by Elizabeth Wein ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2017
Another ripping yarn from a brilliant author.
Wein’s fans will revel in the return of Julie Beaufort-Stuart, the co-narrator of Code Name Verity (2012).
Billed as a prequel to that Printz Honor book, this is no mere back story to Julie’s role in World War II but a stand-alone mystery. The 15-year-old white minor noble returns from boarding school in the summer of 1938 to the Scottish country estate of her late grandfather, the Earl of Strathfearn. Her luggage lost, Julie dons “a mothy tennis pullover which left my arms daringly bare and a kilt that must have been forgotten some time ago by one of my big brothers….I was David Balfour from Kidnapped again, the way I’d been the whole summer I was thirteen.” After a blow to the head leaves her unconscious, Julie becomes tangled up in a web of events that includes a missing antiquities scholar, a body found in a river, and the theft of the family’s heirloom river pearls, all seemingly connected to a band of Travellers with ancestral ties to Strathfearn reaching back as far as Julie’s. Well-developed characters highlight the class differences that Julie chafes against while struggling with her family’s place in a changing world. Her plainspoken, charming narrative voice establishes her own place with the same strength of character, on a smaller scale, that she showed in Code Name Verity.
Another ripping yarn from a brilliant author. (Historical fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1716-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024
A boarding school mystery that tackles fresh topics but struggles to knit together multiple complex narratives.
A mystery upends a London girl’s attempts to heal her grief-stricken life.
Recently orphaned Sade Hussein, a wealthy Nigerian British Muslim 16-year-old, was home-schooled before she entered the Alfred Nobel Academy, an international boarding school. There she meets Elizabeth Wang, her roommate and “house sibling,” a role describing those assigned to help new students acclimate. Sade soon becomes familiar with the school cliques, including the infamous—and beautiful—Unholy Trinity, comprising Persephone Stuart, Julliette de Silva, and queen bee April Owens (who used to room with Elizabeth). Sade’s new friendship with her roommate is abruptly interrupted when Elizabeth goes missing, and the Unholy Trinity approach Sade, curious about what might have happened. Meanwhile, Sade is investigating with Basil dos Santos, Elizabeth’s best friend, when a music box belonging to the missing girl mysteriously appears on Elizabeth’s bed. When attractive playboy athlete Jude Ripley shows an unwanted interest in Sade, one of her new friendships is negatively affected. Along with dealing with a missing roommate and complicated social dynamics, Sade, who struggles with panic attacks and night terrors, is haunted by a ghost girl, who visits her in regular nightmares and begs her for help. The very large cast, the uneven pacing and characterization, and the presence of several complicated storylines slow down the flow of this ambitious story. The characters are broadly diverse in ethnicity and nationality.
A boarding school mystery that tackles fresh topics but struggles to knit together multiple complex narratives. (content warning) (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781250800848
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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New York Times Bestseller
by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
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New York Times Bestseller
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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