seared through the tendons and nerves in the wrist, the immediate shock of the wound depriving the hand of all feeling… robbing MacHaddish of the strength to brandish the huge sword.” Two other Scotti come to MacHaddish’s defense. Will fired an arrow “dropping one of them to the snow, dead in this tracks. Then the other was all over him, screaming hate and revenge, sword going back for a killing stroke.” Horace jumps in and throws “a solid right uppercut to his [the Scotti’s] jaw. The Scotti’s eyes rolled up in his head and his knees collapsed under him. He fell face down in the soft snow, unconscious.” The battle is described over three pages.
  • When MacHaddish escapes, Will goes after him. When MacHaddish sees Will, he “reacted almost without thinking, hurling himself forward… he lowered his shoulder and drove it into the cloaked figure.” As they fight, MacHaddish slashes with his dirk. Will “felt the blade slice easily through his cloak and kicked out flatfooted at the Scotti’s left knee.” When Will reaches for his scabbard, MacHaddish attacks. “Desperately, Will skipped backward, feeling the blade slash through his jerkin, a trickle of blood running down his ribs. His mouth had gone dry with fear.”
  • As Will and MacHaddish fight, MacHaddish uses his body weight to pin Will down. Horace appears just in time. “The heavy brass pommel of Horace’s sword slammed into the Scotti’s temple twice in rapid succession,” knocking MacHaddish unconscious. The fight between Will and MacHaddish is described over seven pages.
  • While seizing the castle, Horace uses a ladder to get over the castle walls. Horace “cut the first man down with ease. The second came at him, Horace deflected his halberd thrust, seized his collar and propelled him over the inner edge of the walkway. The man’s startled cry cut off abruptly with a heavy thud as he hit the flagstones of the courtyard.”
  • Will joins the fight and begins firing arrows. One of the men “staggered, screaming, as an arrow appeared in his thigh. Three men dead or wounded in a matter of seconds.”
  • In order to free a prisoner, Will tries to climb the stairs leading to the tower. Will surprised a man who was waiting above him. Will “continued his upward movement and lunged, feeling the saxe knife bite into flesh. The man cried out in pain and stumbled forward.” In order to get up the stairs, Will sends a “volley of ricocheting shots” up the stairs and injures the man. “Will grabbed his shirt front and heaved him down the stairs, sending him crashing into the outer wall, then tumbling head over heels down the staircase. Then he was silent, the only sound his inert body sliding a few meters farther down the stairs.”
  • During the attack, Horace and Buttle fight. Another man joins in to help Horace. When Horace looked back, “he saw the club fall from Trobar’s nerveless fingers as Buttle withdrew the sword from a thrust in the giant’s side. Trobar clutched at the sudden fierce pain, feeling his own hot blood course over his fingers… He saw that Buttle was about to thrust at him again and, hopelessly, threw up his arm to ward off the sword. The point of the blade thrust into his massive forearm, sliding through muscle and flesh, jarring the bone.”
  • Horace steps in to defend Trobar. When Buttle realizes he will lose the fight, he begs for mercy. When Horace thinks back to all of Buttle’s cruel deeds, he “grabbed Buttle by the front of his shirt and heaved him to his feet. As part of the same movement, Horace hit him with a short, savage right cross, perfectly timed, perfectly weighed, perfectly executed… Buttle screamed as he felt his jaw dislocate.”
  • Keren mesmerizes Alyss and commands her to kill Will. Will is able to break Alyss’s trance. While Will is comforting Alyss, Keren attacks. “Will regained his feet, the saxe knife sliding from its scabbard just in time to parry a side cut.” When Keren gets the upper hand on Will, Alyss picks up a bottle of acid. “She seized the weapon and moved to where Keren had trapped Will in a corner. The point of the sword was now leveled at Will’s throat… Keren smashed Will’s grip by the massive force of a two-handed overhead stroke.” Alyss throws the acid at Keren, and “his scream was terrible as the acid burned into his skin and eyes. The pain was excruciating, and he dropped the sword, clawing at his face, trying to ease the dreadful burning.” Keren eventually falls out the window. “His scream was long and drawn out—a mixture of pain and blind fear. It hung in the night above his falling body, like a long ribbon trailing behind him. Then, abruptly, it stopped.” Keren dies. The seize of the castle is described over 36 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Will thinks back to a banquet where ale was served.
  • Buttle went to the inn and demanded: “the finest food, wine and ale when he was visiting…”
  • Many of the Skandians had “bellies on them that suggested they might be overly fond of ale.”
  • A Skandian gave Horace a “beaker full of spirit.”
  • After Alyss broke out of her prison, a “healer had given her a sleeping potion and had put her to bed.”

Language

  • Will surprised a Skandian who cried, “Thurank’s horns! Where the devil did you spring from?”
  • Horace jokingly calls Will an oaf.
  • A man calls someone an idiot.
  • A man calls someone a fool.
  • After MacHaddish almost kills Will, Will yells, “Of course I’m not all right, you idiot! He damn near killed me!”
  • “For god’s sake” is used as an exclamation three times. For example, when Horace questions Will, Will says, “For god’s sake! Stop trying to make me worry!”
  • “My god” is used as an exclamation twice.
  • Damn and hell are used occasionally. For example, when a man interrupts Keren, he yells, “Get out, damn you!”
  • Hell is used several times. For example one of the Skandians says, “He’d better be one hell of a warrior.”
  • The Skandians use the exclamations “For Loka’s sake” and “Gorlog’s beard.”
  • Keren yells at one of the soldiers, “Get up, you yellow-skinned coward!”
  • A man calls Keren a fool.
  • Horace asks a man, “You really are a gutless piece of scum, aren’t you?”

Supernatural

  • Keren used a blue gemstone to hypnotize Alyss. “The stone had become the trigger for his posthypnotic suggestions. All he had to do was order her to look at it and within a few seconds, she would be mesmerized again.” When Keren uses the stone, Alyss’s “eyes fell to the beautiful orb as he rolled it gently back and forth on the tabletop. As ever, she could feel it drawing her in, filling her consciousness.”

 Spiritual Content

  • Horace saves Will from being killed. “Thank God, he thought, he had made it just in time.”
  • In order to get information out of MacHaddish, trickery is used. MacHaddish is lead to believe that “the dark demon Serthreck’nish is abroad in this forest, watching us stand here.” Serthreck’nish is a demon that is known as the soul stealer, “the flesh eater, the renderer, the tearer of limbs—Serthreck’nish was all these things and more. It was the demon, the ultimate evil in Scotti superstition. Serthreck’nish didn’t just kill his victims. He stole their souls and their very being, feeding on them to make himself stronger. If Serthreck’nish had your soul, there was no hereafter, no peace at the end of the long mountain road. And there was no memory of the victim either…”
  • “Gorlog was a lesser Skandian deity who had a long beard, curved horns and fanglike teeth.”
  • While seizing the castle, Will “breathed a silent prayer of thanks that there were not archers with longbows or recurve bows on the castle wall.”
  • After saying goodbye to his friends, Will tells his horse, “Thank God I still have you.”

Red Queen #1

In the Kingdom of Norta, the silver blood nobility rule over the red blood commoners. While the Silver enjoy luxury, life without strife, and supernatural powers, the Reds live in poor villages, forced into a war they don’t want, and powerless against their Silver rulers. Mare Barrow is a young, Red girl simply trying to get by. After her brothers are shipped off to war, Mare steals money and food to survive, helping her parents and younger sister when she can. When she meets the mysterious Cal, her whole world is flipped upside down. He helps assign Mare to the royal Silver court, where she discovers Cal is the crown prince.

After an accident where Mare falls onto a dome of magical lightning, she discovers she has a power just like the Silvers (a supposed impossibility). To cover up her newfound power, the King forces Mare into the role of a lost Silver princess, betrothing her to his youngest son, Maven.

As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she begins to fall in love with Maven’s older brother, Cal. A budding love won’t stop Mare from supporting her family and fellow Reds.  In order to fight the Silvers from inside the palace, Mare secretly joins the Red freedom group. With every step she takes, danger closes in around her. If she steps the wrong way, Mare and everyone she loves will certainly die.

Red Queen focuses on the struggle surrounding the Silver and Red caste systems. For anyone born with Silver blood, life is incredibly easy and much of that luxury is created through the hard work of the lower caste of the Reds. Reds are basically soldiers for the Silvers, as the Silvers send Reds to fight in a war with a neighboring nation, the Lakelands. This gap in the social hierarchy and the ways in which the Silvers flaunt their status create a suspenseful, dangerous situation for any Red, like Mare, that interacts with a Silver because the Silvers can punish the Reds for any reason.

The story unfolds from Mare’s point of view, which allows the reader to see Mare’s inner thoughts, anxieties, and frustrations. However, Mare isn’t the most likable main character. Mare is the typical YA heroine, who is poor, but not particularly perceptive. Despite being described as knowing how to read people, she falls into numerous traps. Even though Mare is clearly on the side of the Reds, she manages to depict both sides in equal light, showing how both the Silvers and Reds can be kind or cruel.

The novel’s main theme is betrayal, which allows Mare to learn not to trust others. This theme of betrayal makes the plot predictable and a bit slow-paced. However, both the politics of the Norta Silver court and the action scenes, which include some spectacular fights, help make up for the slow pace. The Silvers aren’t entirely unified, which leads to some interesting scenes that pit the Silver caste against its own. Mare’s growing love for Cal, the crown prince, also helps to balance out the story. Red Queen leaves readers with a cliffhanger that will leave them dying to know what happens in the next book, Glass Sword.

Sexual Content

  • Gisa, Mare’s younger sister, has a crush on Mare’s friend. After Mare mentions him, Gisa’s “skin flushes bright red at the mention of him. She even giggles, something she never does. But I don’t have time for her schoolgirl crush, not now.”
  • Cal, the elder prince, is regularly tasked with dealing with suitors. Mare watches as a noble girl’s “gaze lands on Cal—I mean the prince—trying to entice him with her doe eyes or the occasional flip of her honey-blond hair.”
  • When Mare and Maven go to see Cal, they see him removing his armor. Mare thinks, “He doesn’t notice me at first; he’s focused on removing more of his armor. It makes me gulp.” Later, she’s close to Cal and thinks, “Unable to meet his gaze, I focus on what’s right in front of me. Unfortunately, that happens to be his chest and a much-too-thin shirt.”
  • Mare realizes she’s beginning to fall for Cal. While visiting her home, she thinks, “What can I say? That he’s kind? That I’m beginning to like him?” Later on, she kisses him. “His lips are on mine, hard and warm and pressing. The touch is electrifying, but not like I’m used to. This isn’t a spark of destruction but a spark of life.”
  • Mare also kisses Maven. She notes, “His kiss is not at all like his brother’ Maven is more desperate, surprising himself as much as me.”

Violence

  • At the beginning of the novel, two Silvers, Samson and Cantos, fight each other. Before Samson “can hope to stand, Cantos is over him, heaving him skyward. He hits the sand in a heap of what can only be broken bones but somehow rises to his feet again.” Immediately after, “Samson spits, sending a sunburst of silver blood across the arena.” Samson takes control of Cantos’s mind, causing Cantos to kill himself. “Another twist of Samson’s hand and silver blood splashes across the sand as Cantos plunges his sword straight through his armor, into the flesh of his own stomach.”
  • After a mass panic, Mare is attacked by a Silver. A “frothing blue wave knocks me sideways, into churning water. It’s not deep, no more than two feet to the bottom, but the water feels like lead.” Mare watches as her sister is attacked, Gisa’s “eyes are on mine as he brings the butt of his gun down, shattering the bones in her sewing hand.”
  • At a Silver fighting arena, Mare watches as “birds dive headfirst into the lightning shield, bursting in little clouds of blood, feathers, and deadly electricity, my awe turns to disgust. The shield sparks again, burning up what’s left of the birds until it shines like new.”
  • Mare falls onto the lightning shield. Mare’s “head bangs against the shield, and I see stars. No, not stars. Sparks. The shield does its job, lighting me up with bolts of electricity. My uniform burns, scorched and smoking, and I expect to see my skin do the same.” After Mare gets back on her feet, she tries to run from angry Silvers who shoot at her. As she runs, “a blast of gunfire explodes over my head, forcing me to drop to the floor.”
  • Mare’s kingdom, the Kingdom of Norta, is at war with the Lakelanders, another nation. Maven tells Mare, “I spent three years in the barracks, following Cal and officers and generals, watching soldiers fight and die for a war no one believed in. Where Cal saw honor and loyalty, I saw foolishness. I saw waste. Blood on both sides of the dividing line, and your people gave so much more.”
  • A group of Reds plan to assassinate prominent Silvers. In the aftermath of the assassination, Mare witnesses as “Sonya screams nearby, bent over the body of Reynald. The spry old Ara wrestles her off the corpse, pulling her away from the chaos. Reynald’s eyes stare glassily up at the ceiling, reflecting the red light.”
  • After the assassination, Mare trips and “lands face-to-face with a corpse, staring at Colonel Macanthos’s scar. Silver blood trickles down her face, from her forehead to the floor. The bullet hole is strange, surrounded by gray, rocky flesh.”
  • After the assassinations, the group of Reds responsible are found and tortured. Mare sees that the torturer “is not gentle, wrenching out Farley’s wounded arm. Farley yelps in pain but still says nothing.”
  • In order to free the Reds, Mare attacks two Silvers and gets hurt. “The bullet hits me in the stomach, but my lightning blazes up the metal rail, through his skin, and into the healer’s brain. Pig-Eyes shouts, firing his own gun. The bullet digs into the wall, missing me by inches.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Cal likes to visit Red bars. When Cal tells Mare the palace is stuffy, she says, “And crowded bars, Red bars, aren’t?”
  • Oliver, one of the boys that Mare trains with, clutched a “sloshing drink.” He grabs onto Cal, but “Cal shifts out of Oliver’s grip. The drunk windweaver doesn’t seem to notice and keeps babbling.”
  • When going through her mentor’s room, Mare notices “the bottle of brown liquor on the table, occupying a spot usually reserved for tea.”

Language

  • Lucas, Mare’s personal guard, doesn’t like his cousin, Evangeline. He tells Mare, “Evangeline is a bitch.” Mare echoes this sentiment later on, saying, “Evangeline Samos is a bloodthirsty jerk.”
  • After the royal ball is bombed, Maven says, “Bastards.”
  • After the bombing, the Queen says the Reds “are a disease.”

Supernatural

  • Silvers use magic to help them rule over the Reds. They are sometimes seen as gods. As Mare states, “The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.”
  • Whispers are Silvers with the rare ability to enter someone’s head, read someone’s thoughts, and control someone’s mind.
  • When Mare and her sister try to enter a Silver city illegally, Mare’s ID is scrutinized by a Silver guard. Mare thinks, “I wonder if he’s a whisper too and can read my mind. That would put an end to this little excursion very quickly and probably earn me a cable noose around my neck.”
  • Swifts are Silvers that can enhance their speed. After Samson kills Cantos, Swifts rush in to help. “A few are swifts, rushing to and fro in a blur as they herd us out.”
  • A nymph is a Silver that can manipulate water.
  • Telkies are Silvers that can levitate objects.
  • A greeny is a manipulator of plants and earth. Mare watches as a “florist runs his hands through a pot of white flowers and they explode into growth, curling around his elbows.”
  • Strongarms are Silvers that have superhuman strength. Mare notices “A Silver next to me clenches his fist and pounds on the bar, sending spider cracks through the solid rock top.”
  • A cloner is a Silver that can clone themselves. When Mare is caught stealing by a cloner, she thinks, “And then there are three of them, four, five, six, surrounding us in the crowd.”
  • The King is a burner who can control fire. Mare watches as fire “seems to burn against his inky black hair flecked with gray.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Jonathan Planman

The Spinner Prince

Prince Leo is next in line for the throne of Singara, a land ruled by super-evolved felines. As a thirteen-year-old, Leo is small for his age. But like all thirteen-year-olds, Leo must prove his worth by hunting a deadly beast called a slaycon. If Leo kills the beast, he will still face many obstacles, including keeping his uncle from taking the thrown. Leo’s uncle will stop at nothing to gain power and control. And once he does, he will invade the neighboring pride.

In Singara, all fiction is outlawed and anyone who tells a story is exiled. Leo must hide the fact that he is a Spinner. Leo has been taught that, “Spinners are cursed with a dangerous disease officially known as the fiction affliction or story sickness, which causes them to spew fiction without warning.” When Leo tells stories, they come alive in visions. After Leo tells a story, one character is left behind. Leo can make the character disappear or he can bring them into his world. Each character wants to help Leo, but Leo just wants them to go away.

The future of Singara is in Leo’s hands. Can he conceal his curse, claim the throne, and protect his realm? Or will he embrace his power and discover a far greater destiny?

Leo’s adventure will take readers into an interesting world where felines consider fiction to be poisonous to the mind. The pride values strength, tradition, and science. Even though Leo’s grandfather has declared Leo the heir to the throne, some of the pride believe Leo’s uncle should be king because Leo’s father is unknown. Much like the Lion King, The Spinner Prince is a story about political unrest, friendship, and fighting evil.

Leo tells his own story which allows readers to understand his fears and concerns. While Leo has a good heart, he often makes unwise decisions. However, along the way, Leo learns the importance of relying on and trusting others. Each member of Leo’s group must work together if they are to succeed in stopping the war.

The Spinner Prince isn’t only a story about Leo. Because Leo is a Spinner, he often recites stories that are based on folktales from many cultures and traditions. However, readers who are familiar with the Bible will recognize the parallels. Each chapter begins with Sayings of the Ancients, which give a piece of wisdom, such as, “You make yourself by the choices you make.”

The Spinner Prince is full of action, intrigue, and interesting characters. Both Leo and the reader will wonder who can be trusted. Although the story is interesting, the complicated plot and large cast of characters make The Spinner Prince best for strong readers. As Leo learns untold truths, he will begin questioning his societies’ beliefs. A wise shepherd tells Leo, “It is hard to be a Spinner. It is much worse to hate yourself for it. We have been raised to view ourselves as afflicted instead of gifted, but that is just another lie we Singas tell.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Leo is hiding the fact that he is a Spinner because “if the disease is proven, Spinners get banished and live among the exiles on the other side of the Great Mountain, right after having their tongues cut out of their heads and nailed to a post in the city.”
  • As a rite of passage, Leo must kill a slaycon before the slaycon kills him. The hunt is described over 17 pages.
  • When Leo sees the slaycon, Storm, he uses a slingshot to throw a stone. “The stone sails across the water and pounds the brute in the snout. . . Storm recoils and whimpers with the impact. He shakes his head, snarls, and charges straight into the river.”
  • Strom struggles to cross the river. Leo believes he can slay Storm, but when he approaches the slaycon, “His tail blurs and I’m knocked off my feet. The blade flies from my hand. I hit the ground and roll away while Storm springs to his feet. . .” Leo runs and Strom falls behind.
  • Leo pretends to be injured and writhes. When Storm pounces, Leo loops “the bag over his head, yanking it all the way up to their ears, and pulling the drawstring. . .I reach for my dagger as Storm’s tail sweeps the ground and flings my legs out from under me. . . I land in a heap and scamper on all fours like a panicky insect to my blade.”
  • While Storm’s head is caught in the bag, Leo hesitates to kill him. When Storm gets the bag off of his head, he “charges, preparing to bite. I [Leo] dodge and my blade lands behind his head, lopping off an ear as I roll to the ground. . . Strom howls, spins, and leaps. I dive under him and land a decent slice to his underside and another to his right back foot. Blood squirts into my face and torso.” Then, Leo climbs into a tree.
  • Leo uses his sling to shoot at Storm. “The pellet vanishes into the tunnel of Storm’s throat. However, Storm is too focused on my foot to notice or care. His mouth does not close. Instead it reaches higher, mouth agape, pushing himself on his tail. His jaws snap, and I feel teeth puncturing my right leg.” Leo goes numb and falls from the tree.
  • During a meal to celebrate Leo as the official heir to the throne, his cousin Tamir makes a scene. A soldier, Kayden, “hisses and thumps Tamir on the side of the head, raking his face with extended claws. Tamir makes no effort to defend himself, and the blow sends him staggering to his knees. . . Kayden hits him again with such force, I want to look away. Another blow follows. And another.” Leo’s grandfather orders Tamir to be killed, but Leo steps in. Tamir’s tail is cut off and he is thrown in prison.
  • When Leo gets to the academy, he must walk in the middle of two lines of cadets. As Leo walks, a cadet “huffs a little roar and thrust her blade at my head. I instinctively dodge the attack, and a cadet from the opposite line sweeps my leg, sending me crashing to the ground. . . The next cadet comes at me with his blade, this time a jab to my ribs. I bend my body around the blade, and a different cadet from the opposite line once again sweeps my leg and drops me.” After being hit, Leo closes his eyes and continues the walk. He can feel “a breeze pass over my muzzle. With another step, a blade whistles behind my head and down my back.” He makes it through the line uninjured.
  • During a practice battle, “Zoya and 10-2 square off. The brawny 10-2 surges forward, plowing into Zoya’s middle and forcing her down. He backflips over Zoya, but Zoya locks her hind legs around 10-2’s waist and uses their combined momentum to launch herself upright and on top of 10-2. Zoya slams 10-2 to the ground, sits on his torso, and bashes him in the head with one fist, knocking him momentarily senseless.” Leo steps in to help and conjures Rukan, who “snatches me up in his great mouth. With a flick of his head, Rukan launches me into the crowd. . . Rukan snatches her [Amara] in midair between his teeth and flings her aside. She too crashes into the crowd.” The cadets attack Rukan, who runs away. The scene is described over eight pages.
  • During feeding time, Leo’s cousin, Amara, approaches Leo. “Her claws sink into my pelt, causing me to wince and tremble.” Zoya sticks up for Leo and “tackles Amara, and pulls her to the floor. Amara kicks and screeches, but without success. Zoya has her pinned to the floor. . .Then we are all on our feet, lashing out like wild animals defending their last scrap of territory.” Leo’s friends are getting “pummeled.” The cadets fight until the Alpha stops them. The scene is described over three pages.
  • While leaving the academy, Leo and his squadron are taken through a mountain tunnel, where giant leeches live. “The slimy wretches circle around Stick’s and Zoya’s feet, then latch on to the legs of my karkadann. He rears up and kicks.” Anjali tries to hack off the leeches and “drives a blade point into the head of a leech. . . the skewered creature squeals and twists under the blade.”
  • In order to repel the leeches, Leo rubs their blood over his pelt. Someone “snatches the tail end of the nearest one, lifts it high with one hand, and plunges her blade deep into its wriggling body.” The leeches are held over Leo’s head and, “Hot sticky blood spills onto my head and shoulders.” The leech scene is described over three pages.
  • A group of soldiers surrounds Leo and his friends. In order to escape, Leo summons a draycon, who “leaps at the soldiers and knocks five of them off their feet with one swat of his tail.” Leo and his friends flee, but they tell the draycon, “Make sure those soldiers stay far away from here.”
  • While riding in a carriage, soldiers try to take Leo and his grandfather hostage. Leo uses a trap door to get out of the carriage. When the soldiers see him, they shoot arrows. “The first arrow zings harmlessly overhead. The second implants itself in the rump of one Karkadann. He screeches and quickens his pace, forcing his partner to keep up.” Leo is the only one that escapes.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone gave Leo a pellet that would mask Leo’s scent. Leo discovers that the pellet was poison.

Language

  • Someone calls Leo a “royal bastard” because no one knows how his father is.
  • One of the cadets tells Leo, “Prince of not, you have to watch your step with Jakal and Alpha. If you cross them, they will put a foot so far up your dirt hole, you will cough out a big toe.”

Supernatural

  • Being a Spinner is considered a disease. A Spinner is compelled to tell stories. When they are telling the story, a vision appears that only the Spinner can see. When the story ends, “a character or creature is always left behind when the disease hits me. These beings are faded, ghostly, and freakish.” Leo tries to hide the fact that he is a Spinner, but he often has these visions. When a character from the vision appears, Leo can talk to them.
  • Leo learns that Spinners “are gateways to and from another world. The fictions are gifts from Alayah, sent through Spinners, gifts of wisdom and truth. For a few powerful Spinners, beings from the stories are pulled into our world to protect and serve the one who brought them here.”
  • Leo has a vision of a great hunter. He describes it as a “three-sixty waking dream.” The story of a hunter is described over two pages. When the story ends, the hunter is “in the halfway state: ghostly, phantasmal. I can almost look through him. . .”
  • Leo can summon the characters from his stories. During the slaycon hunt, Leo summons a hunter, Oreyon. “When Oreyon appears, he is no longer a phantom, a quasi-physical apparition. He is real. Vivid. Solid. Completely in the world.” Oreyon gives Leo advice on how to win the hunt.
  • When Leo is bitten by the slaycon, he dies. Leo meets Daviyah the “Eleventh Skahyah in your world.” While there, Leo thinks, “We Singas don’t believe anything goes on after death. When you die, that’s it. You’re done.” Daviyah explains, “What you call death is only a door. You have crossed the threshold of that door, but you cannot stay.” When Leo returns to his body, Daviyah tells him, “I am always with you.”
  • During a story, a sage appears and “wraps her hands around my [Leo’s] wound and mumbles strange words. I tremble. . .” Because of the sage, Leo’s wound heals quickly.
  • Grandfather tells Leo about the great war. One of the Maguar was “in some sort of a trance, and yet he spoke with a commanding voice. . .As he spoke, a horde of beasts appeared, slaycon and draycon, giant wolves and bears, serpents as wide as this carriage, and other horrible monsters unknown to the earth.” The creatures attacked the Singa and the “battlefield was awash in blood and covered with bodies of Singas and Maguar alike, though the casualties were heavier on our side. We lost many, many fine warriors in the effort. . .”
  • When Zoya breaks her leg, Leo conjures up a healer. “Instantly, Vishna appears at my side. Without glancing at me, the strange elder squats down and lays her hands on Zoya’s damaged leg. She mutters something in the Old Language.” After healing Zoya’s leg, Vishna leaves.
  • Leo sends the characters from his stories back to where they came from. “Where I would normally find my chest and stomach, there is a patch of blue sky and that glorious light spinning over an infinite sea. Countless winged beings soar and swirl around the light, singing with joy.” One by one, the fictions walk into Leo “disappearing in a flash of light. . . Each creature departs with a flash as it dives into me.” Once every fiction has returned, Daviyah says, “I am proud of you. Alayah is pleased with you.” The scene is described over five pages.

Spiritual Content

  • The Singa and the Maguar are enemies. Leo has never met a Maguar, but he has been told, “They are a superstitious breed, head so full of stories and fantasies about their gods, they wouldn’t recognize a scientific fact if it bit them on the nose . . . Consider the sun. The Maguar believe the sun is a servant of their god, which flies around our planet every day. What nonsense!”
  • The Singa find a hole in a border fence. Leo’s grandfather is afraid that the Maguar will attack. Leo’s grandfather says, “Perhaps their make-believe god has spoken or they have invented a new fiction about the future.”
  • Leo meets a shepherd who can speak the “Old Language.” The shepherd sings “a song of praise to Alayah, blessed be the name.” The shepherd explains the song, “Alayah is known by many different titles. . . One of them is the Lord of Lights. . . We come from the light and we return to the light. A beautiful image, don’t you think?”
  • Leo learns the meaning of faith. An elder tells him, “Faith is a special kind of knowing outside of the evidence, sometimes even contrary to the evidence.”
  • A shepherd tells a story about when humans ruled the earth. Humans “were violent. Greed, bloodshed, and war were common. In time, all the spilled blood flowed like rivers and formed one big pool. Drawn to the scent of salty blood, the great and horrible sea demon, Hasatamara, rose up with a mighty wave and flooded the land to claim it for himself. . . But Alayah, blessed be thy name, punished the sea demon Hasatamara and sealed him into the heart of the mountain.” Alayah saved two humans, who were changed into a new species.
  • The firewing is a messenger of Alayah.
  • The shepherd sings “a prayer of thanks to Alayah for the return of the sun.”

The Relic of Perilous Falls

Will Wilder didn’t mean to unlock his otherworldly gift, but that is exactly what happens when Will “borrows” a sacred relic believed to have protected the town of Perilous Falls for nearly a century. Even though Will’s intentions are good, the impulsive twelve-year-old unwittingly awakens an ancient evil that endangers all of Perilous Falls.

As boats sink and hideous creatures crawl from the rising waters, it is up to Will to confront a nightmarish enemy and set things right before it is too late. Along with his sweet—if lethal—great-aunt Lucille (the curator of a museum of supernatural artifacts), Will proves that the actions of one twelve-year-old boy can change the world.

In The Relic of Perilous Falls, Will goes into a vast underground chamber and must solve riddles to advance to the next room. Similar to Indiana Jones, Will must avoid traps in order to find the treasure. In this case, Will finds a religious relic that can heal people. However, Will doesn’t complete his task alone. Will’s two friends help him solve the riddles in the first two chambers. When Will finds the relic, he abandons his two friends, leaving them alone to fight demonic creatures that are similar to crocodiles.

The story blends humor, action, and adventure to create a fast-paced middle school novel. While these elements will engage readers, readers unfamiliar with the Bible may be confused by the Biblical references. Not only is a Catholic priest one of the main characters, but the relics are from Biblical times. They contain healing properties because “these relics are the remains of holy lives. Each and every bone or scrap of clothing is a physical connection to someone now in the presence of God.”

Like many middle schoolers, Will can be snarky and is often disobedient. Will’s flaws will make him relatable to readers and lead to some humorous scenes. One negative aspect of the story is Will’s parents, who argue often and disagree on how to punish Will. This negative relationship is balanced out by Will’s siblings, who play a minor, though important role. Also, Will’s elderly aunt shows that an older woman can still be physically strong and contribute to the world.

The story’s fast pace and surprises will keep advanced readers entertained until the very end. However, struggling readers may have a difficult time with the large cast of characters, the complicated plot, and the Biblical references. The Relic of Perilous Falls blends Biblical stories into a modern setting, much like the Percy Jackson series does with Greek mythology. In the end, Will is able to defeat evil with the help of other people. However, the conclusion leaves many questions unanswered, which will have readers reaching for the second installment in the series, The Lost Staff of Wonders. Readers looking for other action-adventure stories similar to The Relic of Perilous Falls will also enjoy the Addison Cooke Series by Jonathan W. Stokes.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Jacob Wilder confronts a demon, who has taken over a dead man’s body. “As if wielding a weapon, Jacob Wilder raised a small vial filled with clear liquid and splashed it across the front of the Nazi… The officer quaked and grimaced, madly attempting to scrub away the fluid streaking down his face and uniform… Then as if he were a balloon suddenly drained of air, the Nazi crumbled to the ground.”
  • Will attempts to ride a donkey. The donkey goes crazy, and “the bouncing donkey sent the table’s edge and the cake flying into Aunt Freda’s jaw. She tumbled backward, her face covered in frosting.” Aunt Freda goes to the hospital because “her blood pressure is spiking, and she has a fractured jaw.”
  • When Will was riding the donkey, he accidentally hits a catapult lever and his brother flies out of it. “Leo flew much higher than Will thought possible… Leo smashed shoulder-first into a wooden slat, breaking the top off and flipping into the school yard.” Leo’s arm is broken in two places, and he dislocated his shoulder. The donkey scene is described over three pages.
  • Will watches a news story. A passenger explains that a boat was hit by something and “People were fallin’ off the decks. I grabbed hold of one lady and dragged her to shore. She was breathin’ and all, but couldn’t talk or even close her eyes. He was frozen. Couple of others like that too.”
  • Will’s father is told that “a couple of swimmers—teenagers—were attacked this afternoon downriver… One of the kids is missing.” The surviving teenager says a crocodile or a gator pulled his friend underwater. Later, Will’s dad finds out that the teenagers were “choked to death. Their mouths and lungs were filled with what Sheriff Stout called ‘river trash.’”
  • A pier collapses, and a group of wheelchair-bound kids falls into the water. Two of the campers died.
  • While Aunt Lucille and a man are on a boat, creatures scale the back of the boat. “The monster’s claws crushed the brass rails as it pulled itself up. The green beat with the pointy face of a dragon and round fish eyes expelled a guttural hiss.” Lucille “stretched her arms out, placed her index fingers and thumbs together to form a triangle… Then, extending her arms, a fiery ray of red-and-white light shot from the triangle of her digits. The twelve-foot-long beast was thrown backwards over the water and dissolved into a foul gray ash.” Aunt Lucille kills several beasts, and the man was “slamming his crutch into the creature’s sleek skull… the thing lifelessly slumped over the railing.” The fight is described over three pages, and a picture accompanies it.
  • The crocodile-like creature, the Fomorii, attacks a priest named Shen. The priest “hurled them to nearby rocks or plunged them into the waters with only a stick and his keen instincts… sensing danger, he raised his bloodstained pole. But before he could fully extend it above his head, Shen was lifted into the air by his left foot… The next thing he knew, he was flying toward the shore. Yowling as he drifted, Shen disappeared around a bend in the river.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • Will shows Captain Balor (a demon in disguise) a relic. When Will slips on the river bank, “a gray mass—a tentacle—smacked him hard across the jaw. The relic fell to the ground, as did Will.” After a brief conversation, the demon “held the boy’s lids open, forcing him to take in the full horror of that wicked red gaze. Will’s body went rigid, his eyes blank.” Later, someone puts Elijah’s mantel over Will, which wakes him from his comatose state.
  • While stuck under the church, Will’s friends are chased by giant crocodile-like creatures. Trying to get to the two boys, the creature “slithered inside the wide tunnel to the right. Within moments of entering the tunnel, a terrible grinding sound greeted the Bottom Dweller. It clawed at the walls, attempting to back out, but it was too late. The smooth walls pressed in on the creature, smashing its body in the darkness.”
  • The demon captures Shen and binds him. “Turning his head, Shen realized that he was attached to a slick, rocky wall. Neon green tentacles bound his wrist and ankles… His feet and hands felt numb, as if they had been stung—or were still being stung.” While he is restrained, he is struck. “After several blows, the old man’s shinbone gave way with a dull snap. Fresh blood pooled on his grey pants.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • Will’s friends are trapped under the church and creatures are trying to attack them. In order to help them, Leo “raised the mantel, and struck the oily water with it. A mighty gust of wind pushed the Wilders against the grille… ” The water is pushed to the side and the boys are able to escape. The scenes are described over several chapters.
  • Several times throughout the story, Lucille uses her powers to kill a demon. For example, “the demon wheezed. Its seven heads wriggled wildly in anguish as if they were roasting from the inside. Aunt Lucille showed no emotion. She simply stood her ground, projecting the steady laser of light.” The demons turn to ash.
  • In an epic, multi-chapter battle, Will and Aunt Lucille fight a demon and his Bottom Dwellers. Aunt Lucille uses her power and “the thing clawed at the walls, trying to steady itself. As it struggled, the seven heads glared at the Fomorrii in front of Aunt Lucille and Will… Aunt Lucille continued to pound the demon with her ray. Like insane dogs, the Bottom Dwellers sprang at Will, their jaws wide and bloodthirsty… One by one the reptilian crawlers were turned to reeking purple ash.”
  • During the battle, Will uses the relic to banish the demon. “‘Back, Leviathan!’ Will so wanted to yell. And though he didn’t, the moment he thought it, the Beast flew against the rear wall and slipped into the bubbling black Hell Mouth.” Although the demon is not dead, Perilous Falls is safe from it.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Simon calls his friend a “Muttonhead” once and a moron five times. For example, Simon says, “I guess you’re embarrassed to admit that I saved you from sudden death, moron.”
  • One of Will’s friends says, “holy crab butts!”
  • Heck is used once.
  • When Aunt Lucille sees Will’s boys partly submerged, she says, “Oh, dear Lord!”

Supernatural

  • Several times, Will’s family hears strange sounds and finds “sea shells, fish bones, rocks, and dead beetles raining down in zigzag patterns… ” Once, the collection of trash fell onto the house’s roof. Another time, the trash fell in the house, and then “the flickering lights were gently disintegrating into the windows and up the chimney, and there before him was an immaculate den. Not a hint of a bone or a shell or anything out of the ordinary remained.”
  • A man is injured in a car crash. While the man was lying on the ground, Will saw “a dozen shadowy arms and hands—claws—reaching, grasping for the injured man… scores of smoky claws rising from the street, inching ever closer to the old man.” The claws disappear when Will screams, “Go away! Go away!” The scene is described over two pages.
  • Will is a seer and can see demons.
  • One character is a Sensitive and foresees an event’s outcome.
  • One character is a Repeller, “that means I can repel major demons when I touch my fingers together.” The Repeller uses “Rebutting illuminance… It’s merely spiritual light that repels evil.”
  • One character is a Summoner and “can call down the angels in time of need. The good ones.” The character can also heal people.
  • Simon learns that the Brethren can travel by “Saccophagal peregrination.” If they lay in a sarcophagus, it takes them to a predetermined destination.

Spiritual Content

  • The story revolves around a demon, who has seven faces. At one point, “Balor’s head now bobbed upon a lengthy serpent’s neck, wide and reptilian. Gray scales covered his hulking chest. Massive arms and a set of tentacles jutted out from his sides.”
  • Will must fight the Fomorii, which are minor demons “under the control of a major demon.”
  • A prophecy tells of a time when demons will come and “a young one will come” to unite the Brethren and defeat the demons.
  • Will has been seeing shadows. While he was riding a donkey, he saw a shadow that was “black, like a phantom—right next to me. Everything got icy cold.” Will’s Aunt Lucille tells Will that he has a gift that allows him to see spirits. She says, “…Everywhere we go, there are bright, good spirits and dark, malevolent ones.”
  • As punishment, Will has to help plant trees at a Catholic church. While he is working, a priest tells him about the relic of St. Thomas. The priest says, “People pray to the saint, and his prayers have great power in heaven. Miracles wait on his intercession. Like a magnifying glass focuses on light, so the relic focuses faith.”
  • The priest tells Will about St. Thomas. “The only way he would believe the Savior had risen from the dead was to shove his hand into the Lord’s side and his finger into the nail wounds of Christ.”
  • The relic, St. Thomas’ bone, is hidden inside the church. “For centuries people have claimed miracles happen just from touching it: healings, protection, amazing things.”
  • Aunt Lucille tells Will that the relics are “sacred touchstones. They’re antennae of faith—magnets that draw belief and devotion from us… These relics are the remains of holy lives. Each and every bone or scrap of clothing is a physical connection to someone now in the presence of God. They have real power!”
  • Aunt Lucille tells Will a story from the Bible where a man’s body “touched the bones of the prophet—POW! The man rose from the dead!”
  • A museum has the “remains of the prophet Elijah’s mantel, his cloak. History tells us it can control water and fire, and even allow the wearer to hear the voice of God.” Elijah’s Biblical story is told.
  • Someone tells the Biblical story of Saul becoming the apostle Paul, including how Paul was beheaded.
  • When Elijah’s mantel is put over Will, Will hears a voice that says, “Believe and keep your heart pure and I shall be at your right hand always. Will you heed my words?”
  • Elijah’s mantel heals Will’s brother’s broken arm.
  • Will uses the relic to heal a priest’s battered legs. “In amazement Shen ogled his bent limbs. The bloodstains dissolved from the gray pants, and his legs straightened. The pain that had afflicted him for hours melted away.”
  • When Will shows up, unharmed, his mother “thanked the Almighty.”
  • Two men discuss how “Every war ever started—all the problems of the world—was caused by some religious nut.”
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