Topic: Magic

The Demon Tide

Newly exposed as the Black Witch of Prophecy, Elloren Gardner Grey is on the run. She has finally made it to the Eastern Realm, but the Eastern authorities are convinced the Black Witch has arrived to kill them all as the Prophecy foretells. If there’s any chance of defeating High Mage Marcus Vogel, Elloren must find her friends and make new allies. As Elloren hides from the Eastern authorities, she learns more than ever about different cultures and what’s truly at stake if the Eastern Realm were to fall to Gardneria. With her magic bound, her fastmate captured, and a bounty on her head, Elloren battles intolerance as fierce as she battles Vogel, and uncovers secrets all countries have long since buried.  

The Demon Tide oscillates between the perspectives of Elloren’s friends, building them up as individual characters with distinct loves, fears, and ambitions. Elloren’s brother, Trystan Gardner, and her friend, Tierney Calix, are two prominent perspectives explored. Trystan’s and Tierney’s points of view allow readers to see the war from two fronts. Trystan is reviled because of his Gardnerian heritage, and Tierney is ostracized for befriending him. When Elloren arrives, they do everything in their power to protect her, which is difficult because they have their own romantic lives to distract them. Overall, the author explores twenty perspectives; this overload of perspectives makes things confusing at times and slows the story’s pacing, making the novel seem less eventful.  

Cornered and afraid, Elloren proves herself to be an empowering and intelligent protagonist. She tries to navigate the customs and traditions of the Eastern Realm. Plus, she has strange visions of death and destruction that are seemingly delivering vague warnings she cannot decipher. She grapples with a complicated love that haunts her dreams and distracts her from the waking world. With love at the forefront of everyone’s minds, Elloren and her friends learn how to multitask and see beyond the veil of intolerance and ignorance that seems to exist in every culture.  

Like many long fantasy series, the intricate worldbuilding can be overwhelming at times, with numerous events, characters, and details to track. There is also a lot of exposition required for each character’s background. This bogs down the story and makes it drag. However, the story is powerful and moving, and each character has depth. Many of the characters have been developed over the entire series, delivering potent and thorough perspectives. The author has successfully created a complex fantasy world, complete with diverse cultures, despicable villains, and intricate magic systems to match.  

The series has been building up to the explosive battles and new, official romantic relationships found in The Demon Tide. Readers who love digging into intricate political dilemmas and a kaleidoscope of characters fighting for a good cause will love Forest’s direction in The Demon Tide. Elloren and her friends teach their audience that intolerance is beatable and the best way to fight it is to love yourself and others. Elloren and her friends teach that bravery in the face of fear is necessary and achievable, especially if you rely on your loved ones to support you and ask for help.  

Sexual Content  

  • Freyja, an Amaz soldier, reminisces about a past encounter with her old boyfriend, Clive. “Freyja’s heart twisted as she held Clive’s impassioned stare and remembered. . . sneaking off into the woods. . . falling into each other’s arms. . . and taking each other with an intensity that stole Freyja’s breath and ignited that familiar, piercing yearning to be with Clive always.” 
  • While Trystan, Elloren’s brother, is training in the East, he starts crushing on his guard, Vothe. At one point, he watches Vothe and Basyl (Vothe’s current friend with benefits). Basyl “reaches up, threads his fingers through Vothe’s silver-tipped hair, and pulls him into a sultry, farewell kiss.” Later, Vothe runs his “tongue just below Basyl’s ear as Basyl slithers against [him] enticingly” to provoke Trystan and make him jealous. 
  • While Elloren’s friends, Thierren and Sparrow, are escaping East through the desert, they grow more attracted to one another. One morning, while asleep, Sparrow “presses her lips to the warm nape of [Thierren’s] neck, a thrill singing through her as Thierren shivers against her.” Thierren returns the affection but then realizes that she’s dreaming. He wakes her up, and they’re both embarrassed.  
  • Safe in the East, Elloren has a vision of Vogel’s prisoner, Lukas. His “lips press down on [hers], sending a tight shiver through [her], the kiss suffused with breathless hunger. . . strong hands grip [her] arms, a hard male body fitted to [hers]. An aroused male body.” Elloren realizes that they’re psychically linked and quickly breaks away from Lukas. 
  • While exploring an Eastern market, Elloren witnesses two women “fall into each other, laughing, as if in the midst of some private joke, and the spike-haired woman pulls the flowery woman into an embrace, kissing her deeply.” Elloren moves on without seeing more. 
  • Authorities find Elloren and chase her through the market streets. Elloren runs into her mate, Yvan, and they “kiss like [they’ll] merge straight into each other, [her] fingers knotting in his hair.” They break the passionate kiss to discuss Resistance business. 
  • Similar to Valentine’s Day but more magically induced, the East celebrates a holiday of love that heightens emotions for one evening, complete with a purple moon. Nearly every one of Elloren’s friends kisses or has sex with their partner, crush, or significant other. As the moon settles into effect, Elloren has a “vivid remembrance of Lukas’s lips on [hers], the two of [them] entwined in the forest . . . the memory shifts to a flush-deepening recollection of Yvan’s heated embrace in the North Tower, that night in [her] bed.” 
  • During the purple moon, Elloren’s friend, Tierney, kisses Elloren’s cousin, Or’myr. Tierney “makes an irresistible little sound of surprised pleasure, her full breasts soft against [Or’myr’s] chest, her hand coming up to caress his neck with unmistakable want.” However, the encounter ends quickly, and both decide they do not want to date each other. Later that night, Tierney kisses her friend, Viger, and “her lips meet his in a swirl of darkness.” 
  • To cool down from an argument in the mess hall, Trystan walks to the water, followed by Vothe. While having an emotional conversation, “Trystan grabs hold of him, his lips coming to Vothe’s.” They kiss a bit until Vogel’s forces suddenly arrive at their city. 
  • Elloren’s old professors, Jules Kristian and Lucretia Quillan, are also in the East on holiday. They decide to have their first date. Tired of waiting, Lucretia shows him her Sanjire root (a birth control method) and says, “I’m asking you to kiss me whenever you want from here on in.” They kiss but are interrupted by Vogel’s forces breaching the city. 
  • Elloren’s old friends, Aislinn and Jarod, are in the forest of the East’s capital city during the purple moon. Aislinn asks Jarod to “take [her] to mate.” They go into the woods, and it is implied that they have sex. 
  • Thierren and Sparrow, finally in the East, celebrate this holiday by kissing. “Sparrow falls into [Thierren’s] loving, passionate kiss.” They are interrupted by Vogel’s forces arriving at the city. 
  • Mora, the woman who volunteered to house Elloren in the East, and Elloren’s old professor Fyon, are trying to celebrate the holiday at Mora’s house. Fyon’s hands “slide around her waist and up through her braided hair, his honeyed kiss deepening as Mora traces her fingers down the long column of his neck.” They are kissing when Vogel’s forces arrive and interrupt them.  
  • Vogel gains a form of mind control over Elloren, and Yvan attempts to break it by kissing her. His “mouth claims [hers] once more, forcing a stream of power into [her] that drives Vogel’s hold on [her] back a fraction further.” He is successful and frees her.  
  • Elloren escapes from Vogel into the forest and becomes a Dryad. Yvan and Elloren choose to renew their mating bond by kissing again. Yvan “leans down, eyes molten, and brings his lips to [hers].” They kiss, and then the book ends. 

Violence  

  • In the prologue, Marcus Vogel finds the Shadow Wand and takes it from a Death Fae in the forest. He murders the Fae in the process. He “draws his iron blade and hurls it across the table. The knife slams into [the Fae’s] chest, a look of shock passing over the young man’s face as he falls to the ground.” 
  • Vogel has flashbacks of being abused as a child. “Blows rain on the priest’s face, his small shoulders as he cowers and curls into a pathetic ball, pleading in a child’s voice, Momma, stop. . . no! I repent! I vow to repent!” 
  • At the end of the previous book, Elloren teleports to the East and immediately encounters a creature attacking a family and promptly defeats it. In this book, the teenage girl of the family attacks Elloren. “Her knife finds its mark above [Elloren] with a dull thwack.” However, they make peace, and no harm is done. 
  • As Trystan trains in the East, he’s unpopular because of the color of his skin. Everyone thinks he’s trying to sabotage them from within. An assassin attacks him during training. “She draws back her arm and hurls a silver rune star at Trystan.” He is unscathed, and the assassin is arrested.  
  • Aislinn has successfully escaped from her abusive husband, but Sparrow watches as Aislinn undresses, noting “lash marks all over her form and bruising on her breasts. And bite marks.” 
  • As Trystan tries to save refugees from the river’s current, one of the refugees is suspicious of him because he’s Gardnerian. Once everyone is safe on the boat, the teenage refugee “surges forward and pushes Trystan clear off the boat.” Trystan has recovered safely.  
  • When Aislinn reunites with her crush, Jarod, she tells him about the abuse. Jarod offers to kill her ex-husband, but Aislinn replies, “No, I’ll be the one to kill him.” 
  • Over the course of fourteen pages, the country of the Amaz is attacked and razed to the ground. The Gardnerians surprise the Amaz and storm into the capital city, killing and wounding thousands with enslaved dragons. As an example of the violence, during the battle, “a Mage’s neck snaps back as [a] dragon’s head bursts into a ball of emerald flame, the dark creature’s flight pattern chaotic as the Mage’s wand falls from his hand.” The Mage and the dragon are attacked and killed by the head of the Amaz queen’s guard, Valasca.  
  • Lukas Grey is Vogel’s prisoner, and Vogel sporadically tortures him. “Pain strafes through Lukas’s [magic] lines as he’s hit by a blast of Shadow, a guttural cry escaping his throat as his body spasms.” Lukas’s magic is depleted, and his body is left sore and aching. 
  • During the purple moon, one of Elloren’s friends, Nym’ellia, is attacked by citizens of the East. She cries while saying, “One of them threw a rock at me and it hurt.”  
  • One hundred pages of the novel consist of Vogel’s forces attacking the capital city of the East, and each of Elloren’s friends fighting them off. It starts with the Death Fae, Viger, announcing that he “can sense impending death,” and there’s a loud noise as a mountain in the distance explodes. This starts Vogel’s onslaught, which hurts and kills many citizens of the East. Elloren and Vogel battle, but she escapes in the last thirty pages of the book.  
  • At one point during Elloren’s battle with Vogel, he brings Lukas Grey in front of her and transfers Elloren and Lukas’s marriage-binding magic to himself. Vogel is magically bound to Elloren in marriage and hurts Lukas in the process. Elloren’s “heart tightens with agony” and soldiers “grab hold of Lukas’s bindings, dragging him away.” 
  • As Elloren communes with the trees in the forest, they show her images of the Shadow Wand’s historical destruction. She watches as “an army of grey-eyed Keltish soldiers amassing around the king as they advance on the city. Death everywhere.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • On a national holiday, a friend of the Resistance, Thierren, suggests to Elloren’s friend, Sparrow, that they “start [celebrating] with some forbidden wine.” As the night drags on, the two have a conversation while drunk; Sparrow is “seeming[ly] entranced by the glowing beauty of the rose-flavored spirits.” 
  • While confronting Vogel, Elloren and her old roommate, Ariel, are threatened by him. Ariel has a history of forced addiction; she had been kept in prison and force-fed an opiate-like substance called nilantyr. In this confrontation, Vogel threatens to “shove nilantyr down [Ariel’s] throat until [she] begs for more.” This doesn’t actually happen, and Ariel is now addiction free. 

Language    

  • Language such as stupid, idiot, and hell appear frequently. 
  • The word whore is used three times. 
  • Bitch is used twice, and ass is used once. 

Supernatural  

  • This series contains all manner of supernatural creatures, including magic spiders, horrifying monsters, Fae, demons, Kelpies, Lupines, witches, dragons, Dryads, Amazonian warrior women, Icarals, lizard people, wyverns, Selkies, and people with skin of all colors of the rainbow. 
  • Most of the magic appears in magical battles in two ways. The first is Marcus Vogel’s magical creation of shadow monsters that attack Elloren and her friends. “In unison, the Marfoir grin. Their legs click outward as one, extending then drawing inward once more toward the shield, almost touching it. Curling shadow begins to rise from the tip of each pale spider limb to flow over the [Amaz capital city’s protective] dome, hugging its surface and spreading out, the Marfoir’s forms darkening as the fog of Shadow advances. . . the insectile eyes of the Marfoir directly before [Freyja], a terrifying smile on his bone white lips.”  
  • The second way magic is used in battle is through wand magic and spells. When trying to unbind Elloren’s magic from the forest, “Trystan and Lucretia bring the tips of their wands close to Or’myr’s stone and murmur spells.” They are attacked by the forest and use wands and spells to protect themselves.  

Spiritual Content  

  • The book opens in a prologue from Priest Apprentice Alaric Fynnes’s point of view. In the name of their religion, he “accompanies his mentor, Priest Vogel” to the Lost Islands, where Vogel finds the Shadow Wand and kills a Death Fae.  
  • As Vogel’s forces surround the Amaz capital city, Vogel says to a random soldier, “It is the Ancient One’s will [that the Icaral of prophecy stays alive]. So, let the Prophecy come to completion. The Holy Magedom will soon have possession of Erthia’s most dangerous weapon, and she will smite the Icaral demon without mercy.” 
  • Elloren’s friend, Wynter, is under the influence of the Zalyn’or necklace—the religious brainwashing instrument used by the Elves to enslave people. “The Zalyn’or necklace tightens and Wynter’s head arches back, a strangled cry torn from her throat. She shudders as she’s swept up in a new, overpowering Zalyn’or yearning, the old yearning to be purely [Elven] stripped away. Yes, she still wishes with everything in her for her demonic wings to be torn from her back. But there’s a staggeringly fierce, new longing in her now—to have black hair, glimmering green skin, and black clothing. . . not the path of the [Elven] fate at all, but the [Gardnerian] religion.” 
  • The Gardnerian religion discriminates against non-heterosexual sexual orientations, and Vothe comments, “such a bizarre thing for a religion to hate. But [he’s] heard that there are whole passages in the Gardnerian religious book that condemn anyone who loves another of the same gender.”  
  • While in the Eastern Realm, Trystan discovers that the Eastern religion is more peaceful. “The Way of Vo. The prayer text practically everyone raised in [the East] knows by heart, and Vothe can tell that there is something new in it for Trystan.” Trystan begs Vothe to teach him his religion. This religion is not based on a god but on nature and meditation, more similar to Buddhism.  
  • As Elloren and Vogel fight, and Vogel strips Lukas and Elloren of their marriage and transfers it to himself, Elloren tells him that he can’t marry since he’s a priest. Vogel says he “relinquished [his] priestly role before [he] took hold of this fasting, as is allowed by the Blessed Book. Elloren, the Ancient One has made it clear to me. We are each other’s destiny.” 

by Kate Schuyler 

Diana and the Journey to the Unknown

Diana cannot rest until every kid is saved from Zumius, the alien boss who has kidnapped many children. After her voyage into the Underworld, Diana feels guilty that she couldn’t save every superpowered kid that Hades kidnapped. So, while the Amazons debate how to keep her safe, Diana decides to confront her enemies by herself. Determined to help, no matter the cost, Diana transports herself to a strange facility. 

After being drugged and thrown in a cage, Diana escapes outside, looking up to find three moons in the sky and no way home. However, nothing can stop Diana. She befriends some of the planet’s native inhabitants, but when the monsters tracking her threaten her new friends, Diana sacrifices herself by surrendering to protect them. This time, the guards take her to Zumius’s lair in the mortal world.  

When Zumius sends guards after Imani, the last superpowered child, Diana escapes once more. She emerges in an unfamiliar city filled with advanced technology and oddly dressed inhabitants. Despite facing extraordinary challenges for a twelve-year-old, Diana overcomes them with impressive resilience. Diana saves Imani and reactivates Imani’s powers. Then, Diana and Imani put themselves in danger to save the rest of the kids. With the power of the gods failing, no adults to help, and a skyscraper filled with guards in their way, Diana and Imani are bravely undaunted. Along the way, Diana discovers that, while she does have secret superpowers she never knew about, her real superpower is love—love for her family, friends, and people that push her to perform acts of wonder. 

Diana and the Journey to the Unknown serves as a perfect conclusion to the trilogy, although the sequence of events is somewhat overcomplicated. There are only a few implausible moments, such as guards repeatedly underestimating Diana, but these don’t overshadow the power of Diana’s character and the magic of this world. The Amazons are a great example of women empowering one another, and the kids Diana rescues will be an inspiration to kids everywhere. The rest of the story is well-constructed, using simple language and an easy plot that will engage the average reader.  

Readers who enjoy out-of-this-world adventures, Greek mythology, and amazing independent kids will love the world-jumping, new superpowers, and the brutish villains of Diana and the Journey to the Unknown. Diana travels to multiple worlds to save others, complete with monstrous aliens, magical poisons, and plenty of guards for Diana to outwit, all making for creative entertainment. Diana proves again that she’s a powerful character, accomplishing what even the gods could not by defeating Zumius. Overall, this is an inspiring story with a wonderful message: there’s always a way to adapt to the situation, no matter how hopeless it may seem. 

Sexual Content  

  • None

Violence  

  • After Diana escapes from the alien facility, she encounters an alien called a Targuni in the woods. Assuming the Targuni has come to imprison her, she attacks them. “With a swoop, she lassoed the creature with a final flourish. The Targuni rose unsteadily to their feet. They tugged at the rope encircling their shoulders, pulling frantically, struggling to break free. Diana tightened her grip.” The Targuni eventually tells Diana that they mean Diana no harm, and Diana lets them go.  
  • When Diana gets recaptured, she breaks the bars on her cage and interrogates a nearby guard for her friend Imani’s whereabouts. “Diana didn’t have time to negotiate. [The other guard] could be back any second, and it would be much harder to fight two. Swinging her lasso, she hurled it toward [the guard]. It launched into the air and wrapped itself around him. He pressed his arms against the lasso as though he could burst it with sheer force. His cheeks turned bright red. A few seconds later, as she expected, his shoulders drooped in defeat. His head hung low.” She gets the information from him and lets him go.  
  • The second guard comes back, and Diana attacks him. “Before [the other guard] could finish his sentence, Diana struck her sword out, upending the food in his hands and splattering the cheeseburger against his face. Then she shoved him as hard as she could. He fell backward onto the carpeted floor with a loud groan.” She runs past him and escapes.  
  • Once she finds the rest of the kids, she fights the guard so they can escape. “Diana crouched, waiting for [the guard] to approach. He was almost there. His hands inches from her wrist. She sliced the air with her sword; it skimmed his arm.” It’s a small wound, and while there are a couple more punches thrown, no one is grievously injured.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • After grasping the cage fragments and teleporting somewhere new, Diana is surprised by two scientists who are walking into the room. They see her and assume that she is in an altered state because of a gas triggered when someone teleports into that room. One of the doctors says, “Be that as it may, she’s under twice the usual dose, and she’s definitely not one of [the superpowered] kids. There’s a protocol to prepare for their arrival. Some sort of glitch must have occurred. It’s not the first time.” This implies they have drugged the other kids into submission. However, Diana is unaffected by the drug and pretends to be unconscious to buy time. 
  • While trying to rescue the kids from Zumius, Diana discovers that they’re being drugged by a substance that induces the feeling of hopelessness, ensuring the kids’ compliance. Diana’s friend Augustus says, “The kids won’t do anything. I can’t be absolutely certain what it is he’s given them to cause their apathy, but based on the scent when he administers it, I believe he’s using a pazzo bean. It instills hopelessness in whoever imbibes it.” Diana is briefly drugged by this substance but manages to ignore the effects. 

Language  

  • Language is tame. Words like stupid, idiot, and imbecile appear frequently

Supernatural  

  • Diana is a superhero, complete with superpowers and magical relics, like the Lasso of Truth. She fights monsters, aliens, and gods. Every page of this novel exhibits some kind of supernatural content. However, the magic is primarily wielded by kids with superpowers without spoken spells, just the wave of a hand. Magic is also present in the landscape, such as the magical island of Themyscira, hidden from the eyes of men. The monsters encountered are mostly aliens, and, while fantastically described, they do not have supernatural powers.  
  • The kids Diana is trying to rescue are described by two scientists trying to figure out how to contain Diana. “‘I’m just saying. If she’s one of those kids, her size doesn’t matter. You’ve seen them,’ [one scientist] replied defensively. ‘The metal bender nearly ripped the door apart when the charm wore off a smidge. And [another superpowered kid] had my arms go soft like jelly without even touching me before we got the second dose on her.’” 
  • Diana’s powers are described after she saves a kid from falling off a play structure.  “[A girl] held up her device [for Diana to see]. [In the video] there was a shifting of green grass—a blur—and then there was Diana; she swooped in, grabbing Fiona before she hit the ground. Someone had captured the moment. How is this possible? Diana stared at the image as it played and replayed. She wanted to wave it away as a trick of the eyes, except it was her. The blur in the image was Diana. She’d known she could run fast, but seeing herself doing it. . . it was far faster than she’d realized. In this video, she was. . . impossibly fast.” 
  • While Diana is trying to rescue the kids, she climbs up a building and falls, discovering a new superpower. “Diana hadn’t fallen. She was levitating in midair; her hands were up and swimming frantically inches from the edge of the beam she’d slipped from. Diana gritted her teeth and, reaching up, she grasped onto a ledge. Hastily, she scrambled atop it and climbed onto the balcony.” 
  • After defeating Zumius, the kids need to figure out how to escape the skyscraper. A new friend, Aristaeus, can control insects and the wind. While escaping, bees flew through the open window and “propelled Aristaeus in the air. Diana shivered. They held him much like the [aliens] had held Diana up not so long ago [to capture her]. But this time was different. These creatures promised safety. Imani tapped her hands against the bees and closed her eyes—and within seconds, they flew invisibly through the air. As the kids let the bees sweep them up, Imani guided them to her home.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • Princess Diana grew up among the Amazons, a community of warrior women who worship the Greek gods. In Diana and Journey to the Unknown, she meets, fights, and even collaborates with a couple of them. The Greek gods or references to them appear on nearly every page of this novel. For example, when Diana confronts Zumius, claiming the gods will come to her rescue, Zumius replies, “The gods! They’re frazzled as can be, aren’t they? Hades was dishing out the yummiest gossip before they neutralized him. But the fact of the matter is it’s too late for any of your gods to actually do anything at this point.” 
  • Diana’s friend Imani is a demigod and the child of Zeus. Diana mentions this when trying to get Imani to activate her abilities. “Zeus—your father—said you could stay in our world and learn more about your powers and who you were. He said returning to this world—the mortal world—with your memories and powers intact compromised your ability to live a normal life. You chose to forget. That is why none of what I’m telling you rings a bell. But it’s all true. Every last word.” 
  • Once the kids find their way back to Imani’s house, Zeus appears at the end to congratulate the kids on saving the day. “Lightning crackled in the distance. The home rumbled gently beneath their feet before a white burst of light appeared in the room. Diana blinked. It was Zeus. He wore a white tunic and a gold crown and held an enormous staff in his hands.” 

by Kate Schuyler 

The Hammer of Thor

A couple of months ago, Magnus Chase’s life changed forever. . . because he died. But Magnus didn’t go down without a fight, and he earned himself a place in Valhalla, the Norse afterlife for heroes. It’s not easy getting accustomed to life in Valhalla, where Magnus’s days are filled with fighting and feasting amongst the honorable dead. But just when Magnus is finally settling in, his afterlife is disrupted by the news that Thor, the formidable god of thunder, has lost his hammer. A hammer-less Thor means a defenseless Earth, and armies of giants are lining up to invade while the god is weak.  

With his friends by his side, Magnus embarks on a perilous quest to find Thor’s hammer. With Loki, the cruel trickster god, pulling strings from his prison, will Magnus be able to complete his mission, or will he play right into his enemies’ hands? 

The Hammer of Thor is a witty and entertaining dive into the world of Norse mythology. Narrated by Magnus, readers will be guided through the story by his sarcastic sense of humor. Throughout the novel, Magnus often acts out of empathy and compassion for others. This, combined with his self-aware commentary, makes him a lovable and relatable character. Readers will find themselves invested in Magnus’s story. 

One of this book’s greatest strengths is its diverse cast of characters. On his quest, Magnus is joined by Sam, a devout Muslim whose faith is as strong as her work ethic and skills with an ax. Her knowledge and determination drive the plot and save Magnus on many occasions.  

Fan-favorite dynamic duo Hearth and Blitz also accompany Magnus. Hearth, a deaf elf with a skill for sorcery, and Blitz, a dwarf with a passion for fashion design, are fiercely protective of one another. The pair’s unique skills and personalities steal every scene they share.   

Finally, Magnus finds himself drawn to Alex, the shapeshifting child of Loki, who adds a bit of chaos to the story. Alex is a fierce fighter who is proud of her identity as both a shapeshifter and a transgender and genderfluid person. In addition to driving the plot and making this novel unforgettable, these characters offer readers an opportunity to consider new perspectives and learn about those who are different from them.  

The Hammer of Thor balances tension with moments of levity and handles serious topics in a way that is respectful and impactful. This novel addresses issues such as homelessness, ableism, transphobia, and child abuse in ways that are easy for younger audiences to understand. It also explores themes of trauma and grief, depicting the various ways characters mourn their losses. These subjects are explored in an age-appropriate manner that feels safe and inviting to children, as the story maintains its optimistic and entertaining voice. 

Readers do not have to be familiar with Rick Riordan’s previous works to enjoy the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Series. This trilogy is a strong standalone series with unique new characters and settings. Fans of Riordan will enjoy references to his other series, as well as his entertaining conversational writing style. Fans and new readers will be interested in reading the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Series because it opens a new world of magic and mayhem.  

This novel contains themes of friendship, perseverance, and strength. Throughout the story, Magnus and his friends often support each other through difficult situations. The bond the characters share empowers them as they work together to overcome every obstacle that comes their way. Despite facing setbacks, the heroes continue to work towards their goals, refusing to abandon their quest. Magnus and his friends are resilient, and readers can find strength through their actions. 

The Hammer of Thor is a must-read for middle-grade audiences that will entertain readers while encouraging empathy and introspection. This novel will help audiences find the joy of reading while taking them on an adventure that explores mythology and friendship. This fast-paced story will hook readers from the start and will be remembered long after they turn the last page.     

Sexual Content  

  • Magnus’s friend Halfborn implies that his girlfriend Mallory likes seeing him shirtless when they are preparing for a practice battle. Mallory comments that Halfborn “always goes into battle bare-chested.” Halfborn replies, “Are you complaining about that?” This causes Mallory to blush.  
  • Loki arranges a marriage between Sam and a giant against Sam’s will. Sam says, “We have to find Thor’s hammer before the first of spring or. . . I will have to marry a giant.” Sam and her friends prevent the wedding from occurring.   

Violence  

  • A magical goat named Otis is struck in the chest with an ax. “Living in Valhalla, I was used to deadly weapons flying out of nowhere, but I was still surprised when an ax sprouted from Otis’s furry chest. . . the ax had pierced his heart.” Otis dies, but due to his magical nature, he comes back to life.   
  • Magnus chases after Otis’s killer and engages in combat with them. “An ax hurtled from above, slicing the buttons off my denim jacket. An inch closer and it would’ve opened up my chest.” The fight scene is described over five pages. The killer escapes and leaves Magnus behind on a rooftop. 
  • Magnus and his friends participate in a practice battle in Valhalla against the other dead heroes who live there, such as Charlie, T.J., and Big Lou. During this battle, “Halfborn and Mallory chopped us a path through a pack of berserkers. T.J. shot Charlie Flannigan in the head. . . We dodged a volley of fiery tar balls from the balcony catapults. We had a brief sword battle with Big Lou from floor 401.” Because they are in Valhalla, everyone who dies in this battle will come back to life. This fight scene is described over 15 pages. 
  • Alex decapitates a wolf using a garrote after the wolves attack an old man in an alley. Alex “lashed out with her wire, using it like a whip. With a single flick, one of the wolves lost its head.” 
  • Alex is bitten on the neck and killed by a wolf. “The last beast took her by the throat. She wrapped her fingers around its neck, but her eyes were losing focus.” After her death, Alex is reborn in Valhalla.  
  • Hearth breaks his ankle after falling into a tomb. Magnus “heard a wet snap followed by Hearth’s grunt, and [he] knew immediately what happened.” Magnus heals Hearth. 
  • Magnus and his friends fight zombies in a tomb. “Sam thrust her spear under [a zombie’s] jaw. The weapon’s light burned away his head like a flame going through toilet paper.” This fight is described over four pages.  
  • Magnus’s Uncle Randolph stabs Blitz in the stomach with a magical blade called the Skofnung Sword because he is following Loki’s orders. “With a cry of horror he buried the Skofnung Sword in Blitzen’s gut.” Blitz is badly injured, but he eventually recovers. 
  • After Uncle Randolph stabs Blitz, Magnus retaliates by slashing “upward, and the Skofnung Sword flew out of Randolph’s grip, along with. . . a couple of pink things that looked like fingers.” Randolph recovers from his injuries.  
  • The police shoot Hearth as he and his friends run away from a party that had become dangerous. “Behind us, a shot rang out. Everyone flinched except Hearth. . . Hearth stumbled, a red stain soaking his shirt.” Hearth recovers from this injury. 
  • Sam kills a giant named Little Billy with an ax. “In one fluid moment, Sam turned and threw her ax right at Billy. The giants gasped. Little Billy’s eyes went even more cross-eyed as he stared at the hatchet now sprouting from his forehead.” 
  • Sam hits a giant named Thrynga in the side with an ax. “Samirah’s ax hurtled across the room and embedded itself in Thrynga’s side.” Thrynga recovers from this injury. 
  • Magnus breaks his ribs when he collides with a stalagmite during a battle. Magnus “slammed into a stalagmite. Something in [his] chest went crack.” 
  • Loki kills a snake by breaking its spine. Loki “grabbed the snake that had been dripping venom on him, yanked it off its stalactite, and snapped it like a whip.” 
  • Uncle Randolph falls into a pit and dies. Uncle Randolph “slipped sideways into the darkness without a sound.” 
  • Thor smites Thrynga, killing her. “Thor pointed his hammer at Thrynga as casually as if he were channel surfing. Tendrils of lightning shot from the runes engraved in the metal. The giantess burst into a million bits of rubble.”      

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Sam goes into an alley that “heroin junkies liked to shoot up in. . . which made it a great place to get beaten, robbed, or killed.” No drug use is depicted in this scene. 

Language    

  • Halfborn calls someone a “meinfretr.” Magnus says that this is an Old Norse swear word that translates to “something like stinkfart.” 
  • Mallory makes a gesture with her hand that is equivalent to giving someone the middle finger. “Mallory made a V with her fingers and flicked them under her chin.”  
  • The word idiot is used many times. For example, Mallory tells Halfborn, “You’re an idiot.”

Supernatural  

  • Sam is a Valkyrie, a warrior who leads the souls of dead heroes to Valhalla, the Norse afterlife for heroes who died bravely in battle. Sam comments on her role, calling it her “part-time job reaping souls of the dead and running top secret missions for Odin.”  
  • Magnus comments on the various things he has done since his death and rebirth. Magnus “travelled the Nine Worlds meeting Norse gods, elves, dwarves, and a bunch of monsters with names I couldn’t pronounce. I’d scored a magical sword that presently hung around my neck in the form of a runestone pendant.” 
  • Magnus speaks with a magical anthropomorphic goat named Otis. “Otis climbed into the chair I’d reserved for Sam. He sat on his back haunches and put his front hooves on the table.” 
  • Magnus recalls fantastical things he did in the previous book. “I’d played catch-the-lava-ball with fire giants. I’d eagle-skied over the rooftops of Boston. I’d pulled the world serpent out of Massachusetts Bay and defeated Fenris Wolf with a ball of yarn.”  
  • Magnus learns that he will have to encounter a wight, which is “a powerful undead creature that likes to collect magical weapons.”  
  • Magnus has a magical talking sword named Jack. “As I bounded across Newbury Street, Jack sprang to full form in my hand. His blade—thirty inches of double-edged bone-forged steel— was emblazoned with runes that pulsed in different colors when Jack talked.” 
  • Alex can shapeshift because she is a child of Loki. “The animal grew into a regular teen, long and lanky, with a swirl of dyed green hair. . .”  
  • Sam and Magnus go for a ride on a flying horse. “Sam saddled a white stallion. She climbed on his back and pulled me up behind her, then we galloped out the gates of the stable, straight into the skies above Boston.”  
  • Hearth performs magic by casting runes. “From the inside pouch of his jacket, he produced a small collection of runestones.” 
  • Zombies come to life and attack Magnus and his friends. “To absolutely no one’s surprise, the twelve mummified warriors stepped out from their niches along the walls.” 
  • A pilot named Barry is briefly possessed by the mysterious person who killed Otis the Goat. “Barry’s new voice crackled with distortion and went up and down in pitch.” 
  • Magnus and his friends walk across the Bifrost, a rainbow bridge connecting Earth with Asgard, the home of the Norse gods. “Radiance surrounded us, fuzzy and hot. Rather than walking across a slick, solid surface, I felt like we were wading through the waist-high field of wheat.”  

Spiritual Content  

  • This novel is centered around Norse mythology and contains frequent depictions of and references to Norse gods. 
  • Sam is Muslim and comments on how she views the Norse gods. Sam says that she “doesn’t accept that Norse gods are gods. They’re just powerful beings. Some of them are my annoying relatives. But they are no more than creations of Allah, the only god, just like you and I are.”  
  • Magnus watches as Sam prays. “Sam took off her shoes. She stood very still at the foot of her rug, her hands clasped at her stomach, her eyes half-closed. She whispered something under her breath. . . Then she began her prayers, a soft, singsong chanting of Arabic that sounded like she was reciting a familiar poem or a love song. Sam bowed, straightened, and knelt with her feet tucked under her and pressed her forehead against the cloth.”    

 by Kelly Barker 

The Jumbies

Young Corinne La Mer isn’t afraid of anything, especially things that go bump in the night. While all the other kids in her small island village are scared of the creatures in the forest, Corinne lives on its edge and has seen nothing to validate her friends’ fears. After her mother passed, Corinne refused to be afraid of anything anymore.  

A practical and shrewd protagonist, Corinne is suspicious of a new woman who arrives on market day. The other children avoid her like the plague, whispering that she reeks of the forest, and their murmurs intensify when she approaches the witch’s table. Yet this mysterious figure intrigues Corinne. When the stranger stops at Corinne’s fruit stand, Corinne greets her politely. The woman, who introduces herself as Severine, raves about the oranges and insists they possess an almost magical quality. Soon, Severine seems to be everywhere in Corinne’s life—seducing her father and attempting to mother her. The longer Severine stays, the more strange phenomena occur.  

Strange incidents begin plaguing the village: Corinne’s friend Bouki nearly drowns while playing by the river, the local witch grows increasingly on edge with ominous warnings about Corinne’s family, and an unnatural stench fills Corinne’s house whenever Severine attempts to cook. As an accomplished cook herself, Corinne refuses to let her father eat anything Severine prepares. But one evening, she returns home late to find her father in a strange trance, staring at a bowl of Severine’s soup. 

Severine then reveals her true nature as a jumbie—a supernatural, hideous forest creature who claims to be Corinne’s aunt. She insists that Corinne is half jumbie herself, which explains her extraordinary talent for growing divine fruit. Severine demands that Corinne join her in reclaiming the village and island for the jumbies. When loyal, honest Corinne refuses, Severine uses magic to banish her from her own home and begins controlling the villagers one by one, starting with her father. 

Left with no resources and shaken by questions about her origins, Corinne recruits several friends to defeat Severine and protect their village—because failure means none of them will have a home to return to. 

The Jumbies is a wonderfully macabre story with a straightforward plot and accessible language, perfect for younger readers. However, readers averse to horror may want to avoid it due to some heavy, scary elements. The adult characters, aside from the witch, play disappointingly weak roles—Corinne’s father succumbs to Severine’s influence with little resistance, which feels somewhat lazy. Despite this flaw, the novel proves inspiring and creative, expertly weaving Caribbean folklore themes into well-crafted worldbuilding that remains descriptive without becoming overly complicated. 

The Jumbies offers a creepy atmosphere, imaginative monsters, and youthful wit that will captivate readers. The book features supernatural creatures ranging from evil to good, and Corinne discovers that many are simply seeking a better home in a world that has banished them to the forest. While some use horrifying methods to reclaim their territory, Corinne proves to be a kind and intelligent protagonist who recognizes that monsters like Severine don’t represent all of her kind. Ultimately, this beautiful story delivers a sweet message: blood doesn’t define family, and home can always be found elsewhere. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • When Corinne first meets brothers Bouki and Malik, they steal her necklace, tie it to an animal, and giggle as Corinne runs into the forest to retrieve it. When she returns with her necklace, she finds one of them “[holding] a small frog in his hands over the top of the well. It was struggling, but he held it firmly. Their next victim, Corinne thought. Corinne let [her necklace] dangle from her fingers. Its smooth surface gleamed. The smile slid off the boy’s face.” The boys run away, though they later become friends with her. 
  • When Corinne sets up her food stand, a woman insists that Corinne stole her spot. “‘Go somewhere else, darling,’ the seller said. Her lips smiled, but her eyes were as hard as pebbles.” Corinne decides it isn’t worth fighting and sets up elsewhere.  
  • To get back at Bouki and Malik, Corinne sets a trap for them, making them fall into a pit of scorpions. Bouki “barely noticed the small insect that scrambled up the rope and out of the well. Soon there was another and another. Bouki jumped back. ‘Scorpions!’ he cried out. Malik dropped the rope and ran to his brother. There was a scorpion hanging onto Bouki’s tattered shirt.” Nobody is hurt, and this settles the score between Corinne and the brothers. 
  • While Corinne swims in the river with her friends, Severine attacks them. The witch notices Severine trying to drown Bouki and dives in after Severine. “[The witch] knocked [Severine] away from the children. The jumbie turned and dug her bony fingers into the witch’s flesh. She bore down hard. The witch raised her right arm and struck mightily at the jumbie’s chest. At the same time, she felt a sharp pain as her other arm snapped in two.” The children are fine, but the witch loses her arm. The scene is one page.  
  • After Corinne kicks Severine out of her house, Severine storms into the forest. In her anger, she kills an animal. “[Severine’s] hand shot out and grabbed a small furry creature by the neck. It wriggled as Severine squeezed tighter and tighter with her thumb and forefinger until the small bones snapped and the creature became still.” 
  • When Severine cooks a trance-inducing dinner for Corinne and her father, Corinne refuses to eat it. “Severine pushed the bowl of stew toward Corinne. Corinne jerked away, causing Severine to slop stew onto the floor. Severine grabbed Corinne’s wrist and shoved her to the ground, right into the foul-smelling stew. ‘You can’t resist me!’ Severine shrieked.” The stew burns Corinne. 
  • There is a brief mention of slavery as Severine recounts her history with her sister. “I had a sister. She pitied people. She went inside the ships and saw that some of the people were chained below. She helped them escape and swim to the island while I dealt with the others. Some of the people [on the ship had] chained up others and left them to rot in the bottoms of their ships. My sister felt sorry for them. I never did.” 
  • Corinne tries to escape from Severine with her father, Pierre. “Corinne grabbed her papa around the waist and tried to hoist him out of the chair. He was much too large and heavy and they both fell on the floor. She got up and began to pull him away, but Severine grabbed his other hand and pulled Pierre back into his chair. Then she picked Corinne up by the neck. Corinne struggled and kicked at the air as Severine’s fingers began to squeeze tighter and tighter around her throat.” Corinne escapes with minimal bruising. 
  • Frustrated with Corinne, Severine decides to call all the monstrous creatures of the forest to her aid. One of them, a soucouyant, attacks Bouki and Malik. “As they crawled back toward the fighting, they picked up several stones and shoved them into their pockets. When they were finally at the side of the road, they loaded up their slingshots and started to shoot. The soucouyant backed up at first, but then it barreled toward them in a blur of flame. Just as it was about to engulf the boys, an oar smacked it to the ground.” The boys and Hugo, the baker who saves them with the oar, are unharmed. 
  • In the aftermath of the creatures attacking their village, Corinne describes the bloody scene. “Every now and then, the children stepped over gory tracks where the wounded had been dragged off into the woods. Whether the victims were human or jumbie, they could not tell. The island had never been so quiet.” This is the only part of the battle described.  
  • However, the jumbies soon come back for Bouki and Malik, kidnapping them and dragging them to the forest. “A little jumbie man was right behind Malik. Bouki grabbed Malik’s arm quickly, but the [jumbie] caught Malik’s other arm and Bouki’s leg in a vicious grip. It dragged the brothers back between the trees. The fighting adults never noticed. In seconds, all that was left of the brothers was one fake coconut husk foot and the small straw hat.” The boys are recovered unharmed.  
  • Corinne’s friend Dru has to fend off a jumbie alone when she gets separated from her friends. She sets her attacker on fire. “The smell of burning fur filled the air. The lagahoo rushed forward and fell against the bush that had entangled Dru. The force of the crash freed Dru. Only torn bits of her shirt and a few strands of hair were left behind.” Dru is unharmed; however, she loses most of her hair. 
  • When Corinne confronts Severine, Corinne’s father is under Severine’s control and restrains Corinne. “Pierre put his hands over Corinne’s mouth. She stamped on his feet and struggled to get free but it was no use. Fishing out on the sea had made her father a strong man, and now that Severine had changed him, he was even stronger. Corinne looked at the fallen oranges. She brought her foot down on a large one and turned her face away as the juice flew right up into Pierre’s face. He howled again and loosened his grip long enough for Corinne to pull away. Corinne grabbed another orange and threw it right at her father’s face.” Corinne’s father gains control of himself, and no one is harmed.  
  • After Pierre frees himself, Severine accidentally falls off a cliff. “Severine flailed and managed to grab onto the rock face, but her green cloth snagged in the branches of the tree. She tugged at the cloth. The tree tipped again and tore away from the cliff. A branch swept her hand off the rock, and Severine spiraled down, down, down with the tree toward the sea far below.” There is no description of her beyond this, and the story implies that Severine is dead.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • The story features magical potions, though characters only reference them rather than actually drinking them. While advising Corinne, the witch explains that “everybody wants a fast, easy solution. Maybe if you took care of your skin, you wouldn’t have gotten the boil in the first place. Maybe if you worked harder, you would make more money. Maybe that person isn’t the right one for you. Maybe if you found a better way to farm, your crop would come up better. But nobody wants to hear those things. They want a bottle. Instant success! Something to drink, or sprinkle, or spill on the ground. They want magic from nothing.” 
  • In an effort to kidnap Corinne, Severine drugs Pierre. “Severine leaned in to make sure every single drop went in. She watched him intently as the liquid went down his throat, and something in his eyes began to change. They became cloudy, as if a storm was swirling right in his eyes. She watched Pierre scoop more of the stew into his mouth. Then he dropped the spoon and attacked the bowl like a greedy animal.” 

Language  

  • Language is tame, but words like stupid, idiot, and hell appear frequently. 

Supernatural  

  • This novel uses Caribbean folklore and references to the supernatural on nearly every page. Corinne and her friends have many interactions with magic, mostly through magical creatures called jumbies and potions, though Corinne does have abilities of her own.  
  • For example, Severine is a jumbie. Before obtaining human form, Severine cries about her missing sister, and as her tears hit the ground, “they turned into centipedes that scattered over the graves.”  
  • The villagers have many stories about jumbies. Corinne explains that the villagers talk about “creatures with backward feet, and women who could shed their skin, and women with hooves for feet. Even though her papa told her these stories were not true, there must have been a reason no one ever came this far into the forest.” 
  • While saving Bouki from drowning, the witch notices Severine “turn herself invisible.” 
  • When Corinne figures out that Severine is a jumbie, Severine lets her façade fade. “Severine came closer. As she did, her body shrank down a little. Corinne could see insects were crawling up and around Severine’s body. Hundreds of millipedes and centipedes, cockroaches, and beetles crawled in and out of the crags of her body. They dashed in and out of the fine fur and bored their way through her chest, so that Corinne could see straight through it like an old rotten tree.” 
  • Severine studies Corinne’s necklace and notes that “it was Forming Magic, an ancient power that was created at the same time that the very earth was made. It was bigger and more powerful than she herself — more powerful than anything she had ever known.” This is why Corinne can grow oranges unnaturally well.  
  • When Bouki and Malik defeat the soucouyant, they describe her. “She was a soucouyant — a malicious fireball that would suck the lifeblood out of anyone, even a baby. Her skin pooled around her, leaving Bouki holding the empty shell of her hand. He shuddered and let it fall with a slap against the rest of the discarded skin while the flame-body gathered up into a ball and hovered a few feet above the ground.” 
  • Standing a ways away from where the jumbies are attacking her village, Corinne spots a jumbie who has clearly broken away from the fight. “When Corinne looked up, the woman smiled, then shed her skin and burst into yellow flames.” 
  • In her final confrontation with Severine, Corinne cries out of hopelessness. However, “The tears that streamed down Corinne’s cheeks had formed a tiny, muddy pool around [a] seed. The seed trembled. Then it split open at the bottom and a tiny shoot of the palest green emerged from it and rooted itself into the ground. Corinne blinked. This was not the witch’s magic. It was her own.” The tree grows and tempts Severine to climb it.  
  • In the aftermath of Severine, Corinne and the witch heal the village by planting new orange seeds. “‘Grow,’ [Corinne and the witch] said together. The seeds began to sprout. A few people in the crowd gasped. The orange trees curved upward. They hardened and turned brown as they grew into each other and formed a solid wall that reached far into the sky. The trees looked beautiful, but more than that, they smelled delicious. The people in the village couldn’t resist picking the fruit and eating it on the spot.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • The book begins on All Hallows’ Eve. While walking with her father, Corinne overhears villagers talking about how “the spirits are out tonight,” and the children whisper about wanting to stay inside for fear of jumbies and the spirits.  

by Kate Schuyler

Our Crooked Hearts

When unusual events start to take place around Ivy, she begins to question what she knows to be true. First, Ivy has a mysterious interaction with a naked woman in the woods. Then she finds a mutilated rabbit in her driveway. And her mom goes MIA – what is going on? As Ivy searches for the truth, she discovers that magic exists and, in fact, has played a large role in her life. Along with this, Ivy unveils family secrets that force her to confront past relationships as well as form new ones.  

Each chapter alternates between Ivy’s present-day perspective and a flashback perspective of Dana, Ivy’s mother, teenage years. Both the present day and the past are equally covered throughout the book. Best friends Dana, Fee, and Marion began practicing magic in their teens and were enchanted by the wonders and possibilities of it. However, after a disagreement, a rift is formed, and Marion practices dark magic. Dana becomes unsettled by the dangerous magic that Marion wants to unleash and does what she feels is needed to protect herself.   

Determined, Ivy begins to unveil the dark witchcraft that her mother has kept from her and begins to put together the missing pieces of her life. However, she still can’t find her mom or Aunt Fee anywhere, but her curious and strong-willed nature won’t let her quit. Ivy soon realizes that they are in danger, and she must save both from enemies who are seeking revenge. Will she be able to save them from powerful witches seeking vengeance? 

As a teenager, Marion Peretz introduced Dana and Fee to magic. For her whole life, Marion has felt lonely and has lacked a real connection with those around her. Once she discovered magic, Marion was infused with confidence. Her thirst for magic reflects her desire to feel empowered, causing her to take magical risks. However, this comes at a cost, and Marion’s selfish tendencies lead her to put herself, Dana, and Fee in danger. Readers are likely to find Marion’s vindictive behavior and actions grating as she only grows worse throughout the book. 

This magic-filled book explores the possibilities that magic has to offer and how it can be abused. Many of the characters struggle with immense curiosity, guilt, and selfish tendencies. Because of this, the story takes unexpected turns and keeps the reader in suspense. Moreover, the events that take place display the author’s imagination as well as a peek into the world of witchcraft. For example, one imaginative element is the occultists book. “You couldn’t look for things in the occultists book, couldn’t read it cover to cover . . . it worked. . . like a tarot deck, delivering the pages you needed to see.”  

The changing perspectives throughout the book provide the necessary background information for the plot and help to connect the past with the present. These perspectives make the reader wonder about Ivy and Dana’s strange relationship. Dana is very distant from her family, especially from Ivy. So, reading about Dana’s teenage years allows for the reader to understand her behavior and the events that led up to this. The author transitions from each perspective seamlessly, and it does not get confusing for the reader switching back and forth. Overall, the changing perspective adds to the story. 

Our Crooked Hearts’ eerie events grab the reader’s attention from the start, and the tension escalates, making the book hard to put down. The book’s creative storyline will leave readers impressed and searching to read another book by the same author. In particular, the unique content regarding the supernatural world makes the story all the more appealing. The author explores the ideas of friendship and betrayal but focuses on the importance of trust. This is a must-read for those interested in the world of magic and witchcraft. Its creative storyline will leave readers impressed. 

Sexual Content     

  • Ivy and her neighbor Billy, who happens to be her romantic interest, find themselves in Billy’s backyard treehouse, the same one that they used to play in as kids. They are lying beside each other, and they begin to kiss. “We smiled at each other, and when he kissed me, we were still smiling. Until we weren’t. He was beside me, then above me, propped up on one arm. He ran a hand firmly down my body, rib cage to thigh, then held me there and pulled me up closer. We kissed and kissed.” 

Violence 

  • During their teenage years, Marion, Dana, and Fee performed a spell that involved the death of a rabbit. “[The rabbit] was wild this time, and skinny despite the season . . . It fought and fought, twisting in Marion’s grip, finally jerking its head into a broken angle to bite her. Even through the pain of its yellow teeth she was silent. The rest of us hissed in dismay as her blood hit the wax. With a decisive stab her knife went in . . . Dying, it twisted free; Marion wrestled it back. She held it more efficiently this time, sawing away so fiercely a spurt of arterial blood hit my knuckles.” 
  • During the same spell, the three girls slice their palms with a knife. “[Marion] signaled to us and we sliced our palms, dropping to our knees to press them to the floor.” 
  • When Marion’s spell does not go to plan, she blames Fee and begins to go after her physically. Dana steps in, protecting Fee. “I pulled Marion off my best friend by her hair… Fee socked her in the gut to make her let go. Marion went at her again and I caught her around the stomach, hauling her down and pressing an arm to her throat.” 

Drugs and Alcohol     

  • At a high school party, Ivy and her best friend, Amina, discussed Ivy’s ex-boyfriend, Nate. “‘Did you see what he was drinking last night? Absinthe.’ Amina had big tattletale energy. ‘To be fair it was probably vodka with green food coloring, but still.’”    
  • Ivy and Billy illegally buy alcohol one evening. Ivy is using her fake ID to prove to Billy that it works. Ivy “marched him over to the liquor aisle and considered what I could afford, settling on a bottle of strawberry wild vines.” 
  • Marion, still stuck in the mirror world she had been bound to, drinks liquor, although she cannot get drunk because of the magical world she is in. “She couldn’t get drunk, but she drank anyway . . . Marion drank from every one of those bottles . . . Their liquors were bitter or treacly or sharp as a lightning bolt.” 

Language   

  • Profanity is used often, including fuck, motherfuckers, fucking, fucked, shit, bitch, asshole, and bullshit. 
  • The naked woman who appeared in the woods attempts to lure Ivy and Nate out from behind the trees they are hiding behind. In this creepy scene, the woman says, “Come out, come out, whoever you are . . . I said show yourselves, motherfuckers.” 
  • In response to the naked woman in the woods, Ivy and Nate are increasingly scared. “I felt the terror in Nate as he saw how this was gonna go. ‘Fuck this,’ he muttered.” 
  • When Dana and Fee discover that Marion is a witch, they are fascinated and want her to show them what she knows. When Marion asks what specifically they would like to learn, they respond with, “just… all of it. Fucking all of it.”  
  • Dana and Fee meet another witch, Sharon, and begin to learn a little bit about her past. Sharon tells them briefly about her brother, “He saved me when nobody else could be fucked to try.” 
  • Marion, Dana, and Fee get into an argument, and Marion grows increasingly angry. “Marion’s flat blue eyes came alive with rage. ‘You bitch,’ she said to Fee and charged her.” 
  • In a flashback, Dana and her future husband, Rob, meet for the first time at a bachelorette party. During their flirty banter, Dana says, “Don’t be the asshole quoting Tennyson to girls at the party.” 

Supernatural     

  • Two older, creepy men bother Dana, Fee, and Marion at the restaurant where they worked as teenagers. Marion performs a spell. “Marion went still . . . When she spoke, the words came low. A cadenced murmur that played havoc with my heart. ‘Let all his thoughts be seen . . . Let their dark matter touch the air. Let them trouble him from without.’”  
  • As the two men began to leave the restaurant, weirded out by Marion and what she is saying, cicadas begin landing on the men, one by one. “He [went] down, he was screaming with his lips closed, he was mashing his face into the sand. I didn’t know whether the insects were stinging or biting or just crawling over his skin, but they kept coming.” 
  • Marion shares her occultist book with Dana and Fee. Marion explains, “You couldn’t look for things in the occultists book, couldn’t read it cover to cover . . . it worked. . . like a tarot deck, delivering the pages you needed to see.” 
  • Marion, Fee, and Dana do their first spell together. “It began with a purification ritual. For three days we stayed inside, playing sick so we could avoid mirrors, direct sunlight, and human touch. We drank herbs steeped in spring water, briny with rock salt, and performed ablutions once an hour between sundown and sunup. . .  At sundown on the fourth day we gathered the spell’s ingredients.” This was meant to prepare them and their space for future spells.  
  • As Dana and Fee discover the world of magic and the power that it gives them, they practice with the occultists book. “We learned the many uses of moonlight. Every piece of magic the book gave us worked like a gateway drug, until we couldn’t imagine our lives without that thrill, that bend, that shock of the world giving way beneath our hands.” 
  • Marion describes the dead owner of her occultists book: Astrid Washington. Astrid is referred to on numerous occasions. Marion said, “Astrid was amazing. She wasn’t just an occultist; she was a healer.” 
  • Fee, Dana, and Marion perform a love spell, but the spell does not go as planned due to Marion’s deception and alternate agenda; summoning Astrid Washington. “The occultists book showed us a love spell. Its ingredients were for a wedding bouquet: ribbons, roses, lavender . . . In the middle of the spell Fee screamed. She reached under her shirt for the necklace that always nestled just below her throat’s hollow. . . When she pulled up her shirt to look, there was a fine cross-shaped mark where the crucifix had lain.”  
  • Marion proposes that they do a spell to increase their magical force. “Marion pinned the page with her finger and read aloud. ‘A blessing of power for those bold enough to take it. That my gifts may not stagnate . . . A spell for eight hands . . . Increased magical force. That’s the spell.’” However, due to Marion’s deception, the spell that they perform does not increase their magical strength but instead puts them in danger. 
  • Marion tricks Fee and Dana into doing a summoning spell. Fee says, “We were dragging Astrid Washington out of, what, Hell? Mother of God, Marion!” At the last minute, Dana and Fee figure out how Marion was deceiving them, and they put a stop to it.  
  • As Dana, Fee, and Marion begin another spell, they could feel that “Astrid was with [them], a presence at [their] backs, ahead of [them], pressing in from the sides.” 
  • Marion once again tricks Dana and Fee into casting a binding spell. “Holding the drifting veil above the manhole of mirror, [Marion] began to speak. ‘I charge you Astrid Washington, to do my bidding. To serve me. I charge you to bind yourself to me. To be my helpmeet and my familiar.” During the spell, Astrid begins to rise out of the mirror world. “Astrid hefted herself through the glass, crouching on its edge with her toes still dipped into mirror world.”  
  • Once Fee and Dana realize what is going on and see how angry Astrid feels, they try to break the spell and save Marion from Astrid’s resentment. Fee said, “Draw tight the power of three, add blood to a loving cup, and if ever the three should part, let the river swallow them up.” The spell begins working, and “the chant, multiplied by three, fizzing with the unwieldy charge of Astrid’s borrowed magic.” They are then pulled into the magic circle/mirror world, where Astrid was trapped, and they are forced to face her.  
  • Astrid threatens Fee. To stop the binding spell, Dana has only one choice. Since Marion and Astrid are bonded together, Dana thinks that “maybe I could steal just enough time to kill Marion. If she died, Astrid died, too. The circle broke. We were free.” Dana heaves Marion’s body through the mirror. Marion and Astrid are trapped in the mirror world and cannot be released without a spell.  
  • Ivy has magical abilities. She has lucid dreams and pulls other people into her dreams.  
  • Dana explains magic to Ivy. Dana says, “Some kinds of magic are just for you – the magic that grows in your blood. Everyone is well fed by different springs, different traditions. Folk magic, myth magic, we’ve got lots of that in our tree. You have to be careful, you’ve gotta keep your eyes off of other people’s paper . . . [Fee and I] learned when we were young not to siphon off springs that don’t belong to us.” 
  • Dana travels to see Mr. Lazar, an old man who sells obscure magical objects. She buys a forgetting box, which is used to make Ivy forget that she is a witch and can use magic.  
  • Dana gets fired from her waitressing job and stumbles upon Linh, an old friend of hers who can talk to the dead. Linh explains, “It’s never a good thing when a spirit comes looking for me. It’s way, way better when I’m the one doing the courting.” 
  • Ivy performs a spell in her room. “Ivy propped a mirror against her footboard. She pressed a blend of clarity oils into seven crucial places. She looped a thread of dark hair around her right ring finger – spirited off of her best friend Billy’s shoulder – and incanted as she used that fingertip to trace a sigil over the mirror. Mist spilled into the glass, displacing her reflection.” She can now see what Billy is doing through the mirror.  
  • Ivy discovers a man not moving in the home that Marion had broken into. She panics and asks Marion what is wrong with him. Marion explains what she had done to the man. “They’re not dead. While they’re sleeping, they won’t die, or age, or thirst. They’re as safe as it’s possible to be in this world. Their house fulfills a need, and I’ll give it back when I’m through.” 
  • Marion gives Ivy the forgetting box that Dana used on her years ago, hoping Ivy will regain her memories. Ivy attempts to open it, “The box didn’t glow or hover or hum. It just warmed to my skin, loosening like a tablet of wax. I could see the seam now, and the catch, as easy as if they’d always been there.” 
  • Marion performs a scrying spell. “Steadily Marion poured water into a heavy silver bowl. She sprinkled its surface with Dana’s blood and spoke the words and waited to see what would come. There was a haze, pearlescent, then a figure came into view: Dana’s red hair.” This spell allows Marion to see the real world and escape her entrapment.  
  • Astrid Washington and Marion perform a spell together to release them from the world they have been trapped in. “Astrid began the incantation that would unwind their world. As she incanted Marion closed her eyes against a cast melancholy.” 
  • There is a scene that essentially tells the entire story of Ivy’s life, which was trapped in the forgetting box. It recounts all her experiences with magic, Billy, and the life she was forced to forget.  
  • When Ivy finds her mom and Fee under a spell, she tries to save them. “If they [are] sleeping, there [is] a chance I could reach them. I could fall asleep right here and pull them out of Marion’s nightmare, and into a dream of my own.”  
  • Ivy puts Marion’s soul into the forgetting box, ultimately saving both her mom and Aunt Fee from Astrid and Marion. “I . . . pulled out the golden box, and pressed it to the place I’d drawn [Marion’s] blood . . . the box opened its hungry mouth.” 

Spiritual Content     

  • None    

Heartless Hunter

Two years ago, the Republic was founded when rebels killed the witch queens. Thus ended the tyranny of the Reign of Witches and began the dawn of a “better” world. However, not much has changed since the cruelty of the witches has been replaced by the ruthlessness of the Blood Guard. Now, all witches are condemned and executed. Those who sympathize with or harbor witches also suffer a grim fate.  

Rune Winters is the perfect aristocrat: shallow, fashionable, and arrogant. After turning in her witch grandmother, Rune Winters is the darling of the Republic. But what the Republic doesn’t realize is that this image is an act, put on to protect Rune’s secret identity as a witch vigilante, the Crimson Moth. 

Rune, as the Crimson Moth, is focused on protecting and saving girls from being purged. She was on her way to save her grandmother’s friend, Seraphine, but got there too late. Now to save Seraphine, Rune will need insider intel, and her target is the captain of the Blood Guard and witch hunter, Gideon Sharpe. Gideon has been locked in a deadly game with the Crimson Moth, as every witch he captures is magically spirited away by her. New intel has led him to suspect Rune Winters, and so his current objective is to get close to Rune and figure out her secrets. As the two of them flirt, scheme, and manipulate to reach their goals, they find themselves betrayed by the thing they least expected, their own hearts.  

Rune has never forgotten the day she had to turn in her Nan and channels her pain into saving others. She couldn’t save her grandmother, but she can save the next innocent girl taken by the Blood Guard. Readers will be absolutely captivated by Rune’s strength of will and heart, as she continues to risk herself in order to save just one more girl. As an aristocrat and beloved by the Republic, Rune doesn’t need to endanger herself, but she does. She uses her privilege to help witches and witch sympathizers who are looked down upon by society. Rune’s stubbornness and determination make her likeable and admirable because she refuses to compromise or give up when things become difficult. Rune is a role model for audiences because even as she struggles with conflicting emotions and harrowing circumstances, she always tries to do the right thing. 

Rune is not alone in her quest. She can rely on her friends Alex Sharpe and Verity de Wilde. Alex is the genuine heart of this book with his steadfast loyalty and caring nature. While everyone is consumed by hatred, he alone sees a future where witches and non-witches can live together in peace. When he discovers that Rune is a witch, Alex accepts Rune as she is and continues to love her. While Alex helps Rune because she is his friend, Verity assists Rune because she is just as committed to saving witches. Verity is smart and dedicated to Rune’s cause because of her love for her dead sisters, who were witches.  

Rune even captivates Gideon Sharpe, Alex’s brother, with whom she falls in love. Gideon is a tortured soul and absolutely committed to the cause of hunting witches. He thinks that witches are all ultimately evil, but this belief comes from a place of hurt and trauma. His beliefs are ultimately tested when he starts to fall for Rune. Like his brother, Gideon is loyal to a fault and compassionate. He cares about everyone so much that he will do whatever it takes to protect them from the suffering he endured. Readers will find Rune and Gideon’s romance hopeful, but heartbreaking, as they find acceptance in each other for their scars, but must separate because of their competing allegiances. 

Ciccarelli creates an incredibly suspenseful story where one wrong move will cause Rune’s doom. The pace is perfectly timed as the buildup of Rune and Gideon’s romance is believable and heart-wrenching. Ciccarelli plays with her audience as Rune and Gideon’s burgeoning feelings give readers hope, only for it to be ripped away by lies, secrets, and brutal circumstances. This is a great first half of Ciccarelli’s duology where emotions are heightened to a fever pitch and the stakes seem insurmountable. Heartless Hunter’s characters are flawed and therefore relatable, just like their rich and deeply divided world.  

The characters’ differences lead to conflict, which also sets up unity that will be explored further in the next book, Rebel Witch. 

The novel reaches its climactic peak through a series of devastating revelations and sacrifices that fundamentally alter the story’s trajectory. The witch queen Cressida’s unexpected survival delivers a shocking twist, while Alex’s ultimate sacrifice to save Gideon casts a shadow of despair over the conclusion and simultaneously lays crucial groundwork for future installments. The story’s most painful element emerges in the final schism between Rune and Gideon, whose relationship fractures under the weight of competing loyalties and unresolved emotions. Despite sharing the fundamental desire to protect others, their divergent approaches—shaped by personal trauma and mistrust—create an irreparable rift that leaves readers with a sense of tragic inevitability rather than resolution.  

Sexual Content  

  • While in Rune’s room, she flirts with Gideon. When things get heated and they are about to kiss, Rune suddenly spills her wine. “He’s going to kiss me, she realized. And the scariest thing was, Rune wanted him to… in this moment, she wanted to know how his mouth would feel against hers… if he’d give in to that ravenous hunger, taking his fill of her.” 
  • Gideon measures Rune for a dress he’s going to make her, so Rune undresses. “Rune was already undressing. His gaze dropped to her lace bralette and remained there for a beat, before quickly shooting back to her face, his cheeks burning with color.” 
  • Gideon says he’s going to start measuring at the top and move down, but he and Rune immediately think of a sexual innuendo. “She knew what he meant, but the way he said it made her imagine him working his way down her in a… less vertical way. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one. Gideon froze, opened his mouth to clarify what he meant, and coughed instead.” 
  • Gideon is still measuring Rune, but gets distracted. “From here, he had a perfect view of the low scoop of her bralette, the delicate lace leaving little to the imagination. He had just measured her bust, so why it suddenly mattered, he wasn’t sure. He kept his gaze on the line of her throat instead.” 
  • When Gideon worked for the witch queen Cressida, he would “fulfill her [sexual] needs.” He would be “punished… for neglecting [his] duties.” 
  • Gideon thinks about when he and Cressida “traded kisses in empty palace rooms, hands wandering over each other.” 
  • Gideon tells Rune how Cressida blackmailed him into sleeping with her. “When I told Cressida we were done, that I wanted nothing more to do with her, she warned that if I refused her advances my little sister would suffer my mother’s fate.” 
  • Gideon discusses the abuse he suffered. “Sometimes, it felt like Cressida preferred Gideon unwilling. Like it brought her more pleasure to force him.” 
  • Rune and Gideon go skinny-dipping in the ocean. “She pulled in a sharp breath, her blood running a little hotter at the sight of his muscled shoulders and arms. She coiled her fingers into her palms, pressing the nails into the skin, trying to stop herself from tracing him with her eyes: the rigid lines of his collarbones, abdomen, hips.” 
  • Gideon gets fully undressed before going in the ocean, and “Rune wanted to drop her hands and look at him. Desperately…” But she does not. 
  • Rune and Gideon are swimming when she thinks, “What would it feel like to have his body flush against hers? It was perverse, the way she wanted to find out.” 
  • Rune follows her impulses and kisses Gideon, “dragging her fingers through his hair and pulling his mouth down to hers.” 
  • Gideon is not immune to her charms, as he also wants Rune. “When her teeth grazed his bottom lip, a wicked heat surged through him, and he reached for her waist. So soft. He wanted to sink into her softness. To bury himself in her.” 
  • Gideon and Rune continue to make out on land. “He moved lower, pressing his lips to a more sensitive place on her neck… Gideon moved lower still, to the base of her throat… When his teeth grazed her collarbone, Rune inhaled sharply, fisting her hands… She pushed her hands into his hair, cradling his head.” They eventually stop without going further. 
  • One of Rune’s rejected suitors insults her, saying, “If the rumors are true, she’s as loose as a whore.”  
  • After Gideon’s brush with death, Rune goes to see if he’s okay. They profess their love for each other and have sex. “He wanted her, and she clearly wanted him… The breath shuddered out of him. His hands tightened on her thighs, pulling her closer… It made the warm ache between her legs sharpen and grow… Gideon continued, moving against her. Deeper, harder, insistent.” This scene lasts for eight pages. 
  • After Gideon betrays Rune, she seeks out Alex. He asks her to marry him because he has always loved her. “When his kisses turned hungry, she leaned in, open to the possibility of him. He backed her toward the desk and lifted her onto it. When he stepped between her legs, pulling her flush against him…” They stop when Rune accepts his proposal.  

Violence  

  • The Red Peace was born after witches were massacred: “Two years had passed since these streets ran with the blood of witches and the Republic of the Red Peace was born.” This event began Rune’s quest to save persecuted witches.  
  • The government marks the foreheads of children who are “descendants of witch sympathizers.” 
  • A dangerous witch has been killing guards for months. “Three nights ago, another mutilated body had been found dragged under a bridge. Chest ripped open. Blood drained out.” 
  • Gideon is talking with his colleague about the young witches he captured and put in jail. “He could picture them huddled behind the bars of the cell he’d locked them in: wide-eyed and trembling as they clung to each other.” 
  • In order to save her life, Rune had to turn in her witch grandmother to be purged. “Blood Guard officer smashed his pistol into [her grandmother’s] face… they stripped the old woman down, found her scars, and dragged her off to be executed.” 
  • Gideon became a hero of the Republic and a highly respected officer because “[he] risked his life leading revolutionaries into the palace and single-handedly killing two witch queens.” 
  • Rune falls into a trap set by Gideon and fights to escape. She stabs Gideon. “With the weight of him gone, Rune was free to reach for the knife strapped to her thigh… Rune drew the knife from its sheath and stabbed hard, not caring where the blade went in, so long as it went in deep.” Gideon is slightly injured as he rushes to attend a ball after this fight. 
  • Rune eventually escapes but is shot at and receives a minor injury. “A third shot rang out. This time, Rune felt the sharp sting of a bullet as it sliced her forearm. Warm, sticky blood seeped out.” 
  • Gideon meets the leader of the new Republic in a boxing ring, where “Gideon was getting the shit kicked out of him nightly. Those matches always ended the same way: with Gideon hauling his bruised body from the floor of the ring, dragging himself to a table.” 
  • Gideon’s parents were designers employed by the three witch queens. The two eldest cast magic on Gideon’s mother and drove her mad. “His mother accused them of worse things, too: her husband, of being unfaithful to her; Tessa, of poisoning her; Gideon, of abusing Tessa… And always, he could smell it on her: the coppery scent of a witch’s spells.” 
  • While Gideon is telling Rune about his past, he remembers the worst of what the witch queens did. “He walked in on [Cressida] and her sisters standing over a body in a pool of blood.” It is implied that Cressida and the other queens killed this person and collected the blood for magic. 
  • Cressida cast a spell on Gideon’s little sister, Tessa, to infect her with a disease. Then she barred people from treating her. “Tessa wept and begged from the other side, delirious with fever, calling for their mother. He screamed at Cressida, who only smirked. So he lunged and pinned her down. He had his hands around her throat, prepared to stop squeezing only when she went limp beneath him, but the guards dragged him off and chained him to the floor of a cell.” 
  • Gideon explains that his parents committed suicide. “My mother drowned herself a day [after Tessa died]. My father hung himself a few days after that.” 
  • Cressida branded Gideon with her crest. “He recalled the night she branded him. She’d pinned him to the wall with a spell so he’d be helpless to stop her from searing his flesh. He remembered his body spasming beneath the glowing iron, every muscle tightening at the lightning-hot pain.” 
  • In retaliation, Gideon helped the new ruler of the Republic and “the other rebels take the palace, shooting [Cressida’s sister witch queens] in their beds.” Gideon killed those two witch queens, but he did not kill Cressida because Alex “had found and dealt with her so Gideon didn’t have to.” 
  • Rune remembers when her Nan was taken and executed. “The chains raised her grandmother skyward, by the ankles. There she dangled, upside down… One of the Blood Guard stepped forward with a knife and sliced her grandmother’s throat. The blood splattered and gushed. Nan choked, gasping for a breath she couldn’t take, her body writhing like a worm on a hook.” 
  • Verity tells Rune about her dead witch sisters, who their stepfather abused. “He would lock them up for days. Beat their bare backs with belts. Force them to kneel for hours on broken glass.” 
  • Gideon and his officers find bodies with their blood drained, and this time, it’s soldiers in his squad. “[Gideon’s] gaze descending to the Blood Guard’s neck, which was hacked open like a second gaping mouth. White bone shone in the mess of torn skin, tendons, and congealed blood. James’s spine appeared to be the only thing keeping his head attached to his body.” 
  • Alex found his brother getting beaten up every night in the boxing ring. Cressida was also abusing him. “That the young man getting beaten in the ring was Gideon. His face was so bruised and bloody, I didn’t recognize him.” 
  • Gideon asks Alex if Cressida is still alive, but Alex assures him, “I shot her three times. ” 
  • Alex tells Rune the truth about what happened when he confronted Cressida. “She woke to the barrel of my pistol pressed against her head.” Alex threatens Cressida, but ultimately spares her. 
  • Cressida sets a trap for Gideon and his guards. “But before he could grab her arm and pull her back into the room, a loud BOOM! shook the walls and floors. The red-hot force of an explosion threw him backward, slamming his body into solid brick.” Gideon is only slightly injured, and some others go to the hospital for injuries. 
  • Cressida sets a second blast at the guard headquarters. “Twenty-seven are confirmed dead and many more are injured.” 
  • Rune is captured and learns that Cressida “killed Verity and stole her identity.” 
  • In a bid to save Rune and the other witches from execution, Cressida finally reveals who she is.  She then kills a bystander to get blood for her magic. “As her victim screamed and fought, trying to get away, Cressida bared the girl’s pale throat to her knife’s crescent edge, and slit it.” 
  • Cressida shoots and kills the leader of the Republic. “Silence bled through the square as the Commander’s body tipped slowly forward, collapsing in a heap. His eyes were blank as they stared at Gideon.” Cressida then aims for Gideon, but Alex is killed instead. “When the gun went off, [Alex] stepped in front of it.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When Rune is flirting with Gideon and trying to get information, she orders some wine. “Lifting the decanter, she poured wine into both cups.” 
  • After his parents and sister died, Gideon started drinking heavily. “He’d started drinking after that. Every day. Sometimes, as soon as waking up.” Alcohol was the only thing that would numb his pain.   
  • While being abused, Gideon went to get beaten up at a boxing ring. “Like he came there every night, drunk or high, and let them beat him half to death. Like he thought he deserved it.” 
  • Alex helped Gideon as best he could. “After the revolution, it was Alex who stayed by Gideon for weeks, helping him fight off his laudanum addiction. Alex didn’t leave Gideon’s side until he no longer shook with the cravings.” 

Language  

  • Language is used rarely. Language includes fuck, shit, hell, and whore. 

Supernatural  

  • The world of Heartless Hunter involves witches who are able to cast magic spells by using their blood and the blood of others. The blood is used to write magic symbols and activate the magic. The scars made from drawing blood turn silver. “Mirage Spells are simple illusions held for short periods that require little blood. The fresher the blood, the stronger the magic, and the easier casting will be.” 
  • A witch can’t take blood without consent. “Blood must be taken with consent or given freely, as blood taken from an unwilling person will corrupt a witch and their magic… if a witch took someone’s blood against their will, the spell using that blood would corrupt the witch. She would crave the power it gave her, and resort to more coercive bloodletting, often killing her sources.” 
  • Rune casts her signature magic spell, Ghost Walker, to conceal herself. This magic is made possible through symbols written in blood. “Summoned into being by the magic in Rune’s blood and held together by the symbols drawn on her wrist, binding the spell to her.” 
  • Rune describes how she collects blood for her magic without cutting herself. “Rune had developed her blood storage system shortly after learning she was a witch… It was how Rune kept her body free of casting scars: by collecting her blood at every monthly cycle.” 
  • Witches are not magical at birth, but come into their power at a certain age. “It was the initial sign of a witch: at the onset of your first bleeding, you didn’t bleed red, but black.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • The people of this world believe in seven “Ancients.” These beings created the world and gifted magic to the people. “And each entry was named after one of the seven Ancients. Mercy, Liberty, Wisdom, Justice, Amity, Patience, Fortitude.” 

Can We Keep a Bigfoot?

When the Creepy Critter Keepers find a baby Bigfoot inside their clubhouse, they want to keep her as a pet. But then the Boggy Brothers come to town on a hunt to find Bigfoot themselves. The kids know they need to get their new buddy back to her mother soon. Can they take their furry friend home in time? Or will the Boggy Brothers catch up with them first? 

Anyone who has ever dreamed of meeting a mythological creature will love reading Can We Keep a Bigfoot? Right from the start, the kids know they must keep the Boggy Brothers, two comical villains, from finding Baby Bigfoot. The Creepy Critter Keepers disguise Baby Bigfoot, and readers will giggle at the illustration of Baby Bigfoot dressed up in one of the kids’ mothers’ clothes and makeup. However, as the kids search for Mama Bigfoot, they must protect the baby from both the Boggy Brothers and a teenager who dreams of being on TV. The author employs both humor and suspense to craft an engaging story that portrays Bigfoot as a loving, caring animal who looks out for one another. 

Can We Keep a Bigfoot? will entertain independent readers who are ready for longer texts and more complex storylines. To aid in comprehension, black and white illustrations appear every two to four pages. Many of the pictures show the characters, who are a diverse group. The books in the Creepy Critters Keepers Series can be read in any order because each book focuses on a different “creepy” critter. The book begins with a “Fact File” on Baby Bigfoot, which includes basic information such as abilities, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes.   

The four friends in Can We Keep a Bigfoot? are each unique and have different interests, but they all believe that protecting the Bigfoot is more important than money or fame. While much of the book is silly, it also shows that “there’s so much mystery in the world.” Instead of being fearful of Bigfoot, the kids show curiosity and compassion toward him. However, in the conclusion, Mama Bigfoot uses magic to give each kid a magical gift. The magic is a little off-putting because it is the only magic in the book. Additionally, it detracts from the kids’ kindness because it implies that a gift should only be given to someone who has helped. 

Can We Keep a Bigfoot? is an imaginative book that gives readers a picture of what Bigfoot might be like. With relatable characters, a comedic villain, and an adorable baby Bigfoot, the story is sure to delight readers. Readers who enjoy humor and monsters should also read The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids Series and the Notebook of Doom Series.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • After the kids help Mama Bigfoot reunite with her baby, Mama Bigfoot gives each kid a gift. To do this, Mama uses magic. Mama Bigfoot takes Mia’s hairbrush. Mama Bigfoot “rubbed the brush against her belly. Her wrists went in a circle. As she moved the hairbrush, it disappeared!” When Mama opens her hand, the hairbrush has changed to a “thick paintbrush. It held a faint glow. . . She swirled it over a page in her notebook. As she did, sparkling colors appeared on the sheet.” 
  • Mama Bigfoot changes a stone into a “silvery frog.” 
  • Mama Bigfoot changes a piece of tree bark. “Mama Bigfoot spun the bark around. When her magic was done, she showed Pablo his present. It was a small carved figure of a Bigfoot.”  
  • Mama Bigfoot takes Mia’s favorite pencil. “Mama Bigfoot stared at the pencil. As her round eyes gazed into the woods, it began to split. Pieces of the pencil turned into stems. Gold and silver flowers bloomed and burst forward. They sent showering sparks into the air.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Shadow Wand

Elloren Gardner is the spitting image of her grandmother, with the power to match. She is the Black Witch, destroyer of worlds and subject of prophecies. Her friends have fled to the East. She has been married without consent to Lukas Grey, a man who loves her but has ambiguous allegiances. Furthermore, she is the weapon Gardneria has been searching for across the continent.  

Elloren’s country, Gardneria, and the rest of the continent are fully in the clutches of a fascist and theocratic government. To defeat her enemies, Elloren trains her magic and her fighting skills under their noses. At least, that was the plan. Soon after she arrives in the desert to train with the world’s greatest sorceresses, they quickly turn on her, convinced that she will bring about the devastation predicted by the prophecy of the Black Witch. In the hopes of joining her friends, Elloren returns to Gardneria and to her mysterious husband, Lukas.  

Elloren is a hopeful, fierce protagonist, dead set on saving the world—no matter what the rest of the world thinks of her. This turns out to be more complicated than expected when Lukas reveals his plans to destroy Vogel, Gardneria’s dictator. As their plans develop, Elloren meets new friends, strengthens the Resistance network, and struggles to recover from the disastrous losses of the past.  

With characters now separated, The Shadow Wand divides into multiple perspectives, though Elloren’s is by far the most dominant. Due to the influx of character perspectives and new storylines, The Shadow Wand is more complicated than the previous two books. To help readers remember all the details, the book includes far too much exposition, which slows the story’s pace. Since the beginning and conclusion are packed with vital information, readers must pay close attention to the details. The plot revolves around characters’ emotional distress, lacks action, and is boring at times. The inconsistent pacing may also annoy readers. Despite this flaw, the story has solidly developed characters, a villainous society, and a positive message. The Shadow Wand highlights the importance of friendship and perseverance even when it seems like the world is ending.   

The Shadow Wand escalates Elloren’s journey through the growing intolerance and paranoia of the magical world of Erthia. The tragedies carried over from the previous book are emphasized through Elloren’s grief, and while the novel takes a darker turn, it has hopeful messaging and ultimately delivers further emotional depth to every character. The Shadow Wand teaches readers the importance of never giving up in the face of the impossible, whether fighting external threats or mental health challenges.  

The world of Erthia will enthrall readers as it grows even more intricate in The Shadow Wand. Readers who enjoy teenagers fighting authoritarian regimes, complex magic systems, and political intrigue will love Elloren’s determination. The addition of her friends’ perspectives provides a broader picture of the intolerance on their continent and how to combat it. The Shadow Wand is about dealing with consequences, learning from mistakes, and fighting even when no one thinks you can succeed. It concludes with an unexpected cliffhanger that will have readers reaching for the fourth installment.  

Sexual Content  

  • On the Gardnerian front lines, Elloren’s ally, Thierren, recalls moments with his fiancée. He thinks about how “she’s allowed him one brief, intoxicating kiss,” and how he “can still feel those soft lips, the contours of her slim waist under his palms, her body pressed against his.” 
  • While trying to escape the island she’s trapped on, Elloren’s ally, Sparrow, runs into one of the border guards, who calls her lovely. The guard has been harassing Sparrow for the past couple of weeks. He lightly touches her face and asks her to accompany him back to his room. When she refuses, he says, “You’ve put me off long enough . . . I’ve been patient, Sparrow. More patient than any other Mage here would ever be.” She escapes before he becomes a real threat. 
  • Having just arrived in the East, Tierney meets with other Water Fae, and one of them, Fyordin, becomes territorial over her. After Tierney speaks to another kind of Fae, he asks if she is “going to take the Death Fae as [her] lover?” 
  • Elloren’s love, Yvan, thinks about his time with Elloren on a military base. “Their separation is too much [for him] to bear at times, often keeping him up tossing late into the night, his skin feverish as his fire lashes out . . . desperate to find his Wyvernfire-bounded love.” 
  • Elloren reunites with Lukas at a party, and he “kisses her deeply, the feel of [their] powers merging both startling and all-consuming.” 
  • Lukas’s father disapproves of his marriage to Elloren, and in an argument with Lukas, he requests that Lukas “seal the fasting and the breed on the girl. And quickly.” 
  • Later, when Lukas tells Elloren about the conversation with his father, Lukas says that “the minute there’s a possibility that I’ve got you with child, [my mother] will leave you alone.” Elloren replies that “no one is getting [her] with child.” Lukas agrees and says that he has Sanjire root, a form of birth control.  
  • At their wedding, Lukas and Elloren seal the marriage with a kiss. Lukas “pulls [Elloren] into his arms, and brings his lips firmly to [hers]. . . he draws [her] tight against his body.” Later, during the reception, they discover that if Lukas kisses her, he can help shield her against Vogel, so he “kisses [her] so intensely that every one of [her] affinity lines tighten and grow as molten as wildfire.” 
  • After the reception, there is a five-page sex scene where Lukas and Elloren consummate their marriage. Lukas “moves in [her], slowly at first” and she “gasps at the fullness of him.” There’s talk of moving quickly and then slowly, but there’s very little description of anatomy. 
  • When Elloren is being trained in magic, the only way she can calm her magic down is when Lukas kisses her. So, she “capture[s] his mouth, and bear[s] down, boring power into his lines in a shuddering bolt. A burn races along [her] skin and into his.” 
  • After a long day of training, Elloren and Lukas have sex again. Elloren “kiss[es] him passionately, [her] soft curves fitting against the hard lines of his body” and they “give each other everything.” They wake up together in the morning. The scene is described over a page. 
  • Before a stressful next day, Elloren kisses Lukas. He says, “If we had Sanjire root, I’d take you right here. Against that wall.” They kiss but do not have sex.

Violence  

  • In The Shadow Wand, international relations have deteriorated, and the whole continent is at war. This is primarily because Gardneria has become a fascist, authoritarian state led by an intolerant, isolationist, and xenophobic religion. This novel contains descriptions of hate crimes, sexual abuse and assault, and war crimes.  
  • Elloren’s uncle doesn’t want her mother to fight the Gardnerians. Elloren’s mother says, “They’re rounding up all the Fae, Edwin! The children too. We have to help them! . . . The Gardnerians are doing the same thing that the Kelts and the Urisk did to us. Children are being seized. Whole families. Do you know what that’s like? Watching your family, your people, herded together to be killed? The children screaming?” 
  • When Thierren is on the front lines, he witnesses Gardnerian forces burning the woods and Dryads. One of the Dryads warns them not to because “if the trees die, we die. You die. We all die.” Though Thierren tries to stop it, the forests are burned to the ground completely, and all the Dryads are executed. 
  • When Elloren is training in the desert, one of the groups who have helped Elloren hide turns on her, convinced that Elloren will try to kill them all because she’s the next Black Witch. While many of them resent her, they haven’t yet resorted to violence. One of them eventually goes rogue and attempts to kill Elloren, and the rest are forced to step in to save Elloren. So, “Quoi Zhon reaches for another star as Kam Vin slams an elbow into the woman’s arm, the silver star flashing with reflected firelight as it drops into a patch of smoldering embers. Then Kam Vin strikes the back of Quoi Zhon’s head, and the sorceress collapses facedown on the sand.” Nobody dies. 
  • Thierren, Sparrow, and Effrey are caught trying to sabotage Gardnerian forces. Thierren tries to fight “the ferocious desire to draw his wand, cut down every Mage in the room, and flee East.” He ultimately does nothing as the Gardnerian guards restrain him.  
  • While training in the East, Yvan is ambushed by Gardnerians, and he “falls to the ground, his whole body arcing against the terrible pain. . . as vine spears impale his chest.” Yvan loses consciousness, and it is implied that he has been killed.  
  • After Elloren turns herself in to the Gardnerians, her aunt Vyvian confronts her. Vyvian says, “Do you know what we do now to race traitors, Elloren Gardner? We execute them.” Vyvian threatens her niece, though she doesn’t act on any violent thoughts. 
  • At Lukas’s party, Elloren’s old bully, Fallon Bane, confronts Elloren and attacks her. Elloren then throws her “fist forward and punch[es] [Fallon] in the face as hard as [she] can.” Fallon tries to fight back, but Elloren runs.  
  • Eventually, Elloren runs into Fallon’s brother, Damion. Elloren attacks him. “[She] slams [her] whole weight against him and lunge[s] for his wand, but he anticipates [her], tightening his grip on his wand as [her] hand closes around his . . . in the blink of an eye, he sends out a spell. [Elloren] cries out as vine bindings fly from his wand and cinch tight around [her] body, the breath forced from [her] lungs.” 
  • Elloren and Damion fight until Lukas breaks them up. “Lukas pushes Damion roughly against one of the stone trees. ‘She’s mine!’ Lukas snarls before punching Damion in the face so hard that [Elloren] can hear something crack.” The fight is diffused, and everybody goes their separate ways. The entire scene spans approximately ten pages. 
  • Elloren thanks Lukas for his help. She thanks him for marrying her, saying, “If you hadn’t stepped in, Damion would have taken me back to his estate and raped me. And that would be my life. Every day.” 
  • On the way back to Lukas’s family estate, Elloren and Lukas are attacked by a sorceress assassin. Elloren’s “head jerks back as pain blossoms, [her] eyes temporarily crossed from the blow as the [the killing star] bounces off Lukas’s shield.” The sorceress soon escapes through a magical portal, and no more harm is done. 
  • When Sparrow is working at the Grey estate, she is sexually assaulted by Lukas’s brother, Silvern. He nuzzles her neck, and Sparrow tries to squirm away, desperation mounting. Silvern slams himself against her, as if for emphasis.” Mrs. Grey interrupts, and Silvern is sent away.  
  • In their escape from the Grey estate, Lukas and Elloren watch as dragons burn the estate to the ground, killing most of their wedding guests. “Soldiers scream as vivid blue flames and indigo smoke rise high into the air. . . they’re all dead, [Elloren] dazedly realize[s].” There are no dead bodies described. The scene lasts approximately four pages.  
  • While training in the desert, shadow creatures attack Elloren and her friends. “The thing’s powerful, serrated forelimb slashes down toward Lukas, who ducks and slides out of the thing’s reach.” They defeat the creature in five pages, and no one is seriously injured. 
  • As Lukas tries to give Elloren instructions with her magic, she accidentally “envelops the whole world in fire,” including setting herself on fire as “fire cuts off [her] vision and scalds through [her].” That’s the only description of her fire that’s given. She doesn’t even know she is on fire until her friends tell her afterwards. They eventually extinguish the fire, and no one is seriously injured. Elloren discovers she is immune to fire. 
  • Shadow creatures again attack Elloren and her friends. “Lukas pulls his sword, lunges at the bat, and slashes the beast in two.” As more arrive, Elloren’s friends sacrifice themselves for her. She is the only one to make it through the magical portal to the East, implying that her friends died defending the portal behind her.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When Elloren enters Lukas’s military camp, she notices that two Gardnerian soldiers “slide the tip of a green bottle out of [a] bag and hastily pour its contents into the water flasks that hang from their necks.” She identifies the contents as “spirits, forbidden by the mage council.” 
  • Before they consummate their wedding, Elloren asks Lukas to “bring spirits” for the consummation of their marriage. He says, “[he’ll] bring some wine.” Later that evening, Lukas “pours a small amount of the wine into the two glasses” for himself and for Elloren. They both drink it, but not enough to be drunk. 
  • After they escape from the Grey estate and meet up with Elloren’s ally, Valasca, Lukas says, “A glass of Issani wine would be good right now.” She brings out her own flask of alcohol and shares it with the group, everybody going to sleep drunk. 

Language    

  • Language is very tame. Words like stupid, idiot, and hell appear frequently. 
  • The word whore is used three times. 
  • Bitch is used twice. 
  • Slut is used once.   

Supernatural  

  • This series contains all kinds of supernatural creatures. The Shadow Wand has Lupines, Fae, shadow creatures and monsters, witches, Selkies, Icarals, Kelpies, Elves, dragons, wyverns, and people with skin of all colors of the rainbow. 
  • Most of the magic appears in battle and Elloren’s training. Once, while training, Elloren describes her magic as “a savage connection to the wand.” Multiple times she has a feeling like “burning fire” and strong connections to the forest. She claims to have no control over her magic and claims that there was a time “[she] would have killed everyone [she] was with. [She] killed Ni Vin’s horse. [She] melted it.” 
  • The priest and dictator, Vogel, is described as being able to see through a “bird’s central green eye, as well.” All the shadow creatures have eyes through which Vogel can see and spy. His magic is described numerous times as “dark, evil, and demonic.”  
  • The Elf and Icaral, Wynter, can also communicate with birds, but do so in a less evil manner. She sends some of the birds “East on a hopeful search for Naga, her dragon kindred.” 
  • There are various kinds of magical travel in this novel, including portals, winged flight, and rune ships. One of the rune ships is described as having “huge, whirling flank runes and base runes,” casting “the vessel in a penumbra of sapphire light that’s reflected off the current of the Vo River.” 
  • The forests are described as sentient numerous times. After escaping into the woods from their wedding, Elloren tells Lukas that “[she’s] been bound,” her magic limited and locked up by the forest because it’s afraid of her. Elloren seems to be the only person who can communicate with the trees.

Spiritual Content  

  • The Shadow Wand is full of religious references as a theocratic and fascist government has taken power in Gardneria and is threatening war with the rest of the continent for religious reasons. This religion has strong allusions to the three main monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Their religious structures dictate more conservative norms and different swear words than what people literally use. For example, in a speech to a large crowd, Vogel claims that “the Ancient One has brought us victory after victory over the heathen races who seek to destroy us. Who seek to pollute our lands. Enslave us. And corrupt all that is sacred. And so the Ancient One has enhanced our runic magic, calling upon us to wall out the Evil Ones with border runes and holy purpose . . . we will cleanse this land and bring the Reaping Times to all of Erthia.” 
  • Marcus Vogel has been voted the leader of the Gardnerian government. Elloren’s aunt describes him as a “young High Priest” and “the absolute picture of pious elegance.” In the same moment, Vogel gives a speech in front of the council, claiming that “power belongs in Mage hands. We are the only ones who can wield magic to do the Ancient One’s will. So we are the only ones who should control it. All of it.” He complains about other species having power when he believes they shouldn’t because their god says so. 
  • Thinking about the wedding, Elloren explains that part of Gardnerian marriage customs include the “Blessing of Dominion. . . when the couple is required, by The Book of the Ancients, to enter the wilds alone and scatter the ashes of a destroyed tree to symbolize the Magedom’s dominion over Erthia.” 
  • During the wedding, Vogel officiates and declares that “We gather in the sight of the Holy Ancient One to celebrate the joining of these two Mages. In union with each other and in union with the Holy Magedom.” 
  • In the land of the Amaz, a refugee Elf explains to an audience that the Elf coming-of-age ritual requires them to wear a magical necklace called the Zalyn’or, which brainwashes them into the Elven religion. She says, “It forces complete belief in the supremacy of [Alfsiger religion and culture]. And it suppresses all rebellious thoughts, and all physical desire too.” All Elves in The Shadow Wand wear it and are unable to remove it. 

by Kate Schuyler 

Bloodmarked

All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother’s death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur’s knights — only to discover her own ancestral power. Now a medium, her ancestors’ voices sit in the back of her head along with the new arrival of Arthur’s presence, who is fighting to take over her body.  

Nick, the boy Bree loves, is missing. Both Bree and Selwyn, the mage sworn to protect Nick, want to search for Nick. But the arrival of the Regents, the group in charge of the Legendborn, makes their departure difficult. The Regents aim to contain and control Bree and eliminate the potential threat posed by Selwyn. After a daring escape from the Regents, Bree, Selwyn, and their friends begin their mission to find Nick. However, to find Nick, they will have to face the Shadowborn, demons drawn to Bree’s power, and the Mageguard, Merlins employed by the Regents.   

Bree struggles to understand and use her power. She needs to be a leader, but to do that, she may have to let go of Nick and save herself. She battles the expectations of the white supremacist Legendborn society against the expectations of her ancestors, all while grappling with the knowledge that her power exists because her ancestor was raped. After the Regents kidnap her, she desperately wants to find independence, but she is unable to abandon her friends, even for her own safety. While her friends advise her to save herself, she occasionally takes advantage of her role and orders them to obey her and do as she wants, but readers still find themselves rooting for her and her clear vision of justice.  

Bree continues to rely on her friends, making Bree and Selwyn’s relationship deepen, as does Nick and Bree’s romance. Nick and Bree are drawn together in their longing for each other and in Bree’s bloodwalks, where they are able to visit each other in Bree’s mind. Alice is also much more developed as a character; her friendship with Bree again provides a touchstone of stability amid the chaos of Bree’s life. Readers will enjoy the return of familiar characters and the arrival of interesting new ones. Almost everyone who meets Bree is won over by her selflessness and kindness, even in the face of threats to her life, and they return her loyalty in kind.  

Bloodmarked takes a deeper look at what it means for Bree to inherit power as a Black girl. Stunned by how much each of her friends cares for her, she strives to be worthy of their sacrifice. Bree also deals with relatable conflicts such as questioning authority, building confidence, and figuring out her identity. While much of the conflict is interpersonal, there are still moments of action and violence that sustain the fast-paced narrative. The novel concludes with a twist that will lead readers directly to Oathbound, the next book in the series.   

Sexual Content  

  • While Nick and Bree are separated for most of the novel, they are still in love, and the few times they do see each other, they hug and kiss. “Nick’s lips crash against mine, warm and fierce . . . What one of us wants, the other gives with lips, tongue, heat.” 
  • Nick and Bree are making out, but then are interrupted, as Bree is pulled out of the vision that allows them to visit each other. “Power cycling from his body to mine in a slow loop between his skin and mine . . . He moans, tugging us to the ground.” 
  • There is tension between Sel and Bree, as they both are attracted to each other, and they flirt with each other. Sel says, “I would say you look . . . devourable.” 
  • Sel has been creating an illusion of himself to trick Bree. She thinks that he was doing it to make her attracted to him, but he was really trying to disguise how unhealthy he looked. “What I thought felt like falling into him, maybe even for him, had been me, falling into Sel’s illusion.” 
  • Sel and Bree kiss. “Before he can respond, I pull his head down and press my mouth to his indignant scowl until it turns soft and warm . . . his palm wraps around the nape of my neck, turning the kiss fierce, his mouth open and hot. He pulls me in by the hip, closer, a pulse building between us, a shared demand.” 

Violence  

  • While practicing summoning her magic, Bree’s powers manifest in flames that burn her skin.  “The fine hair on my forearms singes; there’s a charred smell in my nose . . . The magic bites into my skin, the burns going deeper.” 
  • Bree is fighting intruders. She attacks with, “A right hook to their ribs. They pivot away before it lands—too fast—grasp my forearm, use my momentum, pull me off balance. I stumble into them, nearly slipping off the branch. They hold my wrist tight.” The fight is interrupted before anyone is seriously injured. 
  • Bree is pulled into Arthur’s memories, which are often scenes of war. “A battlefield soaked in red. My tunic and leathers, shining with it . . . We are always arguing, even here with our comrades screaming on the ground around us, bleeding—” 
  • When a boy tries to restrain Bree, she accidentally breaks his hand. “This time I do use Arthur’s strength to break his grip . . . I hear a pop. A bone broken.”  
  • Demons attack the car Bree is in. The car crashes, and “a deep thwunk as the car hits something. . . I end up pressed against the seat looking at the sky through the front window . . . The car tilts again. I go tumbling . . . I hit the floor shoulder-first. Pain shoots across my chest.” 
  • Someone in Arthur’s bloodline raped Bree’s ancestor. Bree and other characters make references to the rape throughout the book. Bree says, “I am Arthur’s heir not by choice or honor, but by violence . . . I am the Scion of Arthur by rape.” 
  • William, one of Bree’s friends, tortures a demon after she attacks it. “When bones crack beneath the skin, they make a deep, wet popping sound. That sickening crunch echoes around us in the yard until there are no more bones to break. . . William’s forefinger and thumb have just . . . twisted her elbow joint completely apart. Her limb is still held together by flesh. But now it’s in two pieces.” They release her after she answers their questions, but Selwyn kills her as she’s running away. 
  • Max kills Nick’s father, Lord Davis, because he betrayed the Legendborn Order. “And the spear pierces Lord Davis’s chest straight through with a wet, loud thunk.”  
  • In retaliation, Nick beheads the attacker. “Nick’s crossed blades meet his opponent’s throat, then part — cleaving Max’s head from his body.” 
  • A demon attacks Bree. “My right ribs and side are opened in stripes. Muscle, glistening wet. A steady stream of red flowing down into the dirt.” She is seriously injured.  
  • Bree attacks the Mageguard after they threaten her and her friends. Bree shoves the Mageguard and hears “a deep snapping sound, mixed with wet. A bone breaking as he lands.” The Mageguard is unconscious for the rest of the fight.  
  • In an attack, Bree accidentally hurts Alice. Bree “pull[s] the attacker [Alice] up and over by their arm, throwing them into the broadside of the van with a heavy thunk.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • The Regents kidnap Bree and keep her drugged to contain her powers. “I blink slowly and register the odd feeling in my chest . . . I feel hollowed out . . . It doesn’t occur to me until the end of the second day of confinement without the return of my abilities that the serum is probably in the food.” 
  • Bree, Sel, William, and Alice go to a bar where they are served drinks, but they don’t drink them. “[The waitress] looks down at Sel mischievously, then over her shoulder, before lifting a final, double shot glass.” 

Language    

  • Profanity is used regularly. Profanity includes damn, shit, hell, fuck, and asshole. 
  • Racist language is used toward Bree. One emissary of the Regents tells Bree that she should change her hair, “perhaps smooth things down for a cleaner look.” No racial slurs are used.  

Supernatural  

  • As a result of her Rootcraft and Bloodcraft, Bree has magic that is borrowed from her ancestors. She is the Scion of Arthur. Because she is a medium, she can communicate with Arthur, and she has his strength. Her root manifests in flames. She struggles to control both elements of her power.  
  • Bree explains her power. “Mediums can’t control the dead. Even if I could contact Arthur at will, I can’t—and won’t—rely on possession to wield his power.”  
  • Sel and the Mageguard are Merlins—humans with demon ancestry—who have heightened senses, strength, and speed. They can manipulate aether, and mesmer people, erasing their memories or creating illusions.  
  • Merlins are always fighting against succumbing to demonia, a loss of their human side. “If our latent demonic natures overcome us, we lose empathy, sympathy, kindness…Eventually, all that remains are the core hungers of demonia: the inescapable desires to create and consume human misery.” 
  • There are other Scions, descendants of the knights of the Round Table, who possess the powers they inherited from their ancestors.  
  • Bree performs bloodwalks, during which she communed with Arthur and her other ancestors. In these instances, when she touches Lancelot, she can summon Nick, as his descendant, and communicate with him. “I reach toward Lancelot—something Arthur did not do—and Lancelot does not react . . . My fingertips touch Lancelot’s shoulder. . . Lancelot flashes bright—and becomes Nick once more.” 
  • Bree and her friends go to a bar owned by a crossroads demon, who makes deals with humans to give them temporary magic powers.  
  • Bree and her friends visit a community of Rootcrafters, where Bree performs a ceremony to communicate with her ancestors. “Think of this place and ceremony like an amplifier for the ancestral stream. Volition and the communion circle will boost your call so you can talk to all of them at once”.   

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Diana and the Island of No Return

Twelve-year-old Diana has always wanted to be a warrior. She has spent her childhood growing up on the magical island of Themyscira among Amazons—powerful, female warriors—where men are forbidden. Now that she’s twelve, Diana is convinced it’s time for her to start training to be a warrior, but her mother, the Queen of the Amazons, refuses to let her. Diana is a natural with weapons and footwork and she sees no danger in training.  

But Diana knows her mother is hiding something, which frustrates her to no end. So, when the annual Chará festival comes to Themyscira, bringing boatloads of fearsome women from around the world, Diana watches them train and socialize with envy. Diana’s best friend, Sakina, helps distract her. When Diana goes looking for Sakina’s missing pet, she hears someone in need. Venturing all the way down to the waterfront, Diana sees something she’s never seen before—a boy, named Augustus, bruised, battered, and starving.  

Diana is a fierce, intelligent, and curious protagonist. When she finds Augustus, she approaches the situation rationally and, though she doesn’t trust him, she wisely gives him the benefit of the doubt.  Diana promises to return with food and to hear his story. Back at the palace, she discovers all the festival-goers in magic-induced comas. Panicked, she returns to the boats and finds Sakina interrogating Augustus. Together, the girls use Diana’s Lasso of Truth to compel the boy to tell them about what happened to their families. Augustus explains that a demon has hypnotized everyone on his island and blackmailed potion-expert Augustus to fetch Princess Diana for the demon. Without any other options, the girls take pity on Augustus and swear to save his family, and their own, regardless of the danger. They courageously leave Themyscira on a flying chariot to confront a demon all by themselves.  

The novel features fantastic and inspiring young heroes who drive the story and develop beautifully as characters. However, the demon is a flat and generic villain who lacks a backstory. The novel gives very little description of the demon, which makes him seem weak and diminishes Diana’s triumph. The rest of the story is well-constructed, using simple language and an easy plot that will keep the average reader entertained. The settings of Themyscira and Sáz (Augustus’s home island) are magically and wonderfully described. In addition, the Amazons serve as a great example of women empowering each other, and the community in Sáz is kind and tight-knit. Regardless of the book’s flaws, it’s a sweet and creative read.  

Readers will love the strong warriors, independent young protagonists, and intricate mythology and magic of Diana and the Island of No Return. Diana and her friends encounter all kinds of challenges and traps, from pits of spiders to flying chariots to hypnotized prisoners, which makes for inspiring entertainment. Diana is a sweet and spirited character who grows when challenged, leads by example and stands by her own moral principles. Overall, Diana and the Island of No Return is a beautiful story with moments of magical wonder, unwavering self-confidence, and lovely, budding friendship.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • While all the guests of Themyscira, Diana’s home island, party at the palace, Diana wanders down to the waterfront, where she discovers a boy—which is strange since boys are forbidden on Themyscira. He is visibly bruised and injured. It takes some time to get the answers, but he eventually confesses that a demon had blackmailed him to kidnap Diana. “‘I’m sorry,’ the boy said. His eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I tried to refuse. First I pretended I’d done it and made a fake potion; but when he tested it out and saw that it didn’t work, he beat me.’ The boy waved at his bruises. ‘When he threatened to kill my father then and there, I buckled.’”  
  • As Diana, Sakina, and Augustus confront the demon, their plan to capture the demon fails, and Diana attacks him unsuccessfully. “Diana glanced about for something—anything—to throw at [the demon] and noticed a boulder, loosened from the fence. Gripping it, she heaved it up and hurled it at the demon. The rock flew through the air, whizzing toward him—and passed straight through the demon’s torso and out the other side, landing with a sharp crack on the street beyond the bonfire.”  
  • When Diana’s attack on the demon fails, the demon reacts, and “one arm clamped around Diana’s neck and she was lifted into the air by her throat. Diana coughed and wheezed, her breathing growing strained. The hold pressed tighter against her windpipe. Stars began to dance in and out of Diana’s vision. She scrambled against the grip, her nails scratching into flesh.” She breaks free and makes it out largely unscathed. 
  • After regrouping and coming up with another plan, Diana and her friends confront the demon. While Diana distracts him, he is violent. “In a split second, the demon darted forward. He grabbed Diana’s wrist. Sparks of pain shot up Diana’s arm.” Diana gets free, and they get rid of the demon, so no further harm is done. The whole confrontation scene is only about five pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • During Themyscira’s annual festival, Diana returns to the palace to find all the partygoers asleep. “The first thing Diana noticed once she stepped inside the guest hall was the scent filling the room: bittersweet, like the rind of an orange. She clasped a hand to her nose; her eyes watered.” Diana discovers that everyone had been drugged. Diana and her friends find the antidote and eventually wake everyone. 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • While not a superhero yet, Diana has special abilities and grows up surrounded by magical happenings on a magically hidden island. This book has many references to magic on almost every page. An example of Diana’s abilities appears when she breaks free of the handcuffs the demon put on her. “The reality of what she’d done settled in on her. It should have been impossible to break out of those cuffs. And yet—she’d done it.” 
  • Diana also carries a family heirloom called the Lasso of Truth. She uses it multiple times against suspicious people. Diana says, “[The Lasso of Truth] shines a light on the truth. And you can’t break free of it. May as well stop trying.” Once ensnared by the Lasso, whoever Diana captures is compelled to tell the truth to any question posed to them.  
  • Diana’s friend, Sakina, also possesses special abilities that she frequently utilizes. Diana describes Sakina as “a Scholar, but [Sakina] also had a special ability to speak with animals.” Sakina has multiple pets that she converses with daily, and she often uses their help to set traps for the demon.  
  • Diana meets a new friend, Augustus, who comes from an island that makes magical, flying chariots. When Diana first meets him, he explains, “I brought a chariot with me. Uh, snuck it in the hull so no one would discover it. Thought I’d visit my family while I was here.” Diana asks, “It can fly all on its own?” Augustus responds, “with a certain potion, yes.” Augustus often uses magical potions to solve their problems, like protecting Diana and Sakina with force fields and defeating the demon. 
  • The demon also has several magical abilities that he uses for nefarious purposes. He hypnotizes Augustus’s loved ones to make Augustus do the demon’s bidding. “It’s hard to see them like that,” Augustus says, “They’re good people. There’s a ninety-nine-point nine percent probability that not one of those people hunting for us would hurt so much as a fly. But now they have clubs. And their eyes. . . It’s scary to see them so blank. Like the lights are off and no one is home.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • Diana is the child of an Amazonian warrior. Therefore, she often references the Greek gods and Greek mythology. An example of this happens when she describes the palace of Themyscira, which has “columns with marble statues of the goddesses Athena, Artemis, and Hera [gazing] down on the Amazon warriors [who are training].” They do not interact with any gods in this novel.  

by Kate Schuyler 

Within These Wicked Walls: A Novel

Andromeda is a free spirit, and she won’t let anyone get in her way. She is a debtera, an exorcist hired to cleanse sites and people of the Evil Eye. Trained from a young age by one of the most prominent and dysfunctional debteras in the country, Andromeda is good at her job. The only problem is that she’s not officially licensed, and after a falling out with her mentor, Jember, her only hope of steady work is to find a Patron—a rich, well-connected individual who will vouch for her abilities. 

Out of desperation, she takes on the one job even Jember is afraid of: working at the Manor of Magnus Rochester. Knowing no one in their right mind would hire an unlicensed debtera, Andromeda refuses to be afraid and faces the Manifestation of the Evil Eye with determination—because if Magnus hired her, and formidable exorcists like Jember are terrified of his curse, Magnus must be even more desperate than she is.   

Andromeda is a fierce but stubborn protagonist, committed to doing the right thing and keeping her promises even when facing great peril. When she arrives at the Manor, the servants already look down on her, but she keeps her head held high and proves that she is smarter than they think. Yet the Manifestation is far more complicated than any she’s seen before, and it doesn’t help that the young heir who hired her, Magnus, is too attractive for his own good. Fighting her growing attraction to Magnus and her new, budding friendship with one of the quieter servants, Saba, she discovers that both are hiding many secrets. As the curse grows more deadly, Andromeda’s new friends, her new love, and her old mentor all urge her to give up and leave the Manor, but her morals are too strong. Even when she finds out that Saba is dead but reanimated and haunting the house, she is still determined to save them all or die trying.  

Within These Wicked Walls is a retelling of Jane Eyre, made palatable for teenagers. However, it loses some of the original intricacy and depth of its inspiration. The romance between Magnus and Andromeda comes on a little too quickly to be natural, and their romance is too soft and kind to be related to that of Jane Eyre. Nevertheless, Magnus and Andromeda are sweet together and have occasional swoony scenes. That said, Within These Wicked Walls does do an acceptable job of adapting the overall story with new natural laws, a new tone, and into a new country with different customs.  

While the book’s magic is intriguing and contributes to the horror and gothic themes, it may be confusing for those unfamiliar with magic or supernatural elements inspired by Ethiopian folklore, such as amulets and spells. To add to the confusion, the story lacks the necessary backstory regarding Magnus and his family, as well as the overall setting. Regardless of complicated supernatural details, the novel is still an easy read with a relatively simple plot, managing to build an excitingly suspenseful and scary tone throughout.  

Readers who enjoyed These Violent Delights, Pride and Premeditation, and House of Salt and Sorrows will love the magical curses, vicious gothic tone, and Andromeda’s fierce independence, not to mention the growing romance between Andromeda and Magnus. All of this makes the book worth reading, regardless of the flaws. Andromeda’s focus and her pride teach about perseverance when no one believes in you and trusting yourself and your instincts, no matter what danger lies ahead.  

Sexual Content  

  • After the house throws a book at Andromeda, she finds sketches of women inside the book. She confronts Magnus about a specific sketch. Andromeda believes that the sketch shows him kissing his friend, Kelela. “What about that scandalous one of you two kissing?” Andromeda asks. “Does [Kelela] know about that one?”  
  • During that same conversation, Magnus explains that it’s a picture of him and Andromeda. Moved, she lays her “hand against his still-red cheeks and [kisses] him . . . His soft lips press hard against [hers] at first, as if he lost his footing.” 
  • After Magnus saves Andromeda from the hostile ghost of the Librarian, he reassures her that he likes her and kisses her. The “kiss wasn’t like the last one. It was certain and sweet. . . it felt like a promise.” 
  • While Magnus holds a dinner party with friends, Andromeda discovers that he’s betrothed to Kelela. Feeling betrayed, she confronts him and he “kisses [her]. [She bucks] anyway, shoving hard against his chest, trying to pry his hand from the back of [her] neck, to turn [her] face away from his. But when a verbal protest finally [makes] it to [her] lips it [doesn’t] sound like a protest at all.” 
  • After an emotional conversation with Kelela about Magnus, Andromeda talks to him. To reassure Andromeda of his feelings yet again, he kisses her. “‘My darling,’ he [coos], running his fingertips across [Andromeda’s] lips, ‘it’s always been only you.’ And he press[es] his lips where his fingers [have] warmed.” 
  • As Andromeda spies on her mentor, Jember, and Magnus’s mother, Saba, Saba climbs “onto the table, crawling over and closing the gap between [Jember and her] as she kiss[es] him.” Saba and Jember have a history, but the kiss is as far as it goes. 
  • After getting rid of the Evil Manifestation on Magnus’s house, to celebrate, Andromeda shifts “to [her] knee to lean up, kissing [Magnus’s] lips. His hand skims [her] jaw, the pure love in his touch pushing away the remainder of [her] sadness and regret.” 

Violence  

  • When Andromeda first tries to exorcise the house of the Manifestations, she is attacked by an invisible force. “But whatever had tripped [her] was still there, and [she] kicked at it, yelping as it grabbed [her] foot. [She] stumbled to [her] feet, looking around in the dark. The Something grabbed [her] more firmly this time, and [she] quickly stomped to get it off and rushed to [her] room. But as soon as [she] shoved the door open it grabbed [her] again, this time wrapping around [her] ankle to hold [her] still. It felt familiar and terrifying, and when [she] looked down the moonlight flooding from the window in [her] room revealed a hand coming from the ground, long fingers curling around [her].” She makes it out unscathed, and the invisible force vanishes. The whole scene is about two pages. 
  • When Andromeda visits Jember, she remembers his past disciplining techniques when raising her. “[Jember] gripped his maqomiya, the long prayer staff grinding into the floor like it was trying to drill through it, and [Andromeda] couldn’t fight the wince [her] body had long been conditioned to perform at the sight of it. [She] backed away a few steps, even though [her] mind rationalized that Jember hadn’t disciplined [her] in years, and never within the walls of the church.” 
  • Andromeda is attacked by the Librarian, a ghost in the library. “Two books slammed [Andromeda] in the hip and arm, as if trying to make [her] drop the table, but [she] grimaced and raced it over to the small space [she]’d found.” The Librarian throws books at her until Magnus rescues her 
  • While being controlled by the Evil Eye, the servant, Saba, attacks Andromeda, and Andromeda must fight her off. Andromeda “snatched Saba’s forearm with one hand, digging [her] fingers in and reaching for [her] knife with the other just as [she] kicked [Saba] in the shin. Saba stumbled back a few steps, and [Andromeda] heard the shinkt of a breaking plate, a sharp, warm pain rising up [her] fingers that the rest of the cold house might’ve numbed.” Andromeda makes it out of the event largely unscathed, though Saba loses an arm. The scene is described over a chapter. 
  • Andromeda and her friends attempt to rid the house of the Evil Eye Manifestation using Kelela as bait. Kelela is attacked by a hyena, and Andromeda “pulled [her] knife, dodging out of the way as the hyena backed out of [her] bedroom door, snapping its jaws and clawing at the fireplace poker Kelela was swinging at it . . . [Andromeda] stabbed the hyena in the back so it would turn on [her].” Kelela is wounded, but everyone else makes it out okay.  
  • After a particularly emotional day, Andromeda tries to leave the house, but Saba physically restrains her. “So [Andromeda] screamed, wordlessly, trying to aim the sound at [Saba’s] ear, and kicked. She had no hair to pull, no flesh to dig [her] nails into, but [Andromeda] managed to get knife from pocket and stab [Saba] in the back. [Andromeda] felt the break of pottery, [her] knife easily piercing through. [Andromeda] cocked back [her] knife to stab again, but [her] body went backward instead as Saba dropped [her] onto [her] back in the sand. . . This time when [Saba] picked [Andromeda] up she held [her] out at arm’s length, facing away from [Saba].” Neither is gravely injured at the end. 
  • When Andromeda asks Jember for advice on defeating the Manifestation, he explains that many debtera have suffered in trying to do so. “Only four debtera in history have survived their encounters with a hyena. All of them suffered nerve damage from their injuries. None of them could bear to touch another living person again. Three of them killed themselves before old age could.” 
  • During the final battle between Andromeda and the evil magic infesting the house, Andromeda and her friends are attacked multiple times. “Jember screamed again just as [Andromeda] finished [a thread for the amulet to defeat the Manifestation], and his body moved to let in more light. It was only a second, a breath. But [she] saw the hyena’s green eyes glint at [her], even as its jaws were sunk securely into Jember’s side. It threw Jember across the room, and [Andromeda] leaped up and ran to the desk, climbing on top of it, watching it the entire time. [She] saw blood drip from its mouth. Saw it charge at [Andromeda].” Jember dies of his injuries. Andromeda and Magnus survive unharmed. The scene is described over a chapter. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When getting hired at the Manor, the servants ask what it’s like to train under someone as talented as her mentor, Jember. She thinks to herself, “Why would you want to spend any amount of time with that heartless addict?” She does not elaborate. 
  • When Magnus and Andromeda have their first dinner together, “Magnus took a bottle of wine out from under the table and uncorked it, pouring it far higher than one serving.” They do not become intoxicated. 
  • Before Andromeda goes to visit Jember at the church, she stops by a market and buys wine, taste-testing it first. “For a moment [Andromeda] just marveled at the honey wine before indulging in a gulp. Sweet, then bitter, a little spiced, burning. It made [her] a little light-headed. Last time [she]’d lived with Jember was the last time [she]’d had any. . . it tasted like home. And at that thought, the wine turned to poison in [her] mouth.” She puts the bottle into her bag and leaves for the church without drinking more.  
  • When she returns to the Manor, Magnus takes the bottle from her without asking her what it is and drinks some. “‘It’s honey wine,’ [Andromeda] said, taking the bottle from him and cradling it close. He coughed, then dry heaved like a cat with a hairball. [She] rolled [her] eyes. ‘That’s what you get for not asking before taking a sip.’” 
  • Returning to ask Jember for advice, Andromeda wanders into his bedroom. She describes it: “glass bottles and jars littered the bed, and there was a paper bag of pills on the side table that were most definitely illegal.” There is no description of him taking the pills or an indication that he is using them.  
  • Before their confrontation with the Manifestation, Andromeda asks Jember to tell her the story of how he found her, an orphan, on the streets. He starts the story by saying, “I was on my way to drink myself to death . . . ” Andromeda stops him, asking him to restart without the admission of depressed and suicidal ideation. 

Language  

  • Words like damn, stupid, and hell appear frequently. 
  • Occasionally, “dick” is used as an insult  

Supernatural  

  • Within These Wicked Walls follows Andromeda in her work as a debtera, someone who rids sites of dark magic and supernatural spirits. She describes her job as “[leading] the worship services with hymns and chants, as well as [performing] all the duties of the priests, without benefiting from being ordained or esteemed. We were healers. Artisans. Trained to attune ourselves to the spirit world deeper than anyone else would dare to.” Due to this, there is magic and supernatural content described or unfolding on almost every page. Andromeda makes contact with spirits, called Manifestations, multiple times, and they even occasionally cause violence/death or permanent damage.  
  • Andromeda wears a magical amulet to protect herself from the Evil Eye. She “hid [her] amulet under [her] dress again, adjusting the collar so the metal chain wouldn’t show. It was a survival habit Jember had taught [her] to live by since the age of five: Protect your amulet better than it protects you.”  
  • The amulet is introduced in Chapter 1. Andromeda describes it as follows: “the Evil Eye was the first Manifestation of sin—namely jealousy and greed. In a constant state of longing, it latches on to any human who desires the same thing it does. Thriving crops, a random string of good luck, even receiving too many compliments could draw unwanted attention.” 
  • Andromeda finds evidence of evil spirits in supernatural signs, such as “random items falling off walls in one room. Strange ripples on the floor, like drops of water, in the next. A room that just seemed unnaturally covered in soot.” 
  • During one of the nights Andromeda stays at the Manor, Andromeda and Magnus are attacked by the house and Magnus almost drowns in blood. Andromeda “gaped at the bedroom, at what seemed to be blood filling the room from the floor up, like the swiftly rising tide of a river. Magnus was still in his bed, fast asleep. [She] slipped in through the crack [she]’d managed, the shifting of the liquid shutting the door behind [her]. . . [She] waded across the room through the quickly rising blood, the shield of [her] amulet pushing the blood away from [her] body.” She saves him, and they are both unscathed. This is another example of Manifestations.  
  • While at the Manor, Andromeda makes friends with a mute servant, Saba. She eventually comes to discover that Saba is Magnus’s mother, dead and reanimated to seem alive by the Manifestation. During a Manifestation, the Evil Eye takes control of Saba and uses her to attack Andromeda. Since she’s dead, she does so supernaturally. An example of this is when Saba’s arm falls off during the attack. Andromeda “looked quickly up to Saba, as she stood still, her right arm missing and hollow at the forearm, making her look like a beautiful, sad porcelain doll.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • Andromeda and her mentor, Jember, are debteras. This means that they exorcise Evil Manifestations of magic from buildings or sites. Exorcisms are typically used in Christianity to remove demons or holy spirits and send them back to Hell. In this book, the word “exorcise” is often used, but it refers to ghosts and dark magic rather than demons.  
  • Kelela believes Andromeda is an uneducated working woman. Andromeda tells her, “I actually read a few languages. One of the benefits of being raised in a church.” There is no detail about the church in this chapter, and Andromeda is not very outwardly religious. 
  • Andromeda goes to visit Jember at the church. “There were a handful of people standing in prayer in the direction of the altar, where Jember sat on the stairs constructing an amulet .  . . finally, the prayer was finished, and each worshipper made the sign of the cross on themselves, touching forehead to chest, shoulder to shoulder.”  
  • Before their final confrontation of the Manifestation, Andromeda asks Jember to help her calm down. Andromeda asks, “Can we pray together?” He responds with “God hasn’t heard me for quite some time.” They do not pray together, and the conversation evolves into other topics.  

Baker’s Magic

After running away from her abusive foster family, the protagonist, Bee (short for Beatrix), finds herself in Zeewal, a small village in the struggling kingdom of Aradyn. After failing to steal baked goods, Bee quickly earns an apprenticeship with the town’s baker, Master Bouts. Bee learns all there is to know about baking, and she soon discovers that she has the magical ability to infuse her treats with her emotions, causing customers to experience her happiness, pain, and annoyance. Her skills lead Master Bouts’ bakery to be summoned to deliver pastries to Master Joris, the kingdom’s head mage and de facto ruler. This allows Bee to begin an unlikely friendship with the orphaned Princess Anika, Joris’ ward, who will soon inherit the kingdom of Aradyn.  

However, when Bee learns of Joris’ plot to marry Anika off to a neighboring kingdom and steal her throne, Bee devises a plan with her friend, Willem (Wil), to take Anika away from Joris. Wil, Anika, and Bee go on a journey to find the Island of the Mages, hoping that the mages’ council can protect Anika and put a stop to Joris’ reign. On their adventure, they encounter the Tulip Pirates of the ship the Egbertina-Henriette, thieves who steal the lucrative tulips that Joris grows in Aradyn. With help from the pirates, a wizard named Bartholomew, and a few tree spirits, Bee and her friends learn just how harmful Master Joris has been to Aradyn. This causes Bee to grow ever more determined to rid the kingdom of the mage once and for all. 

Bee is an inquisitive and caring protagonist whose self-assurance and sense of identity grow throughout the book. She begins as an orphan with a lonely and miserable past, but through her own determination and kindness, she unites her past and present and finds a true family. Despite being only twelve years old, Bee displays a strong moral compass that propels her to do everything she can to help her friends and her kingdom. Bee’s friendship with Wil quickly develops into a strong connection, marked by laughter and selflessness. Their loyalty to each other contributes to the heartwarming atmosphere of the novel. 

Princess Anika is sheltered and naive about the outside world, but she never displays the haughtiness expected of her. The unlikely friendship that the three of them form exemplifies the book’s message that our differences are less than our similarities, and heroes can come from anywhere. Another central idea of Baker’s Magic is the importance of trees. Joris uses his magic to banish all of Aradyn’s tree life before the book begins, and this results in flooding and food shortages. The characters gradually learn the importance of trees, educating audiences along the way. 

Come along for Bee’s exciting adventure across land and sea. Each stage of the journey brings new twists and turns, from the humorous Council of Mages to the lonely floating islands. Audiences seeking minimal interpersonal conflict will appreciate the good-natured characters. The central antagonist, Master Joris, is the source of every problem and the only irredeemable figure, so his defeat solves every conflict. This results in a clean, yet simple narrative that is best suited for younger readers. The stakes are high, but the book is ultimately low-stress.  

Lighthearted, comedic characters like the Tulip Pirates serve to counteract the looming threat of Master Joris, and there are helpful figures around every corner that aid the central trio on their journey. However, Bee’s history of abuse may be disturbing for some readers, and the young protagonists are often in life-or-death situations. The back of the novel contains a recipe for the most popular baked good in the story, the “Bouts Bun,” which adds a unique participatory aspect to the book. Overall, Baker’s Magic is an uplifting and entertaining read that puts a fantastical spin on the world of baking. Readers can take another magical adventure by reading The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates Series by Caroline Carlson and The Grimmelings by Rachael King. 

Sexual Content  

  • There is no explicit sexual content or mentions of sex, but there are minor references to romance and attraction. For example, Wil, the loyal son of the Zeewal blacksmith, kisses “Anika’s limp hand” before going into battle alongside the pirates. 
  • Princess Anika kisses Captain Zay, a pirate and the leader of the ship called the Egbertina-Henriette (Egg Hen), on the cheek. 
  • Anika and Wil form a relationship by the end of the novel – “the princess, in love with the blacksmith’s son!” 

Violence  

  • After attempting to steal from Master Bouts’ bakery, Bee is tripped and falls to the ground. “She landed on the hard stones with a bone-jarring thump.” Bouts grabs her “in a painfully tight grip.” 
  • Long before the story begins, Bee’s mother drowned in a shipwreck that nearly killed Bee as well. 
  • After opening the closet in the palace kitchen, Bee’s shoulder is injured by a falling broom handle. “A broom handle popped out, smacking her hard on the shoulder.” 
  • The kingdom of Aradyn is threatened by large storms that destroy houses and drown civilians. Past storms have given Master Bouts a fear of floods and drowning. 
  • Wil is apprenticing as a blacksmith, so he has many burn scars. “He held out his hands, and Bee noticed, for the first time, the scars on nearly every finger, the back of his hands, his wrists.” 
  • Bee confides in Anika about her former foster family. “The master shouted and threw things. And the mistress beat me.” 
  • Master Bouts attempts to save a burning omelet but forgets “to use a cloth,” resulting in his hand burning. 
  • To escape an arranged marriage, Anika runs away from Master Joris, the conniving head mage of Aradyn. He sends magic after them, but they escape unharmed. This tense escape scene lasts two and a half pages. 
  • Master Joris uses his magic to send rocks after Bee, Anika, and Wil as they try to escape him on a boat. “Then, all at once, splashes surrounded them, and something crashed against Bee’s temple, so hard that the night sky spun before her eyes.” Bee’s injury causes her to bleed from her head, and Wil is bruised. 
  • Bee nearly drowns when her boat sinks, but pirates save her. “Something grabbed her by her cropped hair and yanked, pulling upward. Oh, it hurt!” Wil and Anika are also saved from drowning. 
  • The pirates go into battle with a Zeewal merchant ship to steal their supply of tulips. Bee and Anika watch as a merchant’s sword nearly slices Wil. “The blades flashed as Wil bent backward over the rail, his sword raised against the oncoming steel that threatened to slice down onto his neck.” Captain Zay saves Wil by cutting the sailor, and the blood makes Wil vomit. No lives are lost in the battle, and the scene lasts for two and a half pages. 
  • Bartholomew, a hedge wizard and Bee’s long-lost father, uses magic to turn the entire tree island clockwise. He loses control of it, and Bee is nearly tossed off the island by the centrifugal force. The spinning only ceases when Bartholomew is thrown from his feet due to the force of the spinning. 
  • Bee, Wil, and Bartholomew are attacked by Joris’ taxidermy collection. A fox, a mole, a rabbit, and a mouse attack first, and Bee is bitten by the mouse. Birds then peck at them from above, and the next wave is a horde of flying, stinging, and crawling bugs. This scene lasts for three pages. 
  • When Bee is trapped in one of Joris’ snow globes, Bartholomew sends rocks to break the glass of her prison. “The glass showered down over Bee, and she rolled into a ball to try to protect herself from the bombardment of shards and stone. One ricocheting rock hit her in the ribs, and she gasped with the pain of it.” 
  • Master Bouts is being kept in the palace prison when Joris’ magic causes it to flood, and Bee momentarily thinks that he has drowned. Anika also almost drowns, but Captain Zay saves her. 
  • Pepin, Anika’s pet hedgehog, bites Joris’ leg to prevent him from escaping Bee, Anika, and the pirates. “Master Joris let out a shout and tried to shake Pepin off, but he hung on, his sharp teeth embedded in the mage’s calf.” 
  • Joris is ultimately defeated by anthropomorphic trees that return to Aradyn from exile. The trees use their roots to grab him and take him underground. “The mage let out a shriek of terror and tried to kick and twist free. But the roots held him tight as he struggled. Slowly they pulled him downward into the mire.”

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Alcohol is mentioned sparsely throughout the book. For example, Master Bouts and Wil mention a cooper whose wine “tasted better than the palace’s own vintage.” 
  • Master Bouts smokes a pipe, but tobacco is never mentioned by name. 
  • Wil’s father, Master Weatherwax, drinks a “tumbler of ale” after dinner. 
  • On the pirate ship, Bee bakes cookies with “sugar, flour, and rum.” She later uses beer to make the Bouts Buns’ dough rise on the ship. 
  • Captain Zay puts rum in her and Bartholomew’s coffee, but she refuses to give any to Bee, Wil, or Anika due to them being underage. 

Language    

  • Bee and Wil often call each other names, either jokingly or out of anger. When Wil calls her baking “off,” Bee angrily responds, “It’s you who’s off!” 
  • Wil angrily shouts to Bee and Bouts, “The cursed door’s locked!” 
  • When Joris figures out that Bee is hiding in the castle, he demands, “Come out of there this minute, you sorry wench.” 
  • The pirate Limmo tells his crewmates, “It ain’t suppertime yet, you feckless oafs.” 
  • The pirate Haleem mentions a parrot that “used to curse a blue streak.” 
  • One of the members of the Council of Mages calls their fellow mage an idiot. 
  • The pirate Filmon says that, when Captain Zay was under Bee’s truth spell, “She told us we were rogues and rapscallions and should go to the devil. . .” 

Supernatural 

  • Hedge wizards and witches are regular people who “have some magic.” With practice, they can increase their skills and become mages. 
  • Bee has the power to infuse her baked goods with her emotions, causing her customers to feel her feelings. As Master Bouts puts it, “I think your pastries make people feel the way you do.” She inherited this magic from her father, a hedge wizard. 
  • Master Joris is “the mage of all Aradyn,” a powerful magic-user who can control every aspect of the environment but has no sway over water. Each kingdom has a head mage appointed by the Council of Mages. 
  • Joris creates sparks when he walks. “Bee noticed, to her astonishment, that as his heels struck the ground, small sparks flew upward.” Joris can also create elaborate firework displays. 
  • While staying on the island of the Council of Mages, Bee, Wil, and Anika are able to ask for what they want, and it magically appears. Bee loudly yells for water, and a tiny storm cloud appears to rain into a water basin. 
  • The “moss maidens” are spirits connected to trees. When Joris banished Aradyn’s trees to a floating island, the moss maidens were trapped with them. The maidens can communicate with their trees, and with Bee’s guidance, they use tree roots to paddle their island prison toward Zeewal. These trees later grab hold of Joris and imprison him underground. 
  • After being called a murderer by Bartholomew, Joris stamps his foot in rage and creates a large crack in the earth. “The crack in the ground became a cleft and then a crevice, and it widened with every passing second.” 

 Spiritual Content  

  • None

by Gabrielle Barke 

Our Infinite Fates

Evelyn has lived a thousand lives, and in every one, she is hunted by the one she loves most. Arden, her soulmate, reincarnates in each of Evelyn’s lives and makes it his mission to find and kill her before their shared eighteenth birthday. However, by killing one another, they seal their fates as neither can live when the other dies. Their souls are inexplicably bound, and despite knowing their inevitable future, they keep falling in love.

In this most recent life, Evelyn’s little sister Grace has cancer, and Evelyn’s bone marrow is the cure. However, Evelyn will never get the chance to save her sister if Arden kills her before their eighteenth birthday, which is fast approaching. To save her sister, Evelyn decides to face Arden head-on, even though something has changed within him from their last life. She will somehow need to convince Arden not to kill her until the last possible moment, which is made more difficult by the fact that Arden knows the secret of why they must die while Evelyn has been kept in the dark for generations. To save Grace and possibly even herself, Evelyn will need to confront Arden once and for all, so they can have a real future together and enjoy a life truly lived.

Readers will be inspired by Evelyn, who, despite encountering continuous loss and the worst of humanity’s history, has a heart that remains vulnerable. Her belief in humanity and love is unchanged. The part that Arden most loves about Evelyn is that “they love over and over and over again, even though it can only ever end in tragedy. They love softly, and fiercely, and openly, and it’s the bravest thing [he] know[s]. The most human thing [he] know[s].” Evelyn is selfless, empathetic, and creative. She feels others’ pain as if it were her own and would not hesitate to put herself on the line to protect another. Her pure love will surely affect readers, and Evelyn’s experience will teach them to find and share love in their own lives.

Evelyn’s story would not be complete without Arden, her sister Grace, and her mom. Grace is stubborn, morbid, a dreamer, and charming. Their mother is strong and gentle, having been through so much grief, but raising two lovely girls despite it. Finally, Arden is a stunning patchwork of centuries of experiences, or rather, the same soul gaining new depth with every life lived. Arden loves poetry, collecting words from every language he’s spoken, and caring for nature. These three enrich Evelyn’s life and give her the strength to fight against her seemingly predetermined fate, where she and Arden must fight, die, separate, and reunite all without Evelyn understanding why. Without them, Evelyn would not be herself. Steven beautifully captures the complexity that makes up a person through her exploration of Evelyn’s thoughts and the glimpses of Arden’s and Evelyn’s past fundamental and complicated experiences in the interlude chapters.

Our Infinite Fates is, at its core, a celebration of life and love, transcending the supernatural and the constant cycle of death. Evelyn continues to love and find happiness because “big joy and small joy are the same.” When she was reborn in France, she was on her way to France’s tennis championship before WW1 started, but she feels the joy from that moment was the same as reading her little sister a bedtime story. Evelyn takes things as they come and enjoys the small moments that life presents. A person doesn’t need an all-encompassing love like Arden and Evelyn’s to know love or to share it with others. Additionally, the author makes a point of keeping love all-inclusive, as Arden and Evelyn love each other’s souls and not their physical form. Arden tells Evelyn that he feels more like a boy inside, but Evelyn says she feels like neither gender, just herself. They both experience same-sex love in multiple lives and heterosexual love in other ones. Additionally, Evelyn and Arden are reborn in many different cultures and circumstances across the centuries, and Steven uses that to spread knowledge and inclusivity of other cultures and peoples.

The conclusion to Our Infinite Fates is sweet and hopeful, as Evelyn and Arden are reborn with no knowledge of each other, but they still find each other in their new forms. Their journey is one of insurmountable grief and pure selfless love. Love, like Evelyn said, will come back no matter the form or time. Our Infinite Fates teaches readers about an irrefutable fact about humans, that “to love was to live, and to live was to die.” However, it celebrates that humanness in each person and encourages readers to continue living hopeful, vulnerable, human lives.

Sexual Content

  • Evelyn and Arden meet in El Salvador, and as they fight, Evelyn ends up straddling Arden. “He groaned blearily as I straddled him, knees planted either side of his waist, and some traitorous part of me throbbed at the feel of his body beneath mine.”
  • Evelyn and Arden lived in Siberia. In this life, they are in love and sitting together out in the woods. They kiss but then stop because they are too cold. “We angled our bodies together, and as his lips brushed mine. . .”
  • Another life is recounted, this time in Nauru. Evelyn describes their relationship now that they are both girls. “We’d both been born girls, in this life, and I adored the softness of it, all sweet tongues and gentle edges. . . stealing kisses beneath the stars, from lacing our fingers together like ribbons in plain sight.”
  • Arden has a nightmare in Nauru, and Evelyn tries to comfort them. “I pressed myself against her back, burying my face into the thick dark hair at her neck, wrapping an arm around her gentle waist. Warmth spread through me, halfway between pleasure and ache. . . the gentle tug in my lower belly was becoming harder to ignore.”
  • Evelyn, in her current life in Wales, recalls her time with Arden in their other lives. Evelyn “thought of sweet, stubbled kisses in a rank trench. Of our bodies folded around each other on a salt-licked fishing trawler. Of thick fur bedding in darkest Siberia, of my head on a broad chest, of forehead kisses and laced fingers.”
  • Evelyn meets Arden again in their Algerian life. Arden comforts Evelyn. “The sensation of his body against mine after seventeen long years brought a familiar yearning, an insistent tug behind my ribs and below my belly.”
  • Evelyn describes her early crush on Dylan, her mother’s farmhand, who turns out to be Arden. “The flutter in my lower belly, the love he had for the earth. . . they were hard to dismiss as adolescent lust and simple coincidence.”
  • When they were soldiers in the trenches of World War I, Arden and Evelyn comforted each other and kissed. Arden “pressed his lips to the top of my head, not caring who saw. . . It was a wild furnace in which romantic love was often forged and, as the war raged on, many were becoming more brazen about it.”
  • After meeting Arden in Wales and realizing he wants to kill her, Evelyn is not upset but rather desperate to hold Arden. She recalls intimate moments they had in other lives. “But I didn’t. I ached for him. I ached to go to him, to feel his heartbeat against mine, to press my face into his neck and just sob and sob and sob. Memories came to me as visceral images: a head on my shoulder as we lay beneath a goat-hide tent in the desert; two ravenous bodies pressed together in a steaming hammam.”
  • Evelyn and Arden cross paths in Austria-Hungary, and Evelyn has missed Arden intensely. “I wanted to nestle my face into his neck, to breathe in the papery soft skin there. I wanted to talk, to touch, to share.”
  • Evelyn and Arden are two girls who have been committed to an asylum in the United States. Arden returns after undergoing cold water therapy. “Her nude figure came sprinting back down the corridor towards my cage. . . A thick snare of pubic hair, her legs bowed and angular. Eyes lupine, feral.”
  • Evelyn, in the asylum, manipulates a nasty guard who wants to sleep with her. To escape, Evelyn steals his keys. “I crawled on hands and knees towards the place where he knelt, playing up the helpless prisoner angle. Sure enough, the very tip of his tongue brushed the corner of his lips, and I knew I had him. . . I reached out a filthy hand and stroked his cheek, tracing a fingertip down the dull ridge of his jaw. . . ‘Do you want me?’ he asked, reaching a hand through the cage and cupping my breast.”
  • Evelyn tells the asylum guard, Howard, she’ll sleep with him tomorrow, but she plans to escape by then. “‘Tomorrow,’ I whispered, grabbing at his crotch just hard enough to hurt. . . After a long, lecherous stare, Howard got to his feet, adjusted the rigid bulge in his pants.”
  • Evelyn’s mother tells her about her own experiences when she was about eighteen, “I was having sex in car parks at your age.”
  • Evelyn recalls her time in Constantinople, where her and Arden were in a public bath together. “I remembered something suddenly and vividly – our naked perfumed bodies, both of us male, a rough hand at my waist in the sweet steam of the hammam, a desperate tongue flickering over mine, the desire so raw and intense that my entire body was flooded with heat.”
  • Evelyn again recalls their lives in Constantinople. “I tried not to think of our naked bodies pressed together in an Ottoman hammam, hot and breathless and desperate.”
  • In Norway, Arden saves Evelyn from angry villagers, and she kisses him. “I pulled my head back from his neck, cupped his rough, stubbled face in my hands, and kissed him.”
  • In Constantinople, Arden has been selected to join the Sultan’s harem and is being prepared for the role. Arden says, “The High Porte has been grooming me rather heavy-handedly.”
  • Before Arden becomes a part of the sultan’s harem, Evelyn and Arden want to have a moment for themselves. “His grip on my ribs tightened, desperate and raw. . . As our lips finally touched. . . every inch of me shivered before igniting into flame, and his tongue flickered over mine and I moaned. My hand went to his hip. . . and as the coarse breath slipped from his throat, there was a gathering in my lower belly. A pulsing of desire. . . I was almost dizzy with the need to feel him inside me.”
  • Evelyn and Arden are in Wales, about to turn eighteen, and they finally decide to make love. Evelyn “fumbled with the belt until it was undone, then slid open the top button of his jeans and rested my hand on the flat plane of his lower stomach. . . When he softly, so softly, tugged down my jeans, my underwear brushed against me and I shuddered, sighed, yearned.” This is described over three pages.

Violence

  • In the prologue, Evelyn and Arden are getting married in an earlier life, but Arden still kills Evelyn. “Without pause, the bride swiped her marital blade across his throat, opening a mouth-like slit from which blood choked and gurgled. He grabbed for breath, but none came.”
  • In El Salvador, Arden finds Evelyn and puts a knife to her throat. Evelyn fights off Arden. “I slammed my head back as hard as I could into his face, crunching his nose with a bloody spurt. He grunted and fell backwards, the knife slipping away from my throat. . . The blade slit his throat right as we both tumbled into the pool. Body thrashing, he choked on the water and his own gurgling blood.” They both die.
  • In one life, Evelyn’s father is killed by a drunk driver. “Pinned against a stone wall, crushed until blood wept from his eyes, until everything in him ruptured and burst.”
  • When Evelyn was around eight, she would start to remember some of her past lives, including “a knife to the chest, a garrote round my neck, poison in my heart – and I would remember.”
  • Evelyn is in the hospital, thinking about why she hates needles. Then she remembers that she “once had [her] torso blown open by a grenade.”
  • Evelyn is nervous that Arden could be anywhere and kill her with, “A knife in my back, a bullet in my head.”
  • In their Siberian life, Arden says he loves Evelyn even after she kills him with “the crossbow at Mount Fuji. Right through the eye.”
  • In Nauru, Evelyn and Arden are both girls in love. Evelyn remembers all the violence they endured when they were of the same sex throughout the years. “Loving someone of the same sex wasn’t without its challenges, of course – throughout history we’d faced the constant threat of flogging and branding, castration and execution.”
  • Evelyn kills Arden in Nauru before he can do it to her. “[Evelyn] pushed [Arden] forward with all my might. The shudder ripped through me as her chest was impaled on the coral. We died right as the sun fell below the edge of the world.”
  • Evelyn remembers their deaths in Siberia, “and how it felt to be slowly, fatally poisoned.”
  • In Evelyn’s life in Algeria, her father “was shot on the beach.”
  • Evelyn is stuck in the trenches of World War I, and her “existence had become barbed wire and stacked sandbags and stepping over the lifeless corpses of your friends. It was reeking mud and unwashed bodies, the metallic tang of gunpowder and blood.”
  • Arden and Evelyn meet in the trenches where they “sustained several days of harsh enemy fire,” and suffer “big losses and bigger grief.”
  • Evelyn runs onto the battlefield where a “grenade detonated, and I was torn apart.”
  • In Wales, Evelyn is on a date with a man named Ceri, whom she thinks is Arden. Thinking he’s Arden, Evelynants to tie him up and stop him from killing her. “While he was still facing the other way, I swung at his head. Not so hard that the blunt force trauma would kill him, but enough that the flat side of the shovel would knock him clean out before he realized what was happening. Thunk. He fell straight to the ground. I thought of fallen soldiers and blood-soaked trenches, discarded helmets and blank stares, and, for a moment, I felt like I might throw up.”
  • Evelyn ties the innocent Ceri up, “wrapping his arms behind it and tightly securing his wrists with another rope.” Ceri is starting to wake up after being knocked out by Evelyn, “The body starting to shift sluggishly. The innocent body I had knocked unconscious and hauled here like an animal.” She discovers he is not Arden and lets him go.
  • In Austria-Hungary, Arden talks about his father, a “decorated hussar. . . I mean he committed horrific atrocities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and they love him for it.”
  • Evelyn remembers how she died in her last life in India: “As Arden withdrew the inevitable knife, her final words had been: ‘Until we meet again, my love.’”
  • Evelyn, fed up with Arden and their cycle of pain, kills him. “I pulled out the gold pistol tucked in my breast pocket and shot [Arden] neatly in the head.”
  • Arden makes fun of Evelyn and her kidnapping attempt and references the procedures they endured in the asylum, “A very sane course of action. It’s a real shame that lobotomy in Vermont didn’t take.”
  • Evelyn is in the asylum, Allum, which has become a place of violence. “Once Allum’s founders realized the money that could be made on their cattle, the asylum quickly became an abattoir. It hired less and less qualified staff, who employed brute force in lieu of true medical expertise. It fell victim to chronic overcrowding – naked, unwashed patients stuffed into every corner of every room.”
  • Evelyn describes the cruel “therapies” she and Arden had to suffer through. “The ice baths from which you never truly warmed up. The rotational therapy, in which you were strapped to a chair suspended from the ceiling and spun around over a hundred times in a single minute. The starvation.”
  • Arden tries to get them out of the asylum and into the next life by killing Evelyn. “A sharp medical instrument in [Arden’s] outstretched hand . . . [Arden] was only inches away from plunging it into my throat.” Evelyn doesn’t die.
  • Evelyn “watched an orderly take [Arden] away, thrashing like she was being led to the gallows, all the way to the northern wing. She came back a few hours later, but she never truly came back.” After trying to kill Evelyn, Arden is taken away. It is implied that she had a violent surgery, such as a lobotomy.
  • After escaping the asylum, Evelyn has a vision “of pleading and begging so animalistic I couldn’t tell where it came from. Pain so large it took on a form of its own. Pain so absolute it was like the darkest pitch of night.”
  • Back in Wales, Arden handcuffs Evelyn to his bed to keep her from running away, and Evelyn is reminded of the asylum. “Grunting as the cuff pulled awkwardly at my wrist. . . In a second I was back in that awful asylum, restrained like a feral beast, prodded and dehumanized and humiliated, frozen and starved and drugged. Arms strapped to waists in starched white straitjackets, patches of drool on the collars.”
  • In the Dutch East Indies, Arden finds Evelyn and Evelyn “awoke to a garrotte at [her] throat.”
  • In the Dutch East Indies, Arden slams into Evelyn, and they fall off the ship they are on. “The brutal harbour edge came to meet our fragile skulls.” They both die and then reincarnate.
  • Arden saves Evelyn from angry villagers in Norway who want to brand her a witch. “The man wielding the leg irons was knocked out with a single blow to the back of the head.”
  • In a bookstore in Wales, Arden sees a book cover and remembers his life during the Siege of Jerusalem. “We poisoned the wells and cut down the trees surrounding the city, but nothing we did could hold back the tide of Crusaders. Seeing so many of my people slaughtered.”
  • Arden tells Evelyn about one of his nightmares, in which he killed her at their wedding. “I still see your throat opening like a bleeding mouth whenever I try to fall asleep.”
  • In the Mali Empire, Evelyn learns that her best friend is Arden and that he will kill her like all her other lives. “A stone to the temple in Samarqand, a rope round my neck in Al-Andalus, a pillow over my face in deepest Iceland.”
  • In Northern Song, Evelyn is a prince and sacrifices herself to save Arden’s father. Evelyn “threw [herself] to the ground beneath the bamboo, and as the pain rained down on [her] back I knew, somehow, somewhere, I had felt such agonies before; had felt the skin and flesh on my back scream out, felt the furious stripes of pain all the way to the bone.”
  • Arden tells Evelyn how they were tortured and forced to reap souls. “We were put on the hot coals until we obliged.”
  • While talking to Arden about killing each other, she suddenly remembers killing Arden in Argentina. “Arden’s throat, narrow and feminine, straining and bulging against my calloused palms.”
  • In the Underrealm, Evelyn tries to kill the Mother, the person responsible for her and Arden’s lives. “The bone shard plunged into the back of her neck. There was no spurt of blood, but rather a puff of pale-grey mist emanating from the wound; the same immaterial fog that slicked around her ankles. Wild arms grappled at me, then she weakened like a rag doll. I wrenched the makeshift blade free of her neck and then plunged again, this time into the back of her shoulder. Wrench, lift, bone into her heart.”
  • The Mother orders her servants to put Arden on a bed of hot coals. “Arden’s back was slammed against the hot coals, and coiling bonds appeared at the corners of the terrible bed. The servants secured them around Arden’s wrists and ankles. The coals glowed a thousand times brighter than they had before. . . And Arden was pressed bare against the source.”
  • In Evelyn and Arden’s original life in Greece, the Mother poisons and kills Arden. “A cruel froth foaming at her wine-red mouth, her limbs shuddering and smacking against the ground like a crazed puppet, her eyes devoured by their own bloodied whites.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In Siberia, Arden poisons Evelyn with “cherry liqueur, spiked with sleepy poison.” They both die.
  • Evelyn describes her need to talk to Arden again because she has felt so alone without his conversation: “I needed more, like an addict craved the poppy.”
  • While in the asylum in America, Arden is drugged. “Her ferocious eyes glazed and vacant from whatever experimental drug they’d pumped into her.”
  • Another patient in the asylum has also been drugged. “He’d been dosed with a different drug. . . but the effect was largely the same. Less drool, but nothing behind the eyes.”
  • In Wales, Evelyn learned she “was allergic to general anesthesia the hard way. At the age of six, I’d gone to have a ruptured appendix removed and ended up in anaphylactic shock.”
  • In Evelyn and Arden’s original life, the Mother uses poison to kill Arden.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes fuck, shit, bullshit, damn, and hell.

Supernatural

  • Evelyn and Arden’s fate of reincarnation is due to Evelyn making a deal with the Mother, a mysterious figure who feeds off suffering and love. To save Arden, Evelyn promised they would reap souls after turning eighteen. As long as they die before eighteen, they can continue to reincarnate and not reap souls.
  • At Evelyn and Arden’s wedding, the officiant’s “eyes glowing like crucibles. Her lined face was washing itself smooth, and her nails lengthened, thickened, blackened.” The officiant turns into the Mother, who wants to drag Evelyn and Arden to the Underrealm.
  • Evelyn ponders who the women that appeared on the battlefield in World War I could be: “a forest witch, a bog demon, some ancient god we had angered long ago.” The woman had “sheets of white hair [that] fell around her cool face, black nails curling away from her fingers like withered fossils.”
  • In Evelyn and Arden’s second life, Evelyn is forced to reap a soul or be tortured herself, so she makes an offer to Arden to save his sister in exchange for his soul. “If you agree to let me save your sister, you will be taken to the Underrealm. You will be nailed to burning coals for seven days and seven nights. Your pain will feed the Mother, and allow her to grow stronger. You will not die. . . And then, for the rest of your mortal days, you will serve the Mother as I do. You will reap souls.”
  • In one life, after turning eighteen, Evelyn and Arden are pulled to the Underrealm, where the Mother lives. “There was a slow falling of ash from an imperceptible sky, rows of jagged white trees, and a dark, desolate ground that sprawled out like endless tundra. Everything was too stark, too smooth, the ground like black glass and the trees like pale marble.”
  • Evelyn and Arden encounter the Mother in the Underrealm. She was “sitting atop a natural dais of raised ground, her throne, too, was made of bones. The shards had been unnaturally twisted around each other into the shape of roses, their stems woven together like braids. A curious substance swirled around her feet, a dark, metallic fog, as though the evil were seeping out of her in noxious whorls. A dozen hooded figures swanned around her, spectral and almost floating as they sank to her feet in prayer. Devils.”
  • After trying to kill the Mother, Evelyn sees that the Mother is healed and learns that “Arden’s suffering. Not only could it sustain the Mother, but it could also heal her.”
  • The Mother makes one final offer to Evelyn and Arden. She offers freedom from being reaped if they offer her all their love. Suffering sustains the Mother, but love is a far more potent substance that the Mother can survive on. Before this moment, the Mother has been living off Evelyn and Arden’s love and suffering for centuries: “The substance that poured from my chest was shimmering, ephemeral, the color of pearls and golden barley and every sunrise I had ever seen.”

Spiritual Content

  • Evelyn shares with the audience her personal belief system, rooted in love. “In truth, a part of me believed that everyone I’d ever loved would come back to me again in another life, in another form. They wouldn’t necessarily know that we had met before, and nor would I, but that energy would still thrum between us, that recycled love, that historic bond.”
  • In France, Evelyn meets a psychic whose words Evelyn still believes in: “lost souls were drawn to the love still felt for them by the living.”
  • Evelyn does not have a religion, but she has a belief system. “And so, in the absence of any abiding religious convictions, this was the one blind faith I had: that love was a physical force, and it was never wasted. Once it was called out into the universe, it would echo back to us forever.”
  • In Constantinople, Evelyn and Arden discuss their beliefs about God. Arden says their fate defies every religion, but if he had been born in Constantinople originally, he would have devoted himself to Allah, “Not just in fate, but…in God, I suppose. If I had been born here and only here, I think I would devote myself to Allah. The teachings are beautiful, and I often find myself swept away on their current. But I was not born only here. And what happens to us … it defies the teachings of the Qu’ran.”
  • What happens to Evelyn and Arden cannot be explained by any belief system. “Well, the fact we reincarnate, for a start. We do not lie in our graves awaiting our Day of Judgement. And there’s the mechanics of it all. For Muslims – and Christians, too – the soul is breathed into the body by God at some point shortly after conception.”

by Annamaria Lund

The Iron Flower

Elloren Gardner knows the truth about her world, and there’s no going back. Elloren and her friends were only trying to do the right thing when they rescued a Selkie and freed a military dragon. The last thing they expected was to be thrust into a realm-wide underground resistance against Gardnerian conquest. After just a few months at Verpax University, she’s abandoned her Aunt Vyvian’s more conservative and discriminatory values for the Resistance and is more dedicated than ever to protecting her friends. However, to do so, she is forced to pretend that she’s the same pious, ignorant girl she was at orientation.  

As war looms over the continent of Erthia, Elloren is trying to secure safe passage to the east for her friends. But more Gardnerian soldiers descend on the University, led by none other than Lukas Grey. To complicate things, Elloren is stuck in her own little love triangle, between a Commander who is not all he seems and the mysterious Yvan Guriel, who contains more power and allure than anyone she’s ever known. As his magic calls to her, Elloren finds it more and more difficult to believe she’s truly powerless. However, the last thing Elloren and her friends expected was to be thrust into a realm-wide underground resistance against Gardnerian conquest. 

Outspoken and authentic, Elloren is an inspiring character who studies medicine to help others. She also flaunts University traditions as well as negotiates with queens and renegades. In The Iron Flower, Elloren has found her family, and her relationship with each member becomes increasingly complex. They bond during emotional and traumatic times, but their home soon begins to fall apart with every raid, riot, and murder. Elloren is a force of nature and a lovable character who defies everything she’s ever known for what she knows is right. Her narration is simple and clear, even with all the moving parts, the average reader can’t help but root for her.   

The Iron Flower picks up where The Black Witch leaves off, with Elloren joining the Resistance and Marcus Vogel being elected and cementing power as Gardneria’s High Mage and leader of their government and military. The story includes new and old characters, as well as multiple plot lines, which can make the novel overwhelming and confusing at times. While a lot happens outside of university grounds, Elloren’s own story moves slowly at the beginning, peppered with exposition dumps and emotional turmoil. However, everything speeds up about halfway in and the conclusion is packed with twists and bloody endings. This book successfully builds a believable trajectory of the Gardnerian government’s descent into authoritarianism, while also teaching about standing up to bullies and knowing when to pick your battles.   

Readers who enjoy political intrigue, magical battles, and teenage drama will love The Black Witch Series. The Iron Flower adeptly continues Elloren’s journey through the magical world with powerfully moving tragedies and victories of the Resistance. Elloren and her friends are brave, complex characters who highlight the themes of acceptance, love, friendship, and kindness. The Iron Flower is about hoping for the best, even when nothing seems like it will work out, and it concludes with an exciting cliffhanger that will have readers eager to read the next book in the series, The Shadow Wand.  

Sexual Content  

  • Waiting for a Resistance meeting to start, Elloren sees “Iris [tilt] her head and [kiss] Yvan’s neck, nuzzling against him with a soft moan.” Yvan shuts it down before it goes further. 
  • Lukas and Elloren reunite after months of no contact. Lukas “leans in to kiss [Elloren], [she] lets [her] lips soften, like sugar melting against his heat.” 
  • While at a ball, Elloren talks to one of her friends, Jarod, who is a werewolf with the ability to scent emotions and arousal. He points out two men standing at the fringes of the dancing. Jarod says, “Those two men, they’re madly in love with each other. I can feel it from all the way over here.” 
  • When Elloren’s brother, Rafe, and his girlfriend, Diana, sneak into the dance, “he kisses [Diana] deeply” in front of the whole room.  
  • As Elloren dances with Lukas, she feels “a sudden, overwhelming desire to be dancing with [Yvan] instead. To feel his lips against [hers]. To have his arms around [her]. And to be close to his fire.” 
  • Andras, the child of Amazonian warrior women, describes their fertility rites. The woman who chose him “felt that [his] seed would produce especially fine, strong daughters.” 
  • While reviewing Resistance plans with two professors, Elloren remembers that “Diana told [her] about [them]—that they’ve one of the strongest attractions to each other that Diana has ever sensed in any couple.” 
  • Lukas announces his desire to marry Elloren, and then he kisses her. “Light as gossamer, he kisses the base of [her] neck, his lips rousing [her] fire lines with a heated longing that tingles straight through [her].” 
  • Mid-conversation with one of her friends, Elloren thinks about their marriage rituals, how “the consummation of the sealing union is expected [the] same night, prompting the fastlines to flow down a couple’s wrists as proof of consummation.” 
  • After freeing a Selkie from a prostitution ring, Elloren’s friend, Gareth, describes the inside of the brothels. He explains, “They were clothed, though barely. They had them standing in a row for the men to look at. Like livestock at a fair. Most of them seemed scared. A few of them, especially the younger ones, looked completely traumatized.” 
  • Elloren’s roommate, Ariel, plans to sacrifice herself so that another roommate, Wynter, can go free. Ariel confesses that she loves Wynter “not as a sister. [She] love[s] [her].”   
  • After a succession of traumatizing events, Elloren seeks comfort in Yvan. They have a tender conversation and then “he brings his lips to [hers]. His lips are warm and full and salty from his tears, his kiss tentative as a surprising warmth blooms from where his mouth touches [hers], his heat sliding through [her] affinity lines in a tingling rush.” 
  • At the end of the novel, there is a big plot twist that leaves Elloren and Yvan reeling from new information. “He kisses [her] again, his lips growing heated, his fire building and then flashing though [her] lines with a feverish urgency that makes [her] shudder against him.” 

Violence  

  • During their first Resistance meeting, Yvan warns the room about a new brutal practice. Elloren’s friend from work, Bleddyn, describes it as “cutting off the points of [Urisk] ears, like [they’re] animals. And shearing the hair from [their] heads.” The Urisk people are commonly enslaved in this novel, though the Resistance is working to free them. 
  • While waiting near a military camp for Lukas, Elloren “remember[s] the stories Yvan told [her] about how Gardnerian soldiers set their dragons on the Kelts during the Realm War. How the soldiers wiped out entire villages and burned them to the ground.” Descriptions of war and vague, past violence appear frequently in the book. 
  • During the holiday ball, Elloren sees her friend Aislinn, who’s unwillingly betrothed to an abuser, Randall. Randall “roughly grabs Aislinn’s free arm and yanks her toward himself.” In the process, Aislinn “makes a hurt sound and instinctively recoils.” One of Aislinn’s friends growls and threatens Randall, but ultimately, Aislinn leaves with Randall, and no blows come to pass. 
  • As Elloren discusses Rafe’s unwillingness to join the army, someone says that if Rafe doesn’t cooperate, “He’ll be shot.”  
  • With the fascist government gaining power, Elloren’s friend, Tierney, worries about her aquatic-creature friends. She says to Yvan and Elloren, “[the government has] pounded iron pikes into the waterways. Five of [her] Kelpies are now dead.” 
  • On a walk into town with Elloren’s friend, Tierney, Elloren spots graffiti on a wall that says in all caps, “reap the evil ones/Erthia for Gardnerians/take back the western realm.” Once they reach town, they notice a hate crime has been committed and non-Gardnerians have been attacked. They find Bleddyn “only semiconscious, her unswollen eye unfocused.” When she wakes to see Elloren, she “jerks her whole body violently away, her expression twisting into a desperate snarl.” They take Bleddyn home to heal her. Along the way, they find another friend, Olilly, whose ears had been partially but brutally cut off.  
  • After finding a Selkie in the woods in The Black Witch, Elloren and her friends are trying to free the rest of them in The Iron Flower. Frustrated at their lack of progress, Elloren yells at Yvan, “They’re beating the Selkies. Raping them!” 
  • Since Elloren and her friends can’t free the Selkies on their own, they ask the Amaz for help. During their visit, the Amaz are conflicted over housing Elloren and they almost come to blows over it. Their Amaz appointed bodyguard, Valasca, “pulls out a knife, leveling it at Alcippe,” another Amaz who opposes Elloren’s presence there. There’s a good deal of yelling and physical threatening before everyone backs down.  
  • To explain Alcippe’s hatred of men, Elloren’s Amaz bodyguard explains: “When Alcippe was twelve, she returned from tending livestock and found her mother unconscious on the floor. Blood was streaming out of her mother’s nose and ear, and her eyes were swollen shut.” Alcippe murdered her father for his abuse of her mother. 
  • Trying to find the valuables of the Selkies, Gareth infiltrates the brothels where they were housed. To describe where they keep the valuables, he says that “All the Selkie taverns have the same [storage] system—apparently, they streamlined things after one Selkie [freed herself] and murdered several people.” 
  • On a dark day, a werewolf shows up at Elloren’s footstep with news that all of the werewolves have been slaughtered, save him and her two friends at university. He cries, “I went out to hunt . . . and when I returned . . . I. . . I found them. . . all of them. . . dead. . . our homes turned to blackened ash.” In response to hearing her family was dead from Elloren, one of the last remaining werewolves, Diana throws herself off a building, but she survives.  
  • To distract the guard and smuggle her friends to another country, Elloren poisons the university’s students and the guard. The poison isn’t lethal, but it renders everyone unconscious for almost two days. 
  • During her escape, Diana gets revenge for the murder of her family. When the guard wakes, they find that “fifteen Gardnerian soldiers are dead. The University groundskeeper is dead, viciously decapitated. The ears pulled clear off a group of Third Division Gardnerian military apprentices.” 
  • When the government declares that all Icarals must be imprisoned, Elloren’s bully, Fallon Bane, and her brother watch as “a male Icaral [is] hauled up for execution, two soldiers grasping its arms, the creature’s wing-stumps flapping in panic.” There is no explicit description of his death, but it is implied. 
  • At the end of the novel, Elloren’s aunt discovers how rebellious she has become. Aunt Vyvian reveals that Elloren’s uncle is sick, and it is implied that Vyvian is responsible. As Elloren sobs next to him, Uncle Edwin “slumps back, his head lolling, his eyes gazing over,” and he dies. Vyvian’s guards “jump to [Elloren’s] side, roughly pushing [her] back and restraining [her].” Her aunt forces her to marry Lukas, but he lets her go when the process is over. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Elloren’s roommate, Ariel, is addicted to an opiate-like drug called nilantyr. When the Gardnerian military raids her room, they seize her stash. There is no description of the raid, only her withdrawal symptoms. Within an hour, Ariel is “starting to tremble,” which soon “worsens to full-body quaking.” Ariel then “vomits all over the clothing she’s pulled from [Elloren’s] drawers.”  
  • While visiting the Amaz, Valasca “pulls a flat flask out of her tunic pocket, unstoppers it and hands it to [Elloren].” At Elloren’s hesitance to take it, Valasca says, “Oh, I forgot. You Garndnerians don’t drink spirits.’” Eventually, Elloren gives in and they both drink. Elloren goes to bed drunk. 
  • During a visit to the capital city’s prison, Elloren and Yvan notice that the Icaral inmates are being drugged. They see a little girl in a cell with her “white tunic stained down the front with black vomit,” as a “woman appears to be trying to force-feed nilantyr to the child.”  
  • When Elloren and Yvan find Ariel in one of the cells, Elloren describes her “gaze [as] unfocused, her mouth curled up at the edges into a numb, blissful grin.” As they try to escape with Ariel, Yvan makes a surgeon and an apothecary eat the nilantyr on their way out, to knock them out and not alert the guards.  

Language    

  • Language is very tame, but includes words like stupid, idiot, and hell that appear frequently. 
  • The word whore is used three times. 
  • Bitch is used twice. 

Supernatural  

  • This book features a diverse array of supernatural creatures, including witches, kelpies, Icarals, fairies, elves, werewolves, other animal shifters, Selkies, dragons, green- and purple-skinned peoples, and Amazonian women who utilize rune magic in battle.  
  • The Iron Flower has spells, runes, and mentions of magic on nearly every page. Elloren often has dream-like visions of the future that she can never quite remember; things like “a battlefield beneath a reddened sky” or “a white wand gripped in [her] hand.”  
  • Their magic is defined by their “affinity lines,” which are how they describe their affinity for certain kinds of elemental magic. One of Elloren’s professors tells her “just because [she] can’t access [her] power doesn’t mean her affinity lines are weak,” meaning that Elloren may have more of an affinity for magic than she thinks. 
  • The Amaz are protected by runes, another form of magical spells, where the wielder doesn’t need strong affinity lines. Elloren describes part of the Amaz settlement as “farms set under geometric glass domes marked with huge scarlet runes.” 
  • Potions and magical medicines are made in this book. As an example, on a walk into town, Elloren watches as a “disheveled-looking apothecary is busy pulverizing a dragon’s talon into black powder.” Elloren and Tierney gather their alchemy materials from him.  

Spiritual Content  

  • During a Resistance meeting, Elloren is informed that “the mandatory wandfasting age for Gardnerians has been lowered to sixteen.” Those over the age of sixteen “will be forced into a fasting” by their religious government.  
  • On a walk into town, Elloren spots graffiti on a wall and describes it as “a phrase from [their] holy book. /Bring the reaping times.” 
  • Elloren says Gardnerians hate forests because “it’s part of our religion. We’re meant to subdue the wilds. They’re supposedly filled with the spirit of the Evil Ones.” 
  • On family weekend at Verpax, the werewolf pack visits and Aislinn’s family “pointedly make[s] the holy gesture to ward off the stain of the Evil Ones.”  
  • Elloren explains why Gardnerians have arranged marriages. She says, “Mating is considered sinful in our religion. Its sole purpose is to bring forth as many mages as possible. Mating for any reason beyond that is considered immoral. We’re supposed to rise above our base natures. Not be wild things.” 
  • A man and his Amaz mother discuss the werewolves. His mother says that the werewolves are “everything the Goddess despises. And after they die, it will be as if they never existed, whereas [you and I] will go to Goddesshaven.’” 
  • Around a campfire, Elloren’s brother, Trystan, remarks that their friends are “all Evil Ones” and that “according to the glorious and most holy Book of the Ancients, [they’re] all Evil Ones. Except, maybe, for [Elloren].” 
  • In a political speech to a large crowd, the fascist leader in power claims that the Gardnerians will “flush [the Evil Ones] out of our cities. [They] will flush them out of the wilds. [They] will flush them out of this realm and the next. [They] will flush them out with the full power of the Ancient One behind [them].” 
  • While visiting the Amaz, Elloren notices a painting that depicts “the three First Women walking in a beautiful garden with the Great Goddess; the slaying of the cruel male partner by the only faithful daughter; the Goddess rewarding this faithful daughter, naming her Amaz.” 

A Fairy Finds Her Song

Every fairy has a gift that makes their wings grow—but Lily, a young fairy, is having trouble discovering hers. She watches her fairy friends Jasmine, who has super strength, and Sky, who can fly to extraordinary heights, excel in their talents. With the help of Jasmine and Sky, and her human friend, Willow, will Lily be able to discover what makes her special? 

Lily’s human friend, Willow, plays a pivotal role in Lily’s breakthrough. One day, Lily finds a lost bird and sings a song to communicate with it. Her song helps the little bird reunite with its mother. After witnessing this, Willow suggests that Lily’s songs may be her gift. Feeling encouraged, Lily sings songs and forms connections with frogs, bees, and butterflies. As Lily sings, her wings start to grow. 

Though she struggles, Lily never loses hope that she is destined for something great. Lily thinks, “My gift is hard to find. It must be extra special.” Her fairy friends encourage her to attempt new things, such as trying to see objects clearly in the dark, until she finds something that clicks. Lily’s determination will inspire young readers to stay curious and never give up on their own journeys to self-discovery. 

Young readers will be enchanted by the vibrant, magical illustrations that will transport them into Lily’s whimsical world. The artwork mirrors Lily’s growth throughout the story. Initially, she appears small in comparison to her fairy friends and certain animals. By the end, Lily soars high with her large, glowing wings as her three friends cheer her on. These drawings will help young readers identify Lily’s growth—both in her wing size and her character. 

Alongside these detailed illustrations, each page contains one to four short, simple sentences. The book opens with the lines “I am Lily. I am a fairy.” Beginning the story with these two sentences will help readers immediately identify and connect with the main character. Each page has one to two sentences that include sight words. The concise language makes this story accessible to young children who are beginning to read independently. 

While the simple plot is easy to follow, Bea Jackson weaves a meaningful message about individuality into the narrative. Through Lily’s journey and friendships, young readers will learn that everyone has different strengths and talents, and that with practice and perseverance, they can discover their own. A Fairy Finds Her Song is a joyful celebration of the unique gifts that we carry—and how using these gifts to help others can make the world even more magical. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • None

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

by Madeline Hettrick 

Wrath of the Triple Goddess

Percy Jackson has fought monsters, titans, and gods. But now he faces his greatest challenge yet: college admissions. In order to attend New Rome University, Percy needs to earn three recommendation letters from Greek gods. After earning his first letter by finding the cupbearer Ganymede’s missing chalice, Percy was enjoying living a quest-free life. But as the son of Poseidon, Percy rarely gets a break from being a hero. When Hecate, the goddess of magic and crossroads, promises to write a recommendation letter for Percy in exchange for a week of pet sitting, he can’t refuse.  

With the help of his girlfriend Annabeth, and his best friend Grover, Percy hopes that looking after Hecate’s hellhound and polecat will be a piece of cake. But Hecate’s mysterious mansion is filled with temptations, and her mischief-minded pets are eager to cause trouble. When Grover’s appetite gets the better of him and he drinks one of Hecate’s potions, chaos is unleashed. And so are Hecate’s pets. As Grover tears through the house in a potion-induced frenzy, Hecuba the hellhound and Gale the polecat escape to romp around New York City.   

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover must find Hecate’s missing pets and repair her mansion before she gets home, or they will face the goddess’s wrath.  

Percy Jackson is a witty, strong, and heroic character. As the narrator, he guides the reader through the story in a way that is engaging and humorous. Throughout the novel, Percy proves himself to be a compassionate and capable leader. He learns from his mistakes and uses the knowledge that he has gained from previous experiences to ensure that he keeps his friends safe. He also maintains a positive outlook, despite the challenging circumstances. 

Percy is joined by Annabeth and Grover, who are both strong and inspirational characters. Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, is a fierce warrior and strategist. She often uses her wisdom and intelligence to think her way out of situations, and she uses her skills to protect her friends. Grover is a selfless satyr with a big heart. He is in tune with nature and his emotions, using these skills to advocate for the natural world.   

While Wrath of the Triple Goddess is the seventeenth book in the Percy Jackson universe, it is still understandable and enjoyable for readers who are unfamiliar with Rick Riordan’s previous works. The main details are summarized for new readers, and the plot is straightforward. Readers also do not need to be familiar with Greek mythology to enjoy this book. Longtime fans will appreciate reading about the adventures of familiar characters and will enjoy many references and callbacks to the previous books.  This novel contains Rick Riordan’s recognizable style and humor but differs from Riordan’s previous works since the conflict is less high-stakes, and the overall tone is more whimsical.    

This story contains themes of friendship, perseverance, and compassion. Throughout the novel, Percy and his friends succeed because of the faith they place in each other. They are stronger as a team and work together to solve their problems. The trio also faces many different challenges, but they are determined to keep on fighting. They don’t give up on each other or their goals. Ultimately, the characters are compassionate and forgive one another for the mistakes they make. Rather than blaming Grover for the pets going missing, Annabeth and Percy reassure him that it wasn’t his fault and work with him to find a solution. Wrath of the Triple Goddess is a light-hearted and entertaining addition to the world of Percy Jackson.  

Sexual Content   

  • Before parting ways, Percy and Annabeth kiss goodbye outside Annabeth’s school. “She gave me a big wet kiss.”  
  • Percy and Annabeth kiss after eating an antidote, which helped them recover from a magical gas that gave them animal features. “I kissed Annabeth, though my breath probably smelled like cinnamon and bug shells.”   

Violence   

  • Percy discovers a hellhound puppy with a wound on its back. Percy suspects the puppy was attacked by some type of monster. “His black fur was matted with gunk. Flies buzzed around his cherry-red eyes. His ears were back, and he trembled with fear. A nasty-looking cut zigzagged across his back, like he’d been attacked by something with claws.” The puppy recovers.  
  • Zombies attack Percy, Annabeth, and Grover. Percy “cut down the first reanimated corpse, then sliced another two undead into dust. Meanwhile, Annabeth launched herself at another dead guy, driving her dagger into his face, while Grover goat-kicked one right through the windshield of a parked Toyota.” The trio defeats the zombies. 
  • A bear-monster attacks Percy, Annabeth, and Grover. Percy “got to the bear before she could claw Annabeth and [he] slashed with [his sword]—cutting clean through [the monster’s] right paw. The paw went flying.” The bear-monster recovers.  

Drugs and Alcohol   

  • Percy and Annabeth drink nectar to regain their strength. “Percy gulped it down. A surge of warmth washed through [his] organs. [He] recognized the sensation. It was nectar—the drink of the gods.”  

Language     

  • Percy learns that he will be picked up from school by a family member, rather than taking the subway by himself. When he learns this, he thinks “it made me look like a doofus. . .”  
  • Animals called “hellhounds” are referred to frequently. 
  • Characters rarely say expressions such as “Oh, gods.”  
  • Percy jokingly calls his friend Leo a doofus twice.    

Supernatural   

  • Hecate is referred to as the “goddess of ghosts.” 
  • Percy thinks he sees a ghost while walking towards a park. Percy “thought [he] saw a glowing blue apparition—the figure of a child on a bicycle, pedaling away from us in terror. When [Percy] blinked, it was gone.”  
  • Percy communicates telepathically with three eels in Hecate’s mansion. The eels lie to Percy to try to get him to feed them extra fish. “The eels were telling me all about it telepathically. Their thoughts chiseled their way into my skull like ice picks.” Percy occasionally communicates with the eels throughout the novel.  
  • Grover drinks a potion from Hecate’s laboratory that turns him into a giant goat. Percy discovers him sleeping on the floor in Hecate’s ruined mansion. “And in the middle of all this chaos was a mountain of hairy flesh, snoring with gusto, its two massive shaggy legs propped against the kitchen island, its moose-size hooves pointing towards the ceiling.” Grover recovers and goes back to normal after letting out a large belch.  
  • During a battle against zombies, a zombie touches Percy, and he has a vision of the Siege of Troy. “When I looked up, I was no longer in Queens. I knelt on a barren, battle-scarred hillside. To my right, the city of Troy was burning.” Percy wakes up from this vision and continues fighting.    
  • Grover goes into a trancelike state and summons a large number of squirrels. “Then the squirrels began to arrive. Three scrambled down the nearest tree trunk and hopped onto Grover’s back. Another raced out of the bushes and leaped onto his shoulder. Two more tunneled through the leaves and skittered up Grover’s legs. Within a minute, there were dozens, maybe hundreds.” Grover speaks with the squirrels, and they help him find Hecate’s missing pet polecat. After communicating with Grover, the squirrels leave, and Grover recovers. 
  • Percy shadow-travels with Hecuba, the pet hellhound. Shadow-travelling is a type of teleportation that hellhounds are capable of. Percy “was pulled off [his] feet. A dark portal whirled at the edge of the roof, and as Hecuba jumped through it [he was] sucked into the shadow-world.” Percy and Hecuba shadow-travel across the world for seven pages and stop when they get back to Hecate’s mansion.  
  • Percy is sprayed in the face with a potion that paralyzes him. “The [potion] got in my nostrils, my eyes, my mouth. . . Then my mouth stopped working. My arms turned into sandbags. My legs crumpled. I crashed sideways to the floor, completely paralyzed.” Percy recovers after being revived by Grover.  
  • A magical gas hits Annabeth, Percy, and Grover, which transforms them. Annabeth’s head turns into an owl’s, Percy’s arms turn into octopus tentacles, and Grover’s goat legs turn into human legs. “Where [Annabeth’s] face had been a second before, two huge black eyes stared out over a hooked golden beak. Her head had turned into a heart-shaped expanse of white plumage, rimmed with speckled brown feathers. From the neck up, [Annabeth] was a barn owl. . . Where my arms used to be were eight thick purple tentacles lined with pink suction cups. . . [Grover] was staring down at his legs and weeping. Where his furry goat hindquarters had been, there was bare skin, forward-articulating knees, and instead of hooves. . . feet.” They all return to their normal selves after eating a magical antidote.  
  • Percy makes a magical antidote to return himself and his friends to normal after the magical gas transformed them. “Annabeth tore into the second [antidote] with her sharp, hooked bill. . . She doubled over, breathing heavily. When she straightened again, she was normal Annabeth – human face, human hair, with the scent of her usual apple shampoo.” The antidote is effective, and they return to normal.  
  • Percy, Annabeth, and Grover summon ghosts in a graveyard to help them repair Hecate’s mansion. “The dark silhouette deepened, peeling itself from the bricks and taking on a smoky form like a cloud of coal dust.” They take the ghosts to the mansion, and once it is repaired, they release the ghosts.    

Spiritual Content   

  • This novel is centered around Greek mythology and contains frequent depictions of and references to Ancient Greek gods.  

by Kelly Barker 

King of Scars

After a brutal civil war that shook his fragile nation, King Nikolai Lantsov was pushed onto the throne of Ravka and must attempt to pick up the pieces. However, just as his kingdom is still scarred by the actions of the tyrant and powerful Grisha (magic-user) known as the Darkling, Nikolai is similarly haunted by the past. Nikolai begins shapeshifting into a hideous flying monster at night, threatening not only the lives of people around him but his tenuous claim to the throne.  

Simultaneously, Ravka begins experiencing strange magical phenomena that some call the work of Grisha, while others attribute it to the work of the Saints. Nikolai and his trusted Grisha general, Zoya Nazyalensky, follow the trail of these phenomena to the Shadow Fold, the site of the Darkling’s abuses of Grisha power and his death. With the help of a Darkling-follower named Yuri Vedenen, Nikolai and Zoya hope to use this journey to rid Nikolai of his demon and secure the future of the kingdom. Their quest leads to discoveries about the worshipped Saints, the Grisha, and their world as they know it. 

Meanwhile, Grisha spy Nina Zenik is still reeling from the loss of her love, Matthias Helvar, and recovering from her addiction to the deadly jurda parem, a drug that makes Grisha incredibly powerful at the cost of their free will and, usually, their lives. Nina is on a mission to gather intel in the cold and closed-minded land of Fjerda, which hates Grisha like her. In addition to arranging safe passage away from Fjerda for any Grisha she can, Nina must also finally lay Matthias’ body to rest. When Nina and her fellow spies discover a river that has been poisoning a Fjerdan river city called Gäfvalle, they trace the source to a mysterious factory that piques their interest. Hiding in a convent, Nina’s mission to uncover the hidden truth causes her to uncover a larger scheme against the Grisha and Ravka.  

King of Scars switches third-person perspective every chapter, following Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, Isaak, the Ravkan soldier who takes Nikolai’s place during his quest, and Dima, a minor character in the beginning of the story. The focal point of each chapter is specified in the chapter’s title (i.e. “Nikolai” or “Zoya”). Nikolai, the “King of Scars,” is the primary focus of the story and duology, and most of the issues faced by the other characters are tied back to his country’s problems. Despite having multiple perspectives, the story remains easy to follow due to its pacing and the frequency of expositional dialogue. Each perspective takes on the unique personalities of the characters, and, although every persona has its flaws, all of them are relatable and entertaining. Each one is given a proper backstory and depth, which keeps this ensemble story engaging. 

This book contains numerous storylines and a multitude of characters. Nothing feels unimportant due to the author’s care in making the characters and their lives feel three-dimensional. Side characters usually get only a sentence of exposition, so it can be difficult to remember the relationships and connections between them. Many of the less significant characters, such as Adrik, David, and Leoni, play central roles in other stories within the Grishaverse, and the events they mention are often elaborated upon in other books. While much of the backstory is explained, King of Scars takes place after the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. Thus, King of Scars is not meant to be read first, and doing so would undoubtedly confuse.  

King of Scars is about determination, change, and hope. Ravka is a nation constantly plagued by war and despair, and the central characters are as well. Nevertheless, despite facing many challenges in the past, present, and future, none of the protagonists relinquish the fight. They grow stronger, learning new powers, abilities, and tactics to succeed. The overarching theme of resilience makes for a worthwhile read for audiences interested in the Grishaverse and its characters.  

Sexual Content  

  • After Nikolai has a particularly brutal transformation, he says to Zoya, “When you purse your lips like that, you look like you’ve made love to a lemon.” 
  • Zoya tries to find Nikolai a wife. Zoya argues that the precautions they take to prevent his nightly transformations into the winged monster should not inhibit a strategic marriage, remarking, “She can lock you in at night and kiss you sweetly in the morning, and Ravka will be secure.” 
  • To cover up the fact that Nikolai’s curse makes him disappear, he and Zoya pretend to have spent the night together. Nikolai jokes, “Kiss me sweetly as a new bride would.” To be more convincing, Zoya makes their clothing appear more disheveled. A guard who encounters them asks, “She only play with royals?. . .She looks like fun.” While Nikolai and Zoya’s affair is a ruse, Zoya does admit that she would have “possibly taken him to bed for a few hours” under other circumstances. This scene lasts for about two pages. 
  • Lazlayon, aka The Gilded Bog, is a compound in Ravka that the rakish Count Kirigin runs. It is a “pleasure compound” that Nikolai designs to serve as a front for secret technological experiments and innovation that will help Ravka compete on a global scale. During his first visit, Nikolai sees a “man wearing nothing but an admiral’s hat.” The Gilded Bog is a recurring setting with a reputation for being steamy. 
  • In a meeting with Ravkan officials, Zoya and Nikolai compare international alliances to nighttime companionship. Zoya asks, “Who do we want to go home with when the music stops?” Nikolai adds, “Pick the wrong partner and we could be in for a disappointing night.” 
  • The previous king, Nikolai’s father, had a reputation for having many affairs. Nikolai admits that those who claim “to be a by-blow of [his] father” may be telling the truth. Genya Safin, a Grisha tailor whose beautiful face was mutilated by the Darkling, was essentially the king’s concubine. Zoya says that Genya was “tossed into the old king’s bed” by the Darkling. 
  • There are also rumors that Nikolai’s mother cheated with a “Fjerdan shipping magnate” named Magnus Opjer, who is Nikolai’s true biological father. This is explained over three pages. 
  • Brothels exist in multiple locations. Zoya mentions them, and Nina worked in one during the events of Six of Crows. The activities inside the brothels are not described. 
  • Isaak admits to “falling a bit in love” with Genya while she is altering his appearance. A few pages later, Genya excitedly kisses Isaak’s cheek in response to his effective impersonation of Nikolai, and Isaak blushes. 
  • Zoya is not sexually active, but her dalliances are mentioned. She refuses to tell Nikolai where she goes at night, and the narration later says, “Zoya did not desire; she was desired.” Zoya later says, “Every lover [she’s] taken” has asked about her scars. 
  • The tension between Nikolai and Zoya is palpable. Zoya thinks before their journey to the Shadow Fold that Nikolai looked like “a boy in need of kissing.” Nikolai briefly kisses her knuckles later, and Zoya admits to herself that she “long[s] to try” to make Nikolai fall in love with her.  
  • One night, Zoya takes off her kefta and shows Nikolai the scars on her back, and Nikolai stamps down “an unwelcome bolt of desire.” 
  • Nina often uses flirtation as a tactic in her covert operations. The Wellmother, the leader of the Fjerdan convent, accuses Nina of wanting to “become a rich man’s mistress” after seeing her interact with the fearsome Fjerdan officer Jarl Brum. 

Violence  

  • Since the book contains an excessive amount of violence, not all of it is included below. 
  • The book opens with Nikolai turning into a winged demon and attacking a farm. Dima, a young boy who fears the creatures of the dark, is threatened by a demon that has “dark stains around its mouth and on its chest,” which Dina realizes are blood. Zoya chains the snapping monster before it can harm any humans. This scene is described in two pages. 
  • Nikolai has scars that are “a reminder of the torture he had endured at the hands of the Darkling” during the Ravkan civil war. This torture is what led to his demon curse. 
  • Adrik Zhabin, a Grisha Squaller remarks, “I’ve been shot, stabbed, bayoneted, and had my arm torn off by a shadow demon.” All of these events take place in the previous series. 
  • Zoya reflects on “the Darkling’s slaughter of Novokribirsk,” which resulted in the death of her aunt Liliyana. 
  • Nina prepares fish for the market. “She drove her blade into the fish’s belly, yanked up toward its head, seized the wet pink mess of its innards, and tossed them onto the filthy slats where they would be hosed away.” 
  • Captain Birgir is a violent inspector who tortures and murders Grisha. Nina reflects on multiple instances of his brutality: “She’d seen Birgir and one of his favorite thugs, Casper, drag a mother and daughter off a whaler bound for Novyi Zem and beat them bloody . . . Then he’d doused them in a slurry of waste and fish guts from the canneries and bound them outside the harbor station in the blazing sun.”  
  • Nina keeps shards of bone that she uses like darts. She first uses them on the Casper: “The darts lodged in Casper’s windpipe, and a sharp wheeze squeaked from his mouth. Nina twisted her fingers, and the bone shards rotated. The guard dropped to the dock, clawing at his neck.” 
  • Nina kills Captain Birgir to protect Grisha refugees. Nina drives “a shard of bone through his heart,” and the fearsome captain dies. 
  • Nina and her fellow spies save a girl who was thrown from her horse and nearly trampled to death: “All it would take was a single heavy strike and the [girl’s] skull would be crushed.” This incident occurs over three pages. 
  • The Ravkan Triumverate council talks about “the Lantsov pretender,” Dunyasha Lazareva, who was found “splattered on the cobblestones outside the Church of Barter . . .” 
  • Zoya has an altercation with Nikolai’s monster form. Her shoulder “crack[s] against the edge of a column,” and her arm is dislocated. The demon and the Grisha battle for three pages before the Shu soldier siblings Tamar and Tolya arrive as reinforcements and save Zoya’s life. 
  • Wolves attack Nina while she is burying Matthias. First, Nina uses her bone shards and “pierc[es] the animals’ bodies,” but the remaining wolf bites her arm. Another wolf emerges and fights the remaining wolf off. The fight occurs over two pages. 
  • The Saints trapped in the Shadow Fold—Elizaveta, Grigori, and Juris—fight Nikolai and Zoya upon their arrival. Elizaveta swarms them with bees, and Grigori fights in the shapeshifting form of various animals. Juris takes on the form of a dragon, and he and Zoya fight one-on-one: “The dragon unleashed its fire and Zoya let loose the storm…then the flames collapsed. The dragon reared back, a choked wheeze emerging from its throat. Zoya had stolen its breath…” The battle spans five pages and concludes in a tense truce. 
  • In an act of betrayal, Elizaveta impales Nikolai’s palms and legs with thorns to prevent him from slaying the shadow demon. This action initiates a multi-chapter battle between those on the side of the Darkling and those who are not. 
  • Zoya is encased in amber for the final battle, but she escapes and runs to Juris for backup. She finds him dying. Juris says, “My flames burned me from the inside.” To take on his power, Juris urges her to kill him, and she does so by stabbing a broadsword into his heart. He, in turn, pierces her chest with his dragon claw, solidifying the sacrificial bond. 
  • Elizaveta kills Grigori with her insects: “Tiny holes and furrows began to appear on his flesh as burrowing insects consumed him.” 
  • Zoya is the one who ultimately defeats Elizaveta in the Shadow Fold. She turns the Saint’s powers against her, reversing the path of Elizaveta’s vicious thorns and impaling her “on the claws of her own creation.” 
  • Nina uses her power to manipulate the dead and summon an army of corpses. As the corpses claw through the Earth, the dead speak through Nina and recount their tragic endings at the hands of the Wellmother and the Fjerdan guards. One woman says, “You cut me open and took the child from my womb. You let me bleed to death as I pleaded for help.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Nikolai uses a tonic “to keep [him] tucked into bed and the monster at bay.” Later, the tonic is enhanced to knock him out completely. He needs a separate wake-up elixir to emerge from sleep. 
  • Nina is a recovering addict and survivor of the drug Jurda Parem, a synthetic substance created to enhance Grisha’s powers. “The drug was the product of experimentation in a Shu lab. It could take a Grisha’s power and transform it into something wholly new and wholly dangerous, but the price for that brief bit of glory was addiction and eventually death.”  
  • Nikolai has commissioned a man to “develop both an antidote to jurda parem and a strain of the drug that might allow Grisha to heighten their powers without making them addicts.”  
  • A river is poisoned by runoff from a factory. After testing the water, the Grisha spy, Leoni, falls ill. A version of jurda parem is infecting the water, resulting in the “orange eyes and rangy bodies” of the wolves that Nina encounters. 
  • Absinthe is a drink that “tastes like sugar dipped in kerosene.” 
  • The Fjerdans have been dosing pregnant Grisha women with jurda parem. Nina sneaks into their facility and finds, “Women and girls . . . in narrow beds . . . addicted to parem.” Their children would be born addicted to the substance, making for “perfect Grisha slaves.” 
  • Characters drink alcohol frequently at social and political gatherings. For example, The Gilded Bog reportedly has “a wine cellar said to stretch for a mile underground. . .”  
  • Zoya and Nikolai share a bottle of brandy. 
  • While impersonating the king, Isaak is nearly poisoned by arsenic gas.  

Language  

  • Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes damn, ass, shit, and hell. For example, Nina says to the deceased Matthias, “Matthias, your country can kiss my fat Grisha ass.” 
  • Bastard is used a few times. Nikolai ponders how, “The rumors of his bastardy had circulated since well before birth.” 
  • Instead of saying “oh my God” or similar phrases, characters fill in the word “Saints” or “Djel” (a term for god in Fjerdan culture). For example, some say, “For Djel’s sake.” 

Supernatural  

  • As detailed in the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology, the Grisha are individuals with various magical abilities, categorized into three broad groups, each with smaller subcategories. This is called “The Small Science.” 
  • The Corporalki are “The Order of the Living and the Dead” (Heartrenders and Healers). Nina was a Heartrender who could control the living before the drug jurda parem changed her powers and gave her control over the dead. 
  • The Etherealki are “The Order of Summoners” (Squallers, Inferni, and Tidemakers). Zoya is a Squaller with power over wind and air. “The wind did what she willed it, had since she was a child.” 
  • The Materialki are “The Order of Fabrikators” (Durasts and Aklemi). Leoni is an Alkemi who can control and study poisons. 
  • The deceased Matthias Helvar’s voice speaks to Nina until she finally buries his body. Upon laying him to rest, Nina finally admits that “Matthias’ voice was not [real]. It never had been.” 
  • The Shadow Fold was created by “merzost,” also known as “abomination” or the corruption of Grisha power. The Darkling had aimed to create more amplifiers, magical artifacts that enhance Grisha magic, but instead created abominations.  
  • Zoya explains to Nikolai that amplifiers are “tied to the making at the heart of the world, the source of all creation.” Grisha’s magic is intrinsically connected to the world itself and the powerful forces that created it. 
  • Three “Saints,” Elizaveta, Juris, and Grigori, are all trapped by the Shadow Fold. Nikolai, Zoya, and Yuri are all transported there, where time is immeasurable. Elizaveta can control natural organisms like bees, other insects, and plants. Grigori is a shapeshifter whose form constantly morphs between human, bear, and amalgamated forms. Juris is a less chaotic shapeshifter who can take on the form and powers of a dragon. 

Spiritual Content  

  • People in Ravka pray to the Saints, all-powerful beings of old who performed miracles and were revered for their martyrdom. There are “churches” dedicated to the Saints. 
  • Tolya and Tamar are both very religious. When Tolya recites “liturgical Ravkan,” Tolya explains, “It’s from the Book of Alyosha, which you might know if you ever went to church.” 
  • Zoya admits that she isn’t “much for praying” to the Saints, and it is later revealed that her faith was destroyed by past unfulfilled prayers. 
  • In the country of Fjerda, Djel is worshipped as an all-powerful god. The people believe the river’s poisoning was “a sign of Djel’s disfavor,” requiring “a priest to say prayers.” 
  • “The great ash” is a sacred tree to Djel.  
  • People in Fjerda sometimes make signs in the air, “meant to wash away evil thoughts with the strength of Djel’s waters.” Water is also sacred in Fjerdan culture. 
  • One of Nina’s main goals is to lay Matthias to rest so that “he could find his way to his god.” 
  • The Apparat is the Ravkan “spiritual counselor to the king,” but the current one is considered self-serving and a traitor. He is followed by the “Priestguard,” holy soldiers who supposedly originated from shapeshifters who survived the obisbaya ritual. 
  • Yuri is a young monk who follows the “Cult of the Starless Saint.” He urges Nikolai during a large demonstration, “Tell your false priest [the Apparat] to do what is right and recognize the Starless One as a Saint.” He believes that the Starless One deserves Sainthood because of the “good” he did for Ravka, despite the horrors that he committed. 
  • The line between the Grisha and the Saints is consistently blurred, and multiple characters imply that the martyred Saints, whom many civilians worship, were actually powerful Grisha, not otherworldly beings.  
  • Grigori says that creation “belongs to the First Maker alone,” implying the presence of an all-powerful creator figure. 

Lucy Lancaster Has a Secret

Lucy Lancaster is a bright young student who loves her parents, her friends, and her school. She is always the first to enter her second-grade classroom, saying hello to her teacher, Mrs. Welli, and feeding the classroom fish. Her two best friends, Heidi Heckelbeck and Bruce Bickerson, sit next to her in class. 

One morning, Lucy’s teacher announces that the class will be raising caterpillars and watching them turn into butterflies. To Lucy’s dismay, she gets paired with Bryce Beltran instead of Heidi or Bruce. Bryce calls Lucy “boring” for wanting to name one of their caterpillars Tony, and then something strange happens. Lucy’s toes start tingling, and she hiccups! Suddenly, Bryce is no longer opposed to naming the caterpillar Tony. What changed? 

Lucy’s hiccups persist, and strange things continue to happen. One day, Lucy hiccups after seeing her caterpillars become butterflies, and the rest of the class’s caterpillars suddenly transform and escape from their containers. The class erupts into chaos, so Lucy hiccups again, and all of the butterflies gather to safely land on Lucy. Ms. Egli, the visiting librarian, takes Lucy aside and tells her to come see her at the library. Lucy is very nervous. Is Lucy in trouble for the butterflies? 

As it turns out, Ms. Egli is a witch, and Lucy is one too! Lucy’s hiccups show the beginnings of her powers. Ms. Egli leads Lucy to a magical part of the library where Lucy can learn spells to control her powers. Lucy returns to school the next day feeling different but excited for her future as a young witch. 

Told in the third person, Lucy Lancaster Has a Secret follows the magical mishaps of a young girl as she learns that magic does exist. Since readers follow Lucy’s point of view exclusively, their understanding of magic evolves alongside hers as she gradually discovers who she is. Small, strange occurrences become signs of a larger, magical power that will be expanded upon in later books, making for an immersive journey into the life of an almost ordinary second-grader. Even though Lucy must keep her magic a secret, there is no overarching moral or commentary provided on keeping secrets. 

Lucy herself is a relatable and realistic child. She is smart, eager, and friendly, enjoying school and diligently completing her homework. This makes Lucy a likable protagonist whom children can aspire to emulate. When faced with Bryce’s unkindness, Lucy does not respond with cruelty. Instead, she chooses to stand up for herself without putting him down. Parents and children can discuss Lucy and Bryce’s interactions as an introduction to the topic of early childhood bullying. 

Children interested in stories of everyday magic will appreciate the quick and humorous tricks that Lucy manifests with her hiccups. Despite the supernatural quality of her powers, the magic in the Lucy Lancaster Series is very grounded. Lucy’s spells are simple; the first entry in her spellbook is “The Call-It-Back Spell,” an incantation that reverses mistakes. 

Lucy Lancaster Has a Secret is a fun book suitable for independent readers. Large black-and-white illustrations appear on almost every page. The illustrations are charming and highly expressive, effectively highlighting key details of every scene and visually conveying the characters’ emotions. Illustrator Priscilla Burris also drew the page of Lucy’s spellbook containing “The Call-It-Back Spell” in its entirety, adding to the story’s immersion. Other short pieces of text, like the words on Lucy’s magical library card, are included in the illustrations. Each chapter begins with a full-page illustration that seamlessly transitions readers into the next section, picking up where the previous chapter left off. The Lucy Lancaster books can be read as individual stories because each book focuses on a new adventure. 

Lucy Lancaster Has a Secret primarily serves as an introduction to Lucy Lancaster and her magical powers. Readers who enjoyed the Heidi Heckelbeck books will appreciate the familiar characters in Lucy Lancaster, including Heidi herself. The story’s end offers readers a comforting lesson: even if you change as a person, your friends will remain by your side. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • Lucy’s partner for the butterfly project, Bryce, calls Lucy boring for naming a caterpillar. Bryce says, “Only a BORING person would choose a BORING name like Tony.”
  • Lucy’s teacher, Mrs. Welli, exclaims, “Oh my!” when the butterflies are let loose in the classroom. 

Supernatural 

  • The first time Lucy uses her powers, Bryce magically changes her mind about naming a caterpillar. Lucy lets out “a big, loud hiccup,” and her toes start tingling. Immediately afterwards, Bryce calls the caterpillar Tony, signifying that he has suddenly agreed on the name.
  • Lucy wonders to herself if she should let her best friend, Heidi, win their game of Super Flag Tag. In that instant, she hiccups, and her toes tingle. The ensuing spell causes Heidi to find “EXACTLY where [Lucy] was hiding.” 
  • Lucy and Bryce’s two caterpillars become butterflies, and Lucy is so mesmerized by their beauty that she hiccups. Her magic causes all the butterflies in the classroom to hatch at once, their containers popping open. Lucy worried that they would never catch all of the butterflies, and she hiccups again. “One by one, the butterflies landed on Lucy’s arms, shoulders, and even the rim of her glasses, until she was covered from head to toe!” 
  • The librarian, Ms. Egli, takes Lucy to a corridor in the library that has a painting of a witch. Lucy holds up a “golden library card,” and the wall disappears to reveal a hidden entrance to “the magical library.” In this hidden room, books magically fly. 
  • Ms. Egli asks Lucy, “Have you ever thought you might be a witch?” Lucy is astonished by the question, causing her to hiccup and send “a whole shelf of books” flying around the room. One flying book turns into a cat, and Ms. Egli uses a magic key to turn it back into a book. 
  • In the library, a blank “Book of Spells” chooses Lucy to be its next reader. Lucy decides that the first spell she wants to learn is an undoing spell, and the incantation magically appears in the book. 
  • Ms. Egli uses her magic key to make many books fly around the library, and Lucy chants the words to the new “Call-It-Back Spell” in her spellbook to return the books to their piles. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

by Gabrielle Barke 

The Black Witch

Seventeen-year-old Elloren Gardner looks exactly like her grandmother but lacks her grandmother’s magic. Her grandmother was the Black Witch, the Gardnerian people’s savior and leader against the evil demons and blasphemers. Yet Elloren was raised along with her two brothers by her uncle deep in the woods, and all she wants to become is an apothecary so she can heal others. So when her aunt comes to take her to Verpax University, Elloren is overwhelmed by the outside world. Per their customs, her aunt wants Elloren to enter into an arranged marriage and fulfill her people’s prophecy by becoming the next Black Witch. However, by the time Elloren reaches school, the stories she grew up hearing don’t exactly add up.

Undaunted and determined, Elloren is a powerful and curious protagonist who strives to uncover the truth, as her country’s history isn’t all as it seems. While all the Gardnerians at her school revere her for who she resembles, every other group fears and avoids her. Her childhood isolationist and supremacist views fade the longer she spends time at school, and she soon gains the friendship and respect of other outcasts. Dealing with the complications of teenage life, including crushes and bullies, Elloren learns how to adapt to new situations and speak her mind. With the help of her new friends and her brothers, Elloren discovers the dangers and corruption of her increasingly religious government. How can she change a world that doesn’t want to change? This complex fantasy world will enthrall the reader with alluring, emotional characters and a powerful cause to root for.

Like many long fantasy series, The Black Witch‘s intricate worldbuilding can be overwhelming at times, and there are many details to track. Despite this, the plot remains simple and predictable. Much of the groundwork laid at the beginning of the book reveals some of the plot’s surprises, making them less impactful. It’s also difficult to root for the main character, Elloren, because she initially appears ignorant and unobservant, making her seem two-dimensional. However, her character evolves and gains greater depth throughout the story. Ultimately, the draw of the novel isn’t a unique plot but rather solid characters, worldbuilding, and the positive message it conveys. The author constructs a society that slowly descends into fascism, and the characters find their

Readers who enjoyed Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Dorothy Must Die will love the political intrigue, elaborate magic system, and fierce resistance network of The Black Witch. The book is filled with all kinds of supernatural creatures, from werewolves to elves to demons, vying for a good education in a world embroiled in international power struggles. Elloren is an inspiring character who grows when challenged, leading by example and standing by her moral principles. Overall, The Black Witch is a beautiful story with moments of unifying outrage, magical corruption, and lovely, budding friendship.  

Sexual Content  

  • While at a party, Elloren meets the famous Lukas Grey, who can’t take his eyes off her.  Lukas “raises [Elloren’s] chin, leans in and brings his lips to [hers] with gentle pressure.” 
  • Frustrated with Yvan’s hatred of her, Elloren dreams that Yvan “pulls [Elloren] toward himself and joins his lips to [hers] in fierce urgency.”  
  • Three friends question Elloren about her experience with Lukas, asking, “Have you kissed him?” Elloren is evasive and didn’t answer the question. 
  • After class, before going back to her stressful rooming situation, Elloren kisses Lukas. She thinks that her “lips are still warm and swollen from his fevered kisses.” 
  • After Elloren’s friend, Aislinn, kisses someone, she says she “didn’t just like it. [She] loved it. [They] kissed for over an hour. It was like heaven.” 
  • While Elloren is talking to her other brother, Trystan, he approaches her subtly. Elloren says, “You can’t really think he’s beautiful. You can’t think that way. Trystan, tell me you don’t mean it that way.” His non-response implies that he does admire men that way. 
  • Elloren discusses rumors of werewolf culture with friends. They think werewolves “stand up in front of everyone, pick out someone to mate with and mate with them right there, in front of everyone. Sometimes [they] mate when [their] men are in wolf form and [their] women are in human form.” This is all conjecture on the part of the characters.  
  • Diana, a werewolf, leaves the woods “completely naked. Seeing [Elloren], Diana breaks into a wide exhilarated grin. She strides toward [Elloren], oblivious to the two Gardnerian men down the path who halt to gawk at her.” Elloren’s culture is more conservative, so it takes a while for Elloren to convince Diana to clothe herself. 
  • After an emotional moment, Rafe, who had been friends and hunting partners with Diana for a long time, “brings his mouth to [Diana’s] and they kiss, gently at first. Then Diana moans and presses herself into him, their kissing quickly becoming passionate.” It was their first kiss, and rather spontaneous. 
  • To clear up a misunderstanding, another werewolf, Jarod, describes their culture. “When two Lupines decide to take each other as life mates, one of them stands up and announces his or her desire to be with each other to the whole pack. The two then go off privately into the woods.’” 
  • When Elloren asks Shane about his sister who is an old friend of Elloren’s, he says that someone “used [his] sister, forced his filthy self on her.” 
  • Prostitution is described a couple of times very vaguely. Elloren’s brother, Rafe, says that “some of our men do this. The seals are called Selkies, and they can take human form.” Elloren responds, “What? Aunt Vyvian told me people kept them as pets.” The Selkies are sea creatures who take human form. Gardnerians enslave them in prostitution because if one possesses their “skins,” the Selkies can be controlled. 
  • A Selkie named Marina says, “She was claimed by [a] man. Money given for her. He took her for his own and abused her. Many times.’” 

Violence  

  • Elloren explains that she “came to live with [her uncle] when [she] was three, after [her] parents were killed in the Realm War. It was a bloody conflict that raged for thirteen long years and ended with [her] grandmother’s death in battle. But it was a necessary war, my beleaguered country relentlessly attacked and ransacked at the beginning of it.” 
  • Along with descriptions of prostitution, there are descriptions of women in “actual, locked cage[s], only big enough for [them] to sit in, not stand,” and “two boys are poking at [one woman’s] side with a long sharp stick.”  
  • When Elloren is talking to a friend’s brother about his sister’s new fugitive status, he mentions that he “lacked the necessary level of detachment needed to kill [his] own sister.” 
  • Before reaching university, Elloren is viciously attacked by a creature with wings called an Icaral, because her grandmother was the Black Witch. Her grandmother killed many Icarals in the Realm War, and they held a grudge. “A strong bony hand slams against [her] mouth. An arm flies around [her] waist and locks [her] elbows against [her] sides in a viselike grip.” The demon is killed by a soldier as “a longer blade bursts through the creature’s chest” and “a fountain of blood spurts out.” The battle is described over three pages.  
  • At school, a classmate, Fallon Bane, bullies Elloren, intentionally tripping her. Elloren’s “foot painfully hits something solid,” and she “topples to the ground.” 
  • Some of the servants also bully Elloren. While working in the kitchen, a “hard kick to [Elloren’s] rear sends [her] sprawling” into mud and manure. 
  • When Elloren spends her first night in her room, her roommate threatens to kill her. She even goes so far as to “scrape [her] nails down the length of the door,” while Elloren hides in the closet. 
  • To prevent bullying, Lukas threatens the servants who were bullying Elloren. He says, “It would be a shame if something went amiss during military training exercises, and your parents’ home was fired upon.” He also threatens the lives of the servants’ children. 
  • Elloren’s friend, Wynter, trips. When Rafe helps her up, Wynter’s brother thinks Rafe is being inappropriate. The brother “reaches for his knife [and yells], ‘Stay away from our women!’” 
  • A hate crime is committed against Elloren’s friend, Ariel, and her pet chicken is found with “two stakes driven through its breast, its head dangling. Its severed wings are staked on either side of the animal’s body. Blood streaks down the door and pools on the floor below.” 
  • After Fallon Bane calls Diana unsavory names, Diana “leaps out of bed and slams Fallon to the ground” and tries to “impale Fallon’s new uniform.” 
  • There’s a vague description of abusive child labor and slavery a couple of times. One of the professors explained that “embroidery that intricate . . . was done by Urisk workers . . . many of them children. Working for practically nothing, beaten if they try to protest.” 
  • As Elloren and her friend, Yvan, walk in the woods, they discover a woman being kept in a cage by the groundskeeper. They see him “kick[ing] her hard in the side with his heavy black boot” and him “strik[ing] her so hard that she cries out and falls backward to the ground.” 
  • A woman wants all the Selkies killed. The woman “introduced the motion. To the Mage Council. Earlier this year. To have them shot as soon as they come to shore.” 
  • As fascist ideology grows, Elloren thinks that their leader, Vogel, tried to make it legal to “execute anyone who defaces the Gardnerian flag” or who maligns their religion. 
  • Elloren discovers a mistreated dragon lying “on her side, eyes closed, in a large pool of blood, her spectacular onyx hide covered, just covered, with gashes and lash marks. One of her wings and a hind leg are bent at odd, unnatural angles.” 
  • After a big dragon jailbreak, there’s a description of “dead men and dragons strewn across the field.”

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Elloren’s friend, Ariel, is described as having been locked up in a sanatorium and heavily medicated, so much so that she is addicted to a fictional substance called nilantyr that seems to have an effect similar to opiates. Ariel’s friend explains that, “When she takes the nilantyr, the memories disappear. It all goes blank and empty. It is a cold peace, but peace nonetheless.” 

Language    

  • Words like stupid, idiot, and hell appear frequently. 
  • The word whores is used once. 
  • Bitch is used twice. 

Supernatural  

  • This book features a diverse array of supernatural creatures, including witches with green skin, werewolves (referred to as Lupines), demons (known as Icarals), Amazonian women who utilize runes in battle, fairies, elves, Selkies, and various half-human, half-animal beings.  
  • The story is set in a world where magic is a reality, encompassing spells, runes, and other forms of magic. Almost all of Elloren’s classes at Verpax involve magic, and most of the violence in the book involves magical battles. There are no explicit spells spoken in battle. An example of this violence occurs when Elloren and her friends try to free the dragons, and “a glowing red orb whirls by overhead, along with stray wand fire, the orb exploding behind me into a circle of red flame.” 
  • In classes, spells are used to train younger students and test their magical ability. For example, when Elloren arrives at Verpax, the Commander of the Guard tests her magical ability by having her “lift the wand awkwardly and point it at [a] candle” and whisper the word “illiumin.” Elloren is shocked by the wand and drops it quickly. Spoken spells are rare in the book; most of them are implied.  
  • Gardnerians marry using magical bonds that appear as tattoos on their skin, exhibiting their marital status and binding the couple together more literally. If they run or divorce each other, the tattoo damages their skin and can kill them.  
  • When Elloren was a child, she was required to be wandtested to see how powerful she was. She describes it as “a powerful energy shoot[ing] through [her]” even going so far as “an explosion. Fire shooting from the tip of the stick. The trees around [her] suddenly engulfed in flames. Fire everywhere. The sound of [her] screaming.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • The Black Witch establishes a complex religious system that mirrors modern monotheistic religions and intertwines it with politics. This religion has strong allusions to the three main monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Their religious structures dictate more conservative norms and different swear words than what people literally use. References to their religion are heavily present in the novel, and priests hold prominent positions in high government and university institutions. 
  • Asleep and thinking at night, Elloren provides context for the color of her skin, as “like all Gardnerians, [her] skin shimmers a faint green in the dark. It’s a mark of the First Children, set down on us by the Ancient One above, marking us as the rightful owners of Erthia. At least, that’s what our holy book, The Book of Ancients, tells us.” 
  • An example of the more conservative customs, “wandfasting” means arranged marriage at a very young age. When describing one of her friends, Elloren thinks about how her “zealously religious family fasted her at thirteen to Tobias Vassilis.” Later, Elloren’s aunt explains that “wandfasting” is a beautiful sacrament, meant to keep them pure and chaste. The aunt says, “The lure of the Evil Ones is strong . . . wandfasting helps young people. . . stay on the path of virtue.” 
  • Elves are considered “idol worshippers.” 
  • After a particularly violent day, Elloren tries to calm herself by reading from their holy book. She reads that “all of creation joined together to worship, glorify, and obey the Ancient One.” The book describes the Gardnerian creation myth in detail, complete with justifications for species biases and discrimination. 
  • Elloren rooms with two Icaral girls. When Elloren tells her friends about this, they say that Elloren “should go to evening service with [them],” and that “the priest can exorcise [the Icarals’] evil.” Later, one of Elloren’s professors refuses to teach one of them because “to look at [her] would be against [his] religious beliefs.” 
  • When Elloren’s friend’s family visits and they meet one of the werewolves, they whisper a prayer: “Oh, most holy Ancient One, purify our minds, purify our hearts, purify Erthia. Protect us from the stain of the Evil Ones.” 
  • One of Elloren’s professors comes from a culture similar to that of the Amazons (called the Amaz), and their creation myth is different. Professor Volya explains that “the First Men were not grateful at all for what the Goddess had done for them. Instead, they tried to convince the Three Sisters to join them and slay the Great Mother, so that they could rule over all Erthia.” 

by Kate Schuyler

Shadow Fox

Shadow the fox does not trust humans. Well, except for Nan, who feeds her chunks of fish behind a lakeside motel every night. When Nan goes missing, a man from the mysterious Whistlenorth Island comes ashore to seek the aid of Nan’s granddaughter, Bee, whom he thinks is destined not only to help Nan, but also to save Whistlenorth from the greedy and destructive Night Islanders.  

The plans go topsy-turvy when it becomes obvious that Bee does not have the magic powers of a chosen one — but Shadow does! Can a fox really rescue an island of people? As Shadow grudgingly comes to trust her new human companions, she and Bee develop a mystical bond, a special connection between human and animal that might be the key to driving the Night Islanders from Whistlenorth for good.  

The story is told from Shadow’s point of view, offering a unique perspective and allowing readers to understand how environmental destruction impacts wild animals. Shadow was hunting when a group of men cleared an entire swath of forest and killed Shadow’s mother and sister. Afterwards, Shadow doesn’t want to “like” anyone, especially humans. Shadow’s quest isn’t just about saving the people of Whistlenorth; the fox also has to accept her family’s death and allow others into her heart.  

Shadow and Bee discover they have a special magical bond that allows them to hear each other’s thoughts. Bee often comments on Shadow’s thoughts and helps her understand the human world. In addition, Bee gives Shadow confidence by saying, “Don’t you ever doubt yourself! I used to think that being wild was a bad thing, but being wild is the best thing.” In the end, Shadow realizes that she doesn’t need to act human to defeat the Night Islanders. Instead, she needs to think like a fox. This reinforces the idea that Shadow does not need to become a tame pet in order to save Whistlenorth.  

Shadow also has a special bond with a bird that she helped hatch. At first, Shadow does not want to care about the bird, but the bird refuses to leave Shadow’s side. Shadow notices the bird is “gazing at me as if I am his everything. I am the sun and the moon and the fish and the stars. Yes, he is just a bird, but he is everything worth fighting for, all wrapped up in feathers.” Shadow’s relationship with the bird and Bee helps Shadow overcome her grief and allows others into her heart. In addition, it is these relationships that give him the ability to save Whistlenorth. In the end, Shadow is motivated to save the isle because it’s the only way to save her friends. 

Shadow Fox has a strong environmental focus that helps readers understand the importance of caring for everything “wild.” The death of Shadow’s family highlights what happens when natural areas are destroyed to make room for progress. The environmental focus is seamlessly integrated throughout the book, without being overwhelming or preachy. Bee’s grandmother warns: “‘Make no mistake. If the foxes disappear, if the birds disappear, humans are next. We might still be breathing, we might still be alive, but inside, in here—’ She taps her heart with two fingers. ‘It’s all over.’” 

By telling the story from Shadow’s point of view, Sorosiak creates an endearing protagonist that readers will fall in love with. Shadow’s thoughts and actions are consistent with a wild fox, which often brings humor into the story. Shadow often thinks about food—including her favorite food, fish—and this leads to some silly moments. In addition, Shadow makes many references to fish. For example, Shadow describes the wind saying, “It pelts my face like a dead trout. Or a cold, stiff sturgeon.”  

Shadow Fox begins by describing the magical islands of Whistlenorth and the dangers presented by the Night Islanders. The worldbuilding is essential; however, it lacks action and suspense. When Shadow and Bee get to the island, the story becomes more interesting and intense. However, the large cast of supporting characters, the complicated plot, and the detailed fight scenes will require readers to pay close attention to the text. Despite this, animal-loving readers will be drawn into Shadow’s adventure and cheer when Shadow not only defeats the Night Islanders but also defeats her fears. For more stories that teach about the importance of caring for our environment, check out Spark by Sarah Beth Durst, Out of My Shell by Jenny Goebel, and the Wild Rescuers Series by Stacy Plays. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • Shadow is in a barn when a groundkeeper appears. “One of his gloved hands grips my neck alongside the metal loop, and he lifts me straight into the air.” The man tells Shadow, “I was going to turn you into the wildlife authorities, but maybe I should turn you into a hat.” Shadow uses magic to escape. 
  • Bee sees bed birds. “They are a famous species. Little blue birds. They sneak through cracked-open windows at night and bite humans, sleeping in their beds.” 
  • Shadow’s mother and sister were killed when humans took “down a swath of the forest in a day,” and sliced down the trees. Afterwards, Shadow felt “a feeling [she]’d never felt and never want[ed] to feel again. The total loss, that emptiness, the knowledge that nowhere—nowhere out there—were [her] sister and mother breathing. Their breath was smothered out.” 
  • The Night Islanders are killing everything—plants and animals—to extract magic. A Night Islander wears a “metal cage that’s around his face, just two little holes cut out for eyes, and wearing . . . a beaver hat. The tail dangles along his neck. The matted pelt shrouds his head.” 
  • Two Night Islanders travel to Whistlenorth with the intent of kidnapping the chosen one. Shadow calls one of the men “the Hunter.” Shadow realizes that the Hunter and other Night Islanders are the ones that killed her family. “The ones with the metal and the smoke and the saws. . . They were Night Islanders!” 
  • The Hunter grabs Bee. Shadow attacks and “clamp[s] the second attacker’s leg in my jaws. He lets out a single yelping note, louder than a fox, before kicking, kicking, flinging me against the nearest tree. Arching through the air, I hit the bark with a thwomp. . . The blow has me seeing tiny bees, buzzing above my ears. One of my ribs bends inward, bruising but not breaking.”  
  • To escape the man’s grasp, Bee “opens her mouth and bites the Hunter’s mitten—hard. Another shriek escapes him, voice dark and blooming like blood. . .” Bee is unable to escape, and the Hunter kidnaps her. 
  • To free Bee, a pack of snow foxes attacks. “Advancing forward, all one hundred of them pounce, paws first, tongue second. Spit flies. Tongues reach out. . . The foxes lick ears. They lick toes. They lick fingers and noses and palms, slurping-slurp.” The foxes’ spit numbs the Night Islanders so they are unable to move.  
  • Shadow finds Bee. “The sleeve of her sweater is tied around her mouth and nose, blocking her breath. . . her wrists are bound with a strip of fishing net.” The snow foxes surround the Hunter, and he is “pinned in all directions by snouts and teeth.” 
  • The Night Islanders use their magic to make “spikes rise from the earth. . . They’re taller than the tallest oaks, sharper than thorns.” Shadow, Bee, and the bird are “hemmed in on all sides, like an ice cage.” 
  • To trap some of the Night Islanders, Shadow uses magic to summon “the canoes from the lakeshore. . . Falling to the earth, they trap a few Night Islanders beneath them.” 
  • The Night Islanders combine their magic to create a mound of snow that traps Bee, Shadow, and others. “Under the snow-flood, my body wiggles and flits. Thrashing, flaying! . . . And my breath has nowhere to go! The snow is packed so tightly. . . The Hunter and the Night Islanders. . .. They’ve summoned all the snow from the island to bury us alive.” Everyone escapes.  
  • The only way to defeat the Night Islanders is to take their magic. The bird uses magic to make a flock of birds out of snow. The birds disappear and reappear inside of the Night Islanders’ stomachs. “The Hunter shrieks, hippity-hopping on his toes. Now the other Night Islanders are clutching their stomachs, massaging their throats, beating their chests.” 
  • Once the birds have collected all of the magic from the Night Islanders’ stomachs, “the birds reappear as a flock. . . a little bit melted at the tips of their feathers but roughly intact. Their bellies bulge with magic. . . waddling calmly away.” The Night Islanders return to their isle.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None

Language  

  • A man calls Shadow a “good-for-nothing.” 
  • When learning that the fox and Bee don’t swim, a man yells, “Fish sticks almighty.” “Fish sticks” is used as an exclamation four times. 
  • Bee uses “jeez” as an exclamation twice.  
  • Shadow uses magic, causing a dining room table, table settings, and hundreds of fish to appear suddenly. Nan exclaims, “Oh, holy herring in cream sauce.” 
  • When a Night Islander wakes up to the smell of fox urine, he yells, “What the—.” 

Supernatural 

  • Magic is prevalent throughout the book, so not every instance is listed below. Some people have magic that allows them to summon things. Shadow can “change smoke into tiny foxes and summon cans of pudding. Not so intimidating. Unless, I suppose, you’re afraid of pudding. Or aluminum.” 
  • Some people are cultivators. “We make things grow. Or shrink them. Some can even take an object and reshape it into something else. . . Like pudding cans into teaspoons.” 
  • Bee reads a book of predictions written by a woman who “had a knack for predicting the future, but she didn’t get it right all the time.” There are several general predictions. One says that Beatrice Shadowen from Minnesota, US, “will be chosen by nature to save the island from the magical extinction.” 
  • Nan explains where magic comes from. She says, “The magic comes from nature: the trees, the rivers, the soil. Think of it like oxygen. We breathe in magic, then breathe it out—intentionally—to make something happen.” 
  • Magic allows Bee and Shadow to hear each other’s thoughts and allows Shadow to understand human speech. Bee tells Shadow, “It’s not like I asked for this power. . . You got most of the magic, but—somehow—I got the power to understand you.” It also allows Shadow to read human books. 
  • After the groundkeeper captures Shadow, the fox becomes warm. “My belly prickles with the heat.” The fox becomes so hot that the “groundkeeper shrieks, his hand unclenching. . .” Somehow, Shadow had turned the groundkeeper’s gloves into pumpkin soup. Afterwards, “the groundkeeper is murmuring, examining his hands, which are slick with hot orange goop.” Both Shadow and the groundkeeper are confused about how the gloves changed.  
  • Shadow has a habit of taking people’s shoes. While in the barn with the groundkeeper, “one of my shoes is hovering in the air. . . Then another one. A bright-blue flip-flop, suspended like a hummingbird.” The groundkeeper runs away before seeing the shoes “circling the air before stacking all around [Shadow], a tower on four sides. With a flip-flop roof!” 
  • A swarm of bed birds surrounds Shadow, making her skin tingle. “Tiny sprigs of fur are beginning to sprout. Midnight-black tufts grow and rush over the paw. On my belly, too, is a feeling. A feeling like lying in the sun.” When the birds leave, Shadow’s fur is full and healthy. 
  • When Shadow thinks of fish toast, it appears. “A slice of white bread, smothered in lake-trout paste. It just. . .appears, right by my paws. Without thinking, I shove the toast in my mouth. . .” 
  • Shadow helps a bird hatch, and the bird imprints on the fox. Later, Shadow discovers that the bird has magic. The bird can disappear and reappear somewhere else. The bird can also transport others.  
  • While practicing her magic, Shadow makes a spoon grow. The spoon gets so big that “soon, it’ll be punching a hole in the houseboat. . . The houseboat creaks again, this time from the pressure of the spoon. It’s bending, metal thrusting against the rafters. . .” With Nan’s help, Shadow shrinks the spoon to its normal size. 
  • To help fight the Night Islanders, Shadow conjures dozens of foxes made of snow. Some are “spikier, with pine needles sticking from their snow like hackles.” To get to the Night Isle, the bird transports Shadow and the snow foxes.

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Wings of Starlight

Before Tinker Bell and her friends, there was Queen Clarion. Clarion, the soon-to-be queen, is preparing with her mentor, Queen Elvina, and the rest of the Warm Season fairies prepare for her coronation. Clarion tries her best, but feels unsure about her ability to govern, which is made worse by her lack of control over her magic. Matters become worse when a dark threat, called Nightmares, escapes from their ancient prison in the Winter Woods and wreaks havoc across Pixie Hollow. 

Reports of a monster crossing from Winter into Spring make their way to the palace. Clarion is determined to prove her worth by defeating the monster. But instead of finding a monster at the edge of Winter, she finds Milori, the young guardian of the Winter Woods. The two of them recognize each other as kindred spirits, and a romance blossoms. They decide to work together to figure out how to defeat the Nightmares, which directly defies Elvina’s orders. However, only in disobeying does Clarion discover her own abilities, as well as a way to end the reign of the Nightmares and unite Pixie Hollow.  

Readers will be enchanted with Princess Clarion, who struggles with confidence but has a compassionate heart and an earnest desire to help. Queen Elvina would have Clarion be an objective and aloof ruler, but Clarion has a warmth that drives her to connect with her fellow fairies. Readers will relate to Clarion’s fight to forge her own path forward. Clarion tries to mold herself into the ruler Elvina wants her to be. However, following Elvina’s block of Clarion’s governing magic. Once she starts to follow her heart, she finds the strength and magic within her to lead Pixie Hollow and fight the Nightmares. Clarion’s all-encompassing love and wish to do right by all those who believe in her make her an endearing hero and the perfect lead for this tale of love and “hope, even on the darkest and coldest of nights.” 

While at times lonely due to her position, Clarion is still surrounded by love in the form of her friends and Milori. Petra the Tinker fairy is a brilliant inventor and worrywart who acts as a voice of reason but eventually clashes with Clarion over her dangerous adventures with Milori. Artemis, loyal to a fault, became Clarion’s bodyguard after she defied orders to save a friend. Milori, solemn but sweet, gives Clarion the push to believe in herself after showing his own unwavering belief in her abilities and heart. Each of these characters is unique and adds dimension to Clarion’s journey of self-growth, because even though she has to find her own way, Clarion is by no means alone. 

Wings of Starlight is a perfectly paced book that balances terrifying threats with the quieter moments of Clarion and Milori’s romance. Saft creates captivating characters, whose flaws only make them more relatable. Clarion and Milori’s fight to end the terror of the Nightmares is not just a fight to save the fairies but to ensure a new future for Pixie Hollow. Winter Fairies have become effectively separate from Pixie Hollow over the centuries and are highly mistrusted. Queen Elvina even tries to sever them from the rest of the Warm Seasons. However, Clarion and Milori are able to stop her and the Nightmares, thus “welcom[ing] in a new era of a unified Pixie Hollow.”  

The conclusion is slightly melancholic because while the Warm Season and Winter Fairies are now unified, Clarion and Milori recognize that it is too hard to watch over Pixie Hollow and the Winter Woods if they stay together. This comes as a result of Milori sacrificing one of his wings and his ability to fly in order to save Clarion. Even so, Clarion, Milori, and Pixie Hollow are still able to move forward into a brighter future. Clarion’s story is one of courage, belief, love, and sacrifice, through which she learns to follow her heart, even when things are dire. Wings of Starlight teaches that when all is not as it seems, the best course of action is always to trust yourself, trust in your “talents,” and in the love of those around you. 

Sexual Content  

  • Clarion first meets Milori at the border of Spring and Winter. When Clarion hears his voice, “It made a shiver pass through her, one that had nothing to do with the cold.” 
  • Clarion and Milori meet up again. “They sat almost knee to knee in the darkness, close enough to touch. The very thought prickled along her skin like electricity. . . Somehow, this felt far more vulnerable. Especially when he was looking at her like this. Clarion could not name what exactly she saw there, but it made a terrible longing rise up within her.” 
  • As time progresses, Clarion and Milori both start to realize their feelings for each other. “There was no mistaking the wide-open yearning in his eyes…She wondered exactly how long he had wanted to kiss her. . . His hand came to cradle the side of her neck, and although his touch chilled her skin, warmth flooded her. Clarion leaned fully into Winter and kissed him.” 
  • After their first kiss, Clarion has a fight with Elvina and then comes back to the border to see Milori. He tells her that he hasn’t slept well, and Clarion realizes it’s because of their kiss and how quickly she left afterwards. “The sense memory of their kiss awakened, skipping across her skin in heated trails and stoking her glow to a rose-colored blaze.” 
  • Clarion and Milori are very close together as he invites her to a ball the Winter Fairies will be holding in her honor. While they are close, Clarion thinks, “It would be a simple thing, to rise onto her toes and kiss him as she had the other night, to thread her fingers into his snow-white hair.” 
  • After the Winter Ball, Milori takes Clarion back to the border but they both are reluctant to part because of the finality of the moment. “Then, his lips parted beneath hers, and Clarion felt herself catch flame.” 
  • However, because a Winter Fairy’s wings cannot tolerate the heat of the warm seasons and Warm Season Fairy’s wings would freeze in winter, Clarion and Milori must remain apart, but that does not stop their love. “They crashed together, and his mouth was on hers with a desperation that left her breathless. She met him with equal fervor. Her world narrowed to this: His hair, slipping through her fingers like water, His hands, skimming down the ridge of her spine and spanning the curve of her waist.” 
  • Artemis comes to visit Petra in the hospital after the Nightmares’ magic is broken and Petra wakes from her slumber. “The scout placed a kiss on her forehead, then, more tentatively, to her lips.” Artemis also tells Petra to never “scare [him] like that again.” 
  • Clarion and Milori give each other one final goodbye kiss as they face their new futures forever apart. Clarion “took his face in her hands and kissed him—briefly, selfishly, if only to commit him entirely to memory. The feeling of his lips, soft against her own. The way his breath hitched, no matter how many times they had done this.” 

Violence  

  • Throughout the book, Nightmares attack the fairies at various times and send some into deep slumbers where they face their own nightmares. Clarion’s close advisor, Rowan, the Minister of Autumn, is attacked by the Nightmares, and it is trapped in a magical slumber: “[Clarion] scrabbled to her feet and flew to him. He did not stir at her approach, but his chest rose and fell. Alive. Clarion nearly wept with relief. She knelt at his side and shook him. His expression contorted—not with pain, exactly, but…fear? His eyes flickered behind their closed lids. It almost looked as though he was having a nightmare.” All the fairies affected by the Nightmares stay asleep until Clarion defeats the Queen of the Nightmares, and the spell is broken, with all the fairies unharmed. 
  • Artemis, Clarion’s friend and bodyguard, tries to protect fairies from the Nightmares. Artemis “loosed her arrow. It soared through the air and into the beast’s open mouth. Although it skewered the back of its head, the serpent did not even flinch.” This fight lasts six pages and ends when the Nightmare serpent disappears into the forest. The fight is not without casualties as many fairies are under the Nightmares’ magic, like the Minister of Autumn, Rowan.  
  • When investigating the Nightmares, Clarion and Milori are attacked, and Clarion is injured. “A bright pain seared through her, but the Nightmare’s talons drove into the spot where she’d been lying.” 
  • The main attack occurs during the Winter Fairies’ ball for Clarion’s coronation, and many people are injured fighting the Nightmares, like Artemis and Petra. Clarion gets up after dodging something just in time to see her friends get injured: “she scrambled to her feet—just in time to see the beast sink its teeth deep into Artemis’s shin. Artemis screamed in agony. It shook its head viciously, thrashing her; Artemis’s body snapped back and forth like a rag doll…As Petra struggled to nock another arrow into the bow, the Nightmare swiped at her. She went soaring, then slammed into the trunk of a tree. A sickening crack split the silence…Petra lay very still, her red hair splayed out in the snow like a bloodstain.” This fight lasts a full chapter.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When Clarion and Milori fight the Nightmares, Clarion is injured and goes to the healing fairies for help. One of the healers, Yarrow, gives Clarion “a poultice of juniper, usnea, and linseed wrapped in a leaf parcel” and “balsam and wintergreen [that] will help with healing and inflammation.” 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • Wings of Starlight is set in a supernatural world where fairies live in Pixie Hollow, have magical “talents,” and help the seasons “arrive” on the mainland. All fairies are born with an innate talent, and “they almost always intuitively knew what to call it.” There are light-talents, garden-talents, water-talents, animal-talents, tinker-talents, and many other types of talents. They work with their same talents and all the other talent groups to create the changing of the seasons on the Mainland where humans live. 
  • Their world is sustained by the Pixie Dust Tree, a source of pure magic that is sometimes sentient. “The Pixie Dust Tree had put out new growth over the last few days; in the language of flowers, it said, I am here for you. Clarion marveled at how attentive it was being lately.” 
  • Additionally, the Nightmares are children’s nightmares in corporeal form, that can shapeshift into any animal and have venom. For example, Milori and Clarion are attacked near the Nightmares’ prison and Clarion becomes injured. “The smokelike form of the Nightmare writhed and bubbled until it took recognizable form: a raven. One by one, ten violet eyes blinked open on its body.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

In this collection of short stories, four classic fairy tales are retold with a twist, and Bardugo includes two original stories. In the first story, Ayama and the Thorn Wood, Little Red Riding Hood is Ayama, a poor serving girl who goes to confront the terrible beast of the woods. Instead of killing him, she persuades him to stop destroying the kingdom’s crops, and in return, he grants her the power to depose the land’s evil king.   

In the story The Witch of Duva, Hansel and Gretel become Havel and Nadya. After Havel goes off to war, Nadya discovers that it is not a witch who is eating children, but her own father.  

Then, in The Soldier Prince, the Nutcracker comes to life. At first, he thinks it is because of Clara’s superficial, admiring love, but he realizes it is actually the fatherly love from the clockmaker who designed him that brought him to life.  

Finally, in When Water Sang Fire, readers meet Ulla, the witch from The Little Mermaid. Ulla is betrayed by her closest friend, Signy, who marries the prince, Roffe. Signy later becomes Ariel’s mother. Thus, Ulla holds a grudge against Ariel and her family forevermore. 

In the first original story, The Too-Clever Fox, a clever fox escapes from predators with his sharp tongue, but when words fail him, he must ask for help from his only friend, a songbird.  

Finally, in Little Knife, a beautiful woman named Yeva is auctioned off for marriage, and a suitor named Semyon pleads with the river in the village to help him marry Yeva. Yet when the wedding day comes, the river helps Yeva gain her freedom from unwanted matrimony. 

Every fairy tale is told in omniscient third person, and almost every main character is a strong young girl who must overcome incredible cruelty and hardship. When the main character is male, there is no shortage of well-rounded supporting female characters. Contrary to the original fairy tales, the main characters never simply slay monsters or find true love. Rather, they question the truth of what has been told to them and work to find meaningful companionship. Though the main characters’ personalities vary, it is easy to root for them and sympathize with their difficult lives. 

The supporting characters are full of surprises, which is part of what makes this collection so intriguing. Many of the characters readers expect to be good (the prince, the suitor, the father) are actually sinister, and vice versa for the “evil” characters (the witch, the beast, the evil stepmother). The supporting characters urge the reader to question the characters’ intentions and decide for themselves what is true. As the back cover reads, “Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.” 

The Language of Thorns collection of stories is incredibly entertaining, with twists that constantly surprise and delight readers, whether they are familiar with or unfamiliar from the classic fairy tales. While the tales can often be dark, the messages and themes they convey are hopeful, emphasizing the power of love and companionship. In fact, the contrast of dark and light themes has a powerful effect. The Language of Thorns is perfect for fairy tale, fantasy, or thriller lovers. 

Sexual Content  

  • In The Witch of Duva, there is an implication of pedophilia from Nadya’s father, Maxim, but it is performed on an illusory double of Nadya rather than Nadya herself. “But her father’s hand slipped beneath the hem of her skirts, and the ginger girl did not move . . . Maxim opened his wet mouth to kiss her again.” The sexual content is described over a page, but it is implied that Maxim regularly preyed upon young women. 
  • In The Soldier Prince, Clara kisses the Nutcracker after developing a crush on him. “She could not wait. Clara stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.”  
  • Clara kisses the Nutcracker again, believing him to be romantically interested in her. “He kissed her beneath the stairs.” 
  • Frederik kisses the Nutcracker after similarly developing a crush on him. The Nutcracker “kissed Frederik in the darkened hall.”  
  • In When Water Sang Fire, when Ulla, Signy, and Roffe go to the human world, Signy and Roffe have romantic interactions with many mortals. “Roffe took his pleasures [and] Signy suffered but drowned her longing in a tide of human lovers.” 

Violence  

  • In The Too-Clever Fox, Koja’s mother (a fox) eats a few of her young children. “So she snatched up two of her smallest young and made a quick meal of them.” 
  • Koja gets caught in a metal trap. “Koja ran all the way back to his den, trailing the bloody chain behind him.” 
  • Koja frequently kills and eats chickens. “He raced back from Tupolev’s farm with a hen’s plump body in his mouth. . .” 
  • Hunters Lev and Sofiya Jurek come to the woods and kill a bear that Koja was friends with. “Koja’s blood chilled at the sight of his fallen friend’s hide.” 
  • Sofiya stabs Koja and attempts to kill him. “‘Why?’ he gasped as Sofiya worked the knife deeper.” 
  • Lula, the songbird, attacks Sofiya to save Koja. “Lula came flying, and when she saw what Sofiya had done, she set upon pecking at her eyes.” 
  • In The Witch of Duva, Nadya’s fingers get cut off as ingredients for a spell. “At the sight of her fingers lying forlorn on the table, Nadya fainted.” 
  • Maxim eats a gingergirl who is an illusory double of Nadya. The gingergirl is not alive or conscious, but this implies that Maxim has been sexually assaulting and then killing and eating young girls. “Nadya watched her father consume the gingergirl, bite by bite, limb by limb.” 
  • Maxim dies when his stomach ruptures from the witch’s spell. “They found Nadya’s father there the next morning, his insides ruptured and stinking of rot.” 
  • In When Water Sang Fire, to walk on land, the mermaids cut off their tails. “Only then did Ulla add her own voice to the song and drive her blade into her tail.”  
  • Roffe murders a young boy with the help of Signy and Ulla in order to create fire that will exist under water. “Even above the sound of their voices, she heard a horrible wet thunk, and the boy cried out, woken from his sleep by the blade piercing his chest.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • Most animals talk throughout the book. “To her surprise, the runt answered, ‘Do not eat me, Mother. Better to be hungry now than sorry later.’”  
  • In Ayama and the Thorn Wood, Ayama turns into a monster. “Then she took off her hat, and all the people saw that she was a girl no longer.” 
  • In The Witch of Duva, there is a witch named Magda who can cast spells. She turns Nadya into a crow and creates a girl made of gingerbread who looks just like Nadya. When Maxim eats the gingergirl, he dies. “As for Nadya, she lived with Magda and learned all the old woman’s tricks, magic best not spoken of on a night like this.” 
  • In Little Knife, there is a river that is a sentient spirit named Little Knife. “‘You have been a loyal friend, and so I think I must name you,’ Semyon said to the river as he tried to wring the water from his ragged coat.” 
  • In The Soldier Prince, the Nutcracker is alive and can take children to a magical world via flight. “He would offer his hand and with a whoosh, they would fly through the attic window, out into the cold.” 
  • In When Water Sang Fire, Ulla, Signy, and Roffe are mermaids who can use magic by singing. Witches also exist. “It was the deepest magic, music of rending and healing, the only song all royalty were trained in from birth.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Legendborn

Sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews arrived at the University of North Carolina for Early College, still reeling from the death of her mother. On her first night, she sees a flying demon feeding on human energies. A boy dressed in all black, Selwyn Kane, defeats the creature.  

Later, Bree again witnesses events she can’t explain. Selwyn, who is a Merlin, attempts but fails to erase her memory. As she tries to figure out who is keeping secrets from her, Bree realizes that someone attempted to erase her memories the night her mother died. Bree wants answers for her mother’s death, and it seems like the mysterious society—the “Legendborn”—hidden on the edges of campus can provide them.  

Bree recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. With Nick’s help, Bree enters the Order of the Round Table and begins to find her answers.  

When Nick takes Bree as his page, she has to endure a series of trials while dealing with Selwyn’s suspicion of her, racism from the all-white order, and her own secrets about her magic. To complicate matters, the Legendborns reveal that they are descendants of the Knights of the Round Table, and that a magical war is coming. Bree must walk the line between both worlds while still trying to find out what happened to her mother.  

Told from Bree’s point of view, readers unravel the mythology as Bree does. Bree is grieving, yet stubborn, and her refusal to conform to the outdated regulations of the Legendborn society proves vital in her fight to figure out where she belongs. Despite the racism she faces from society, she remains endearingly confident, and readers will be rooting for her. However, Bree is single-minded in her quest to uncover the mystery of her mother’s death, often leading her to make selfish decisions or forget to consider how her actions affect her friends. Her lack of knowledge can make her vulnerable, but her strong-willed nature and adaptability lead to strong character development over the novel.  

As she tries to balance her secrets, Bree does eventually find support from her friends. Bree, Nick, and Selwyn each have compelling dynamics with each other. With each character having unique strengths and powers, they have to learn how to work together. Nick and Selwyn are bonded to one another, able to feel each other’s emotions, but they both resent the bond at times. Despite Selwyn’s suspicion of Bree, they do eventually work together as they uncover a much more sinister plot. Bree and Nick’s relationship provides Bree with an entry point to Nick’s society, but as it grows deeper, they are forced to choose between each other and their duty. Bree’s best friend, Alice, plays a vital role, as Alice becomes a symbol of normalcy while unwaveringly supporting her friend.  

Legendborn moves fast, working within a complex mythology that is revealed in bits and pieces as Bree jumps headfirst into a world she doesn’t understand. The supporting characters are all vital to the story, offering a rich web of relationships that keep the reader turning the pages. The Order of the Round Table represents white higher society, but Bree still has insight into her culture, allowing the author to paint a rich picture of what it is like to be a Black teenager who yearns to be a part of something while still remaining tied to her own culture. Legendborn deals delicately with themes of grief and loss, and the absent mothers of Bree, Selwyn, and Nick haunt their stories. With plenty of turns and a major twist at the end, this book introduces a beautiful world and will leave you reaching for the next book in the series, Bloodmarked. 

Sexual Content  

  • Bree and Nick are attracted to each other and eventually enter into a tentative romantic relationship. Bree says, “I feel desire batting against my ribs like a caged bird.”  
  • Nick and Bree hug and kiss throughout their relationship. “[Nick’s] hands are so large they span the whole of my spine. Heat from his palm radiates out from where he clutches me. . . I don’t expect each gentle brush of Nick’s lips to shift, grow insistent  – and set me on fire.” 
  • There are two instances where Nick and Bree are making out. “My heart pounding with his, the heat of his chest against mine, the strength of his thigh pressing into my own . . . his lips ghost over my jaw, just as his fingers feather over my sternum. . . His hands slide down to my thighs and I’m airborne, held up by the strength of his arms and the press of his hips.” They are interrupted before anything else happens. 
  • Nick and Bree plan to share a bed. Nick says, “When I get back, we can talk about whatever’s going on. Or not talk. . . The version of not talking that means we’re doing other things?” 
  • Nick sees Bree naked when he walks in on her getting medical treatment. “Nick’s face has gone summer-strawberry red. He definitely saw my butt. And my back. And my bra straps. And maybe some side boob.” 
  • As an insult, people imply that Bree is in a relationship with Nick due to ulterior motives. Vaughn, another page, says, “Then why are you spending time alone with the Scion of Arthur? Getting a pep talk? Giving him a helping hand?” 
  • Two types of demons are discussed: succubi and incubi. They are referred to as “sex demons.”  
  • Relationships between two Scions, or descendants of knights, are forbidden because getting pregnant would mix the ancestral lines. William, a medic, explains, “Order law forbids crossing the bloodlines, so no hanky-panky between anyone who could become a Scion or whose kids could become a Scion in the line of succession.”

Violence  

  • Before the book starts, Bree’s mother is killed in a car crash when “she was crushed inside our family sedan, body half-crumpled under the dashboard after a hit-and-run.” 
  • Bree attends a party on the outskirts of campus where football players get into a fight. “Four drunken, enormous boys are rolling and swinging in a pile on the ground . . . The third is on his feet, rearing back for a kick to the fourth boy’s stomach.” Some of the boys are mildly hurt (punches, kicks), but they are all able to walk away. 
  • The Legendborn use weapons like swords, staffs, knives, and bows to fight the Shadowborn, which usually take the form of animals, but can occasionally be humanoid. It is their duty to fight the Shadowborn, who prey on human emotions. When a demon shows up at the party, Tor, a Legendborn, kills it with an arrow. “Tor’s arrow has pierced the shimmering mass . . . A thud—and it’s writhing on the ground.” When a Shadowborn attacks Bree, Nick kills it with a sword. “Nick’s sword is buried a foot deep into the downed creature’s spine.” 
  • A demon attacks Bree. “Razor-sharp nails drag a burning path down [Bree’s] cheek, slicing [her] skin open.” Nick and his father fight back against the demon. “Nick’s father scrabbles at the demon’s grip with both hands, wheezing for breath, eyes bulging. . . Nick’s father hits a tree with a stomach-churning crunch and falls to the stone surface in a loose pile of limbs.” Nick’s skull is cracked, and his father’s spine is broken, but their healing is accelerated by magic.  
  • When Selwyn is suspicious of Bree, he threatens her with violence. “I’ll kill you. Burn through you until your blood becomes dust.” 
  • To complete one of the trials, Bree has to kill Selwyn’s projections of Shadowborn. She stabs the demon projection by diving from a tree. “Gravity drives the sharp blade into the creature’s shining neck, not me, but the blow works just the same.”  
  • As a child, Nick’s father trained him to fight by having adults beat him. Nick says, “It’s not the broken bones or the bruises, the black eyes of the concussions, that keep me up at night.” 
  • Bree punches through a hellfox and her “fist and forearm have disappeared up to the elbow inside the fox’s chest . . . I nod and close my right hand, crying out as my fingernails scrape past the still-warm heart.” 
  • Selwyn and one of the trainers, Owen, spar. “Finally, one sharp crack to the head sends Owen to a knee.”  
  • Bree and Vaughn fight in one of the trials. “The flat of my blade smacks [Vaughn’s] fingers hard, breaking his grip. . . Vaughn’s blade swings down in my peripheral vision. I hear the deep crack in my collarbone before I feel it.” 
  • Tor, one of the Legendborn, is attacked by Shadowborn. Tor’s injuries are described: “Broken ribs, internal bleeding. Punctured left lung. Spleen and left kidney sliced right down the middle.” 
  • Demons attack two Legendborns, Fitz and Whitty. “Fitz’s limbs, loose and limp, hang from his hips and shoulders, but his chest is gone. It’s gone. In its place is a shining red point of rock protruding up from his body like a spear.” Whitty is killed in front of Bree. “[Whitty’s] eyes are wide, black. His chest angles up. Toes drag on the ground, like he’s being lifted—By the hand buried in his back. . . I see my friend’s unseeing eyes. The wrong angle of his shoulder. Blood on his favorite camo jacket. His jaw open to the dirt.” The demon also kills Russ, another Legendborn. “He has Russ by the throat. He lifts him high—and pitches him like a fastball straight into a stone wall.” Multiple Legendborn are killed. 
  • Bree stabs a demon, Rhaz, with a sword. “I spear Rhaz through his broken ribs . . . I watch him writhe and twist on his own death.” 
  • When Bree is taken into the memories of her ancestors, she witnesses the violence of slavery. She describes a slaveowner getting her ancestor pregnant: “What that man did was not an accident. He knew exactly what he was doing. He liked owning her life. Her body.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • At a party, students, both underage and adults, are drinking, but Bree does not. “Two guys struggle to lift the kegs…while a small crowd beside them tries to help ‘lighten’ the barrels by drinking straight from the hose.” 
  • After a demon injures Bree, she is taken to the Lodge of the Order to be healed. Selwyn tries to erase her memory. Alice tells Bree, “Some blond guy brought you back here, stumbling and slurring. He said you’d partied too hard in Little Frat Court . . . Isn’t that exactly what a blackout drunk would say the next day?” 
  • Bree goes out with members of the Order, uses a fake ID, and drinks. “I almost refuse, but then I think of the conversation I need to have with Nick, and suddenly alcohol sounds like a good idea.” 
  • When Selwyn uses a lot of magic, the other characters say that he is “aether-drunk”, and he becomes looser and less in control of himself.  

Language  

  • Profanity is used sparingly. Profanity includes damn, shit, bullshit, asshole, and fuck. 
  • People occasionally say derogatory comments about Bree. For example, someone says, “Her blood is dirty. She’ll taint the line.” No slurs are used. 

Supernatural  

  • The mythology of the book revolves around magic, referred to as both aether and root. “There is an invisible energy all around us . . . Some of those people call it magic, some call it aether, some call it spirit, and we call it root. . . the living must borrow, bargain for, or steal the ability to access and use this energy.” 
  • The Scions gain the powers of their ancestors when they are “called to power — violently — by their knights’ spirits.” 
  • Bree can summon mage fire. “Bloodred fire ignites at the tips of my fingers and races to my elbows in a loud whoosh.” 
  • Demons enter the world through Gates. “No one knows when a Gate will appear . . . Most of the Shadowborn that cross are invisible and incorporeal. They come to our side and amplify negative human energy—chaos, fear, anger.” 
  • Merlins have the ability to control aether, supernatural strength and speed, and erase their memories. “Still holding my gaze, [Selwyn ] makes a quick, jerking motion with his chin, and a vicious snap of invisible electricity wraps around my body like a rope and yanks me backward . . . the rope sensation responds, tight pain in my body blossoming into a single utterance: Leave.” 
  • Bree’s grandmother and other ancestors possess her, talking to her through her mind. Bree says, “It’s a strange sensation, having a whole other person inside your skin.” 

Spiritual Content  

  • In a memory, a slave has just given birth to a crossroads baby. Her friend refers to the baby as a “red-eyed devil.” Crossroad babies are Merlins, people with demon-blood. 
  • Bree is given her mother’s Bible. Bree says, “It feels like I’m touching something intimate and private, and I am. Personal Bibles, even though I’ve never owned one, always seem mystical.” 
  • Bree’s grandmother prays in Bree’s mind: “The Lord is my shepherd.” 

Rick Kotani’s 400 Million Dollar Summer

Rick Kotani is looking forward to spending the entire summer playing baseball. Sure, his team never wins, but he’s been practicing a special pitch he knows is going to land him a 400-million-dollar major-league contract . . . someday. That all changes when his mother throws a curveball of her own: Instead of playing ball in California, Rick will be heading to Oregon to help keep an eye on Grandpa Hiroshi while they move him to a retirement home. Trading no-hitters to be a babysitter? Rick is beyond bummed. 

But once there, Rick discovers Grandpa is actually pretty cool, and the two bond over a Japanese folktale about a fisherman, Urashima Taro, who trades his life on earth for the riches of an underwater kingdom. And like the fisherman, Rick soon forgets about his team back home when he joins a supercompetitive local league that only cares about being the best—at any cost.  

As the team racks up the wins and Grandpa makes his final move, Rick must decide which ending he wants for his story: Will he fall in line with his ruthless teammates and their victory-obsessed coach in his own “underwater kingdom,” or will family, true friendship, and integrity lead him back to shore? 

When Rick meets Toni, a girl his age who loves baseball, he is excited for the opportunity to play ball. However, the coach and players don’t care about having fun, they just want to win. The baseball coach is truly despicable because he belittles the players and doesn’t follow the rules. Even though it’s against the rules, the coach allows Rick to play, which requires Rick to lie so he can take the place of another player. Rick explains, “Technically, I wasn’t allowed to be part of the team since I lived outside the area and the team roster had already been finalized.” To make matters worse, the coach encourages Rick to throw a curveball, eventually leading to an injury. In the end, Rick acknowledges that he will never play for the MLB. While the realization is heartbreaking, the story ends on a hopeful note, hinting that Rick could continue to love baseball and shift his focus to being a referee.  

Rick’s relationship with his teammates is superficial, and his only true friend is Toni. However, Toni’s role is confusing. Plus, her parents’ sole focus is on her brother, and the coach wouldn’t allow her to play on the team because she is a girl. Toni’s situation is reminiscent of older times when gender roles were more rigid. This dynamic makes Rick’s relationship with Toni feel one-sided. Despite this, Toni plays an important role and demonstrates the qualities of a good friend. In the end, Toni reminds Rick, “You can’t change what happened. But what happens next is up to you.” 

Rick Kotani’s 400 Million Dollar Summer revolves around baseball and is interspersed with Rick’s family life and Japanese folklore. The combination allows the story to have a fast pace as it weaves between topics and explores the difficulty of divorce and dealing with an aging relative. The realistic conflicts will draw readers into the story as well as teach them the importance of sharing your feelings with others because “If you keep it in, it will eat you up.” Rick Kotani’s 400 Million Dollar Summer will entertain middle school readers who dream of playing for the MLB and remind them that winning isn’t the most important thing in baseball or in life.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language  

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes crap, dang, darn, fricking, heck, and hell. 
  • The word ass is implied but is spelled “a$$”. 
  • After throwing rocks at turtles, a boy says, “What about this bonehead tortoise?” 
  • There is some name-calling, including jerk and dingbat. 
  • “Good god” is used as an exclamation. 
  • While talking to a boy, the coach uses the word “goddamn.” 

Supernatural 

  • In the tale of Urashima Taro, magic is used several times. For example, when Urashima opened a box, “a plume of smoke wafted out, followed by a cloud that billowed around him.” After opening the box, Urashima turns into an old man. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 
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