REQUIEM

Fraught with high-stakes action and gripping emotion, the final chapters of Lena Haloway’s journey will have readers breathlessly turning the pages.

But it is not Lena’s story alone this time around. Her story alternates with that of Hana, Lena’s “cured” best friend, lending depth and intrigue to the novel through the latter’s firsthand account of life in a world vaccinated against the destructive powers of love. Hana struggles to come to terms with both her role in Lena’s disappearance and her own upcoming marriage to a powerful and increasingly frightening young man. Having fled to the Wilds with a band of resistance fighters that includes the only two men she’s ever loved, Lena is faced with struggles of her own. Now that the government can no longer deny the existence of the Invalids, revolution is inevitable, and Lena must reconcile her passion for the rebel cause with her deeply conflicted heart if she hopes to survive. A soldier, a lover, a cousin and a friend, Lena is a rich and achingly human heroine whose strength and vulnerability will earn her a permanent place in readers’ hearts. Before starting, readers should turn off their cellphones and wipe their schedules clean, because once they open the book, they won’t be able to stop.

A dystopian tour de force.  (Dystopian romance. 14 & up)