Better suited for fans of romance than fantasy enthusiasts, this concluding story will also satisfy those looking for...
The royal intrigue and twin bonding of The Princess in the Opal Mask (2013) continue in this sequel.
Ample back story from the start refreshes readers on the ongoing dilemmas from the first novel. The separated-at-birth twins carry on their secret, switched lives in the foreign land of Kyrenica and narrate alternating chapters. Wilha, once the Masked Princess of Galandria, serves as a seamstress while Elara, raised as an orphan, has assumed Wilha’s role (even possibly falling for the prince that Wilha was intended to marry). When the teens’ father, King Fennrick, dies and their younger brother, Andrei, not only assumes a position as Galandria’s next king, but quickly becomes a coldhearted ruler, the twins’ secret is made public. What ensues is an overcomplicated plot featuring opposing factions trying to control each of the three possible heirs and usurp their power. The story remains light, however, even as family secrets are revealed, the twins acknowledge their feelings for unlikely suitors, and the siblings grapple with the challenges of repairing their relationships with one another and the question of who will lead Galandria.
Better suited for fans of romance than fantasy enthusiasts, this concluding story will also satisfy those looking for “clean” reads. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7624-5422-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Running Press Teens
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama
An illegitimate girl who hopes to find her creative passion may be connected to another kingdom’s magical history.
At 10, white, orphaned Brienna was brought to Magnalia House. For the last seven years she’s studied to become an arden, an apprentice passion, with the goal of finding her patron. The arden-sisters study art, dramatics, music, wit, and knowledge; Brienna, who has no true vocation, has eccentrically studied in all the fields. Though she doesn’t truly belong among the talented (and somewhat racially diverse) noble girls of Magnalia House, they are her beloved friends. Perhaps once she’s passioned, she can even act on her romantic feelings for the white knowledge master. But Brienna’s having strange visions lately; could they be ancestral memories of an unknown forbear from the neighboring country? What with romance, jealousy, family drama, betrayals, ancient magical history, and characters with multiple secret identities, there’s a nigh-constant pitch of throbbing…well, passion. A voice is like “tamed thunder,” and hair is like “a stream of silver.” Malapropisms abound (“punctures of laughter”; “her beauty warbled by the mullioned windows”). Oddly, most of the shocking revelations of back story are openly detailed in the lengthy family trees at the novel’s opening.
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-247134-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Faintly feminist soft science fiction for preteens and teens.
Once again, spunky teen-midwife Gaia takes down a dystopia.
After fleeing from the Enclave, Gaia finds the utopia to which her grandmother once fled (Birthmarked, 2010). Like an inverse of the Enclave, Sylum offers equality and fairness in spades, but once Gaia digs deeper she finds it’s another dystopia, this time controlled by women (namely the charismatic, blind Matrarc). But something in the air kills anyone who leaves, so Gaia must stay. Immediately she finds herself in the middle of a power struggle, as she questions the status quo, befriends the women who opt out of the "marriage and ten children" regulations that protect the population, argues that men (the majority population) deserve a vote too, performs secret autopsies and unravels the mystery of why those who leave die. Whew! Plus, she juggles a love quadrangle with two brothers from Sylum and Luke, who has fled his powerful father back at the Enclave to follow Gaia across the wasteland. A satisfying repeat of the same heavy themes as the first volume (women’s rights over their own bodies; an individual’s rights versus the power of the community and government; the way in which the masses are drugged—now literally—into quiescent submission) is here leavened with new settings and more kissing.
Faintly feminist soft science fiction for preteens and teens. (Dystopia. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-570-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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