TRUE

From the Elixir series , Vol. 3

Danger romance at its most digestible, ready to be gobbled and forgotten.

If someone’s your true love, just stay devoted while he slams you into the wall and crushes your best friend’s hands until she passes out.

Clea and Sage are soul mates forever’n’ever—literally: They reincarnate as lovers lifetime after lifetime. When Sage’s body recently died, his soul leaped into the newly dead body of friend Nico and reanimated it. However, bodies can reject a new soul just as in organ transplantation (!), and Sage-in-Nico’s-body descends into “[m]adness and violence.” Is part of Nico’s soul still there, restless? Clea, Ben and Rayna travel to a charlatan’s clinic that might nonetheless hold information about “soul rejection.” Sage is portrayed as a tragic hero; Clea and Duff define love as unquestioningly sitting bedside with one’s lover even if he might awaken and kill you. Differing from the series opener (Elixir, 2010), this prose is plainspoken, with contemporary references (“a body that makes Ryan Gosling look like pre-diet Jonah Hill”) and vernacular (“so gross I can’t even deal”), but the very metaphysics are purple. Obviously it’s Sage’s soul operating Nico’s body because “[t]he eyes really are the windows to the soul,” and this live boy has brown eyes (like Sage, unlike Nico). Can a New-Age crystal ceremony permanently break the pattern of Ben’s betrayal and Clea’s bloody murder?

Danger romance at its most digestible, ready to be gobbled and forgotten. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)

Pub Date: April 16, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4424-0857-9

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013

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A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER

From the Good Girl's Guide to Murder series , Vol. 1

A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.

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Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.

Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.

A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

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SIX OF CROWS

Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...

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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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