BLUE FIRE

Continuing where The Shifter (2009) ended, book two of The Healing Wars series finds 15-year-old Nya, her sister Tali and other Takers hiding in Geveg from the invading Duke of Baseer, who plans to use them in his mysterious pain experiments. Takers heal by transferring human pain into "pynvium," but Nya shifts pain from one person to another, enabling her to use pain as a weapon. While fleeing Geveg, Nya's kidnapped by bounty hunters and transported to Baseer, where she escapes, allies with Baseeri underground fighters and discovers their leader is her uncle, making her half Baseeri. Deperate to find Tali and protect the Takers, Nya orchestrates a hair-raising plot to demolish the Duke's pain experiments. Flashing and pushing pain into her foes, determined and seemingly fearless Nya catapults through the pages like a super-charged action figure, but her first-person narration reveals inner conflict when forced to use her healing powers to injure and kill. Again, Nya confronts impossible moral choices as she fights to find her beloved sister. Relentless, gripping adventure. (Fantasy. 10 & up)