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In this final installment of Kelley Armstrong’s the Age of Legends trilogy, Forest of Ruin features twin sisters Moria and Ashyn as they face complications, conflicts, and epic decisions with the potential to save or imperil the empire. This book picks up the trilogy plot after Shadow Stalkers have massacred the village that Moria and Ashyn called home.   As a result, Moria’s sister and the children of her village are missing, her father has been murdered, her emperor is handing her over as a traitor, and two of her friends may not be the people she thought.  The thoughtful and subdued Gavril Kitsune and theRead More →

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Tessa Lowell was eight years old when she reported seeing Lori Cawley’s murderer, evidence that helped put Wyatt Stokes in prison as the Ohio River Monster, a serial killer whose victims are young women from whom the monster not only steals life but a piece of jewelry as a trophy. Ten years later, Tessa returns to Fayette, Pennsylvania, from Florida—where she has been living with her grandmother—to visit her dying father in prison.  While in Fayette, another girl is abducted and murdered.  With the death of Ariel Kouchinsky, ugly childhood memories flame to life, and guilt and doubt again haunt Tessa.  Traumatized by her past,Read More →

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Defender is Edgar Award-winning author Graham McNamee’s latest book, so it features a mystery plot, but McNamee also performs some genre-blending to create a sports story with some psychological thriller elements, as well. With its focus on the ugly effects of anger and on hiding family secrets, Defender frequently reminded me of Hidden Roots by Joseph Bruchac.  Although Bruchac’s book doesn’t carry the sports angle and McNamee’s doesn’t develop the theme of awareness of ancestral heritage as a key in shaping identity, both novels feature protagonists who learn that life doesn’t work well when lived in hiding and that “never tell” is not a healthy familyRead More →

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In real life (IRL), Scarlett Epstein attends Melville High; she’s sixteen years old and the product of a home broken by divorce.  To escape the mundane fakery she encounters in school—where everyone’s life seems defined by relationship drama, financial status, and popularity—she writes fan fiction based on the Lycanthrope High series created by John St. Clair and posts it online.  In writing group fashion, her online forum of friends share their alternate plots and embellished characters and give one another feedback.  But when the show is cancelled, Scarlett feels adrift and without a purpose.  Writing makes Scarlett feel like a real person; it allows herRead More →

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In the spirit of good science fiction, Bluescreen by Dan Wells explores not only where over-extended technology might lead but also how easily technology can slips its leash and turn dangerous or destructive.  Not since reading Feed by M.T. Anderson have I experienced such a thought-provoking and chilling indictment that may encourage other readers to examine how technology—in careless or greedy hands—facilitates insidious manipulation, exploitation, and control of the individual. Set in 2050 in Mirador, a suburb of Los Angeles, Bluescreen features Anja Litz, Sahara Cowan, and Marisa Carneseca.  These three seventeen-year-olds—along with Fang and Jaya—are members of the Cherry Dogs, players in an online virtualRead More →

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Fueled by fury and fixated on revenge against the recklessness of humanity, the Queen of Blood and Rage—the Unseelie ruler of the fae courts—desires redemption for her lost daughter and for the toxic environment humans have created.  Hoping to destroy humanity from within, she creates a Sleeper cell of half fae, half human beings, and with intense pressure, converts them into weapons.  She calls these jewels in her arsenal the Seven Black Diamonds.  Several of the seven willingly and loyally serve her, but a few resist. Lily Abernathy, the daughter of Iana and Nicolas Abernathy, is one of the resistant ones.   Born into aRead More →

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Staying determined, disciplined, and driven, Harper Scott and her best friend, Kate Grey have been working since before preschool on their goal—to dance with the San Francisco Ballet Company. Thinking that motivation, sacrifices, dedication, passion, and effort will ensure success, Harper doesn’t believe in luck.  Full of love and hard work, she is chasing fulfillment. Because Harper is also a descendant of Robert Falcon Scott, the Englishman who is best known for his legendary and fatal attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, she has adopted a motto: “Succeed, or die in the attempt” (13).  With Scott in her blood, Roald AmundsenRead More →

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I recall growing up and jumping rope to the rhyme:  “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks.  When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”  I never questioned the veracity of the rhyme, and after reading the narrative nonfiction account, The Borden Murders by Sarah Miller, I am intrigued anew by the susceptibility of public opinion to be shaped by sensationalized media messages and swayed by rumors. While Miller’s book serves mostly to recount a series of suppositions and scandal-mongering newspaper accounts of the unsolved mystery of Abby Borden and Andrew Jackson Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts, onRead More →

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We humans are all broken, broken by life’s trials and tribulations, undone by love, fragmented by bullies who shoot holes in our confidence, or traumatized by loss—whether a consequence of death, divorce, or some other life-altering trauma.  These truths unfold  from the beginning line—“Life is bullshit”—of We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, a novel that explores both the absurdity of and the grand scheme of the cosmos and of human existence. Ever since he was 13 years old, Henry Jerome Denton has been abducted by aliens, whom he calls sluggers.  The abductions always begin with shadows and end with his being deposited—often naked—far fromRead More →