STARCROSSED

An adolescent thief threads a treacherous labyrinth of politics and sorcery in this fine series opener. Digger knows the rules—Stay Alive, Don't Get Caught, Don't Get Involved—but they're tricky to follow when a job gone sour lands her with a dead partner, brutal Greenmen on her trail and a cushy hideout as an aristocratic lady's maid. Blackmailed into spying on her kindly employers, she's soon juggling a dizzying tangle of plots, betrayals and lies, desperate to preserve the most dangerous secret of all...her own. The narrative plunges immediately into action with a daunting barrage of arcane names, places and concepts, but determined readers are rewarded with an enthralling yarn of magical intrigue, all in Digger's irresistible voice—clever, cynical, cocky, with an undercurrent of aching loneliness. Given that everyone in one faction is warm, generous and wise and their opponents uniformly vicious, spiteful and cruel, it's not hard to guess which way Digger will jump; it's downright impossible not to follow wherever her quick tongue, nimble fingers and itchy feet will carry her next. (Fantasy. YA)