PENDRAGON'S HEIR

In this modern riff on King Arthur, Arthur is basically Iron Man—a rich, immature (but inherently good) superhero flying around in a metal suit.

After finding herself caught in the crossfire after a strange series of visions, teenage Elaine is whisked from her ordinary, humdrum suburban family life to Keep Tower, an 85-story Manhattan skyscraper owned by Arthur Keep, aka superhero Pendragon. In this slightly alternate reality, superheroes are common, but Arthur and his tech genius wife, Ginny, are still big names; it turns out Arthur has a secret connection to Elaine and is the subject of many of her visions. What follows is in many ways an homage to superhero and ’80s movies: There’s a training montage, absurd but fun technology (particularly the flying robot knights), villainy, a possibly wicked international agency, and of course the requisite romance with a perfect hottie—who works for the dubious agency. The introspection is usually exposition, and the King Arthur references are mostly window dressing, but superheroics plus teen drama are beloved by plenty of readers; as a bonus, this is the first in a forthcoming series. Physical descriptions are vague, allowing readers to project their own imaginations onto characters’ appearances.

Derivative, good-natured fun.