GILDED CAGE

• YA Series: Dark Gifts (Book 1)
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (February 14, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425284158
• ISBN-13: 978-0425284155
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STORY SUMMARY:

For readers of Victoria Aveyard and Kiera Cass comes a darkly fantastical debut set in a modern England where magically gifted aristocrats rule—and commoners are doomed to serve.

NOT ALL ARE FREE.

NOT ALL ARE EQUAL.

NOT ALL WILL BE SAVED.

Our world belongs to the Equals—aristocrats with magical gifts—and all commoners must serve them for ten years.

But behind the gates of England’s grandest estate lies a power that could break the world.

A girl thirsts for love and knowledge.

Abi is a servant to England’s most powerful family, but her spirit is free. So when she falls for one of their noble-born sons, Abi faces a terrible choice. Uncovering the family’s secrets might win her liberty—but will her heart pay the price?

A boy dreams of revolution.

Abi’s brother, Luke, is enslaved in a brutal factory town. Far from his family and cruelly oppressed, he makes friends whose ideals could cost him everything. Now Luke has discovered there may be a power even greater than magic: revolution.

And an aristocrat will remake the world with his dark gifts.

He is a shadow in the glittering world of the Equals, with mysterious powers no one else understands. But will he liberate—or destroy?

REVIEW:

A much-feted Wattpad success story, Vic James' page-turner gives us an alternative British class system based on those who have magical ability (the Skilled) and those who have none, who must spend ten years of their otherwise mundane lives slaving for the ruling class. 

The Hadley family decide to get their ten years over and done with together, but their plans are upset when the oldest son, Luke, is sent to the infamous slave town of Millmoor instead of the grandest house in Britain, belonging to the Jardine family.

With this physical split of the family, the narrative splits into two storylines that come back together when Luke rejoins his family at the Jardine's ancestral home for the last third of the book to find them caught up in the Jardine's political and familial power struggles. 

Luke, Abi, and Daisy Hadley are each in their own way bewitched by a member of the ruling class and as the first book in a projected trilogy ends on a cliffhanger it remains to be seen how those relationships will play out. In the meantime, in this first volume the world-building is intriguing and well-thought out, the details rich and visual, and the intrigue and brisk plotting pull you through the pages, gasping at the collateral damage of tertiary characters in this confident debut.

KNIGHTLEY & SON

• Age Range: 10 - 12 years
• Grade Level: 3 - 6
• Series: Knightley and Son
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens (March 4, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1619631539
• Source:  Local Library

STORY SUMMARY: 

"The once highly in-demand detective Alan Knightley has just woken up after an unexplained incident kept him asleep for four years. While he was out cold, his son, Darkus, took it upon himself to read of all his dad's old cases, and he's learned a lot about the art of detection. It's a good thing too—because suddenly the duo find themselves caught up in a crazy conspiracy that involves a group of villainous masterminds (who keep appearing and then vanishing), some high-speed car chases (that will have everyone fastening their seat belts), and a national, bestselling book with the power to make people do terrible, terrible things. But because Alan is still suffering the effects of his coma, he tends to, well, fall asleep at the worst possible moments, Meaning that young Darkus might just have to solve this mystery . . . by himself."

REVIEW:

Written with a humour that reveals the author's enjoyment of his subject matter, this promises to be an interesting series to follow for young lovers of mystery, and the parents who may want to read along with them, too. There are some very sharp and funny parodies of pop culture (the book at the centre of the mystery, clearly modeled on the runaway self-help bestseller "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrnes, and the hero's stepfather, a caricature of Top Gear personalities) which provide plenty of chuckles for the older readers.

The language is sophisticated, yet accessible, offering younger readers a chance to stretch themselves without being too aware of the work involved to find meaning in context.

I was interested in the unusual set up of a father and son detective series in a literary world that usually prefers to kill parents off as soon as possible, but unfortunately the author seemed nervous about following through with this, frequently rendering the father unconscious so that the son could work on his own towards solving the mystery. This got a little tiresome, and I hope it will be a problem restricted only to the first book, with subsequent books in the series having the guts to develop the mentor/adept relationship more whole-heartedly.

Young Darkus, who slavishly copies his father's mode of dress, office decoration, speech patterns, and methods (I do hope he develops his own style at some point), gets a girl sidekick in the form of his scientifically able step-sister, Tilly, whose hair mysteriously changes colour. We don't get inside any of the characters much, in spite of multiple points of view opportunities to do so.

The mystery was well-plotted and verged on modern-day satire, which I very much enjoyed and hope we get more of as the series progresses.

I look forward to reading the next in the series to see how these characters are developed, and to see what trouble "The Combination" will challenge them with next.

SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE by Marcus Sedgwick

US Edition

This week I discovered a whole new level of writer envy when I read Marcus Sedgwick's SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE.

His protagonist, Laureth, is on a quest from the UK to the US to find her missing father, with her younger brother in tow.

The twist is, she is blind.

Think about that for a moment. How heavily do we rely on visual descriptive detail when we write, and read? Now imagine trying to make scenes come alive without any of that. Yes.

And guess what? It works. Sedgwick nails it. In the process, he gives us a unique, admirable, fascinating, brave female protagonist who doesn't let her handicap stop her from getting what she wants. She's so matter of fact about her blindness that I began to pay less attention to it, too, and focused on the mystery of their missing father.

It is one of the tidiest, most well-thought out novels I've read in some time. Every detail counts. Nothing is wasted.

An added pleasure for me is that Laureth's missing father, Jack Peak, is a novelist who has been working on a new book about coincidence. It has taken up most of his time, appears to have cost him both his sanity and his marriage as he obsessively researches Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Jung, Albert Einstein, the number 354, and the Hound of Heaven. Most recently he's been on a research trip to Switzerland, but when Laureth doesn't hear from him in a week she grows concerned. Then she receives a mysterious email from someone in New York claiming to have found her father's precious notebook.

The notebook provides a fascinating piece of metafiction, as we chuckle with Sedgwick about the writing mind and creative process as Laureth asks her younger brother to read the contents to her in the hope that it will provide clues to his whereabouts.

All in all SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE was a rollicking good read, and I whizzed through it in one afternoon, unwilling to leave Laureth until she'd accomplished her goal, even though that didn't come about in quite the way she expected.

Description from Goodreads...

Laureth Peak's father has taught her to look for recurring events, patterns, and numbers--a skill at which she's remarkably talented. Her secret: She is blind. But when her father goes missing, Laureth and her 7-year-old brother Benjamin are thrust into a mystery that takes them to New York City where surviving will take all her skill at spotting the amazing, shocking, and sometimes dangerous connections in a world full of darkness. She Is Not Invisible is an intricate puzzle of a novel that sheds a light on the delicate ties that bind people to each other.

• Age Range: 12 - 17 years
• Grade Level: 7 and up
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (April 22, 2014)

I'm curious... which cover do you prefer—the US or UK edition?

UK Edition

THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson

Genre:  Fantasy, Supernatural, Mystery
Publisher:  Putnam Juvenile; First Edition edition (September 29, 2011)

The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888.

Soon "Rippermania" takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police now believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him. Even her roommate, who was with her at the time, didn't notice the mysterious man. So why can only Rory see him? And more urgently, why has Rory become his next target? In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humor, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.

Review:

 
Rory's quirky Louisiana perspective on life at a London boarding school provides a lot of laughs and makes her an easy-to-love character in this modern take on the Ripper murders. She spills details of her crazy family's lifestyle to British friends whose small intakes of breath appear to go unnoticed by her blithe spirit. In the context of a ghost story this practical, grounded character is a delightfully unexpected contrast and I enjoyed the first half of the book because of Rory's culture clash. 

As the focus shifted to solving the copycat modern Ripper murders it felt as though there were two stories being told in one book. So if you like fish-out-of-water stories you'll prefer the first half, and if you like murder mysteries you'll prefer the second half.

Johnson throws a curve ball with the reveal that the Ripper is targeting Rory because she can see him when no-one else can. No-one else, that is, except for a mysterious investigative team called The Shades. Rory loses some of her trademark humor and smarts in the second half, and her love interest seemed distressingly okay with leaving her to walk unescorted through Ripper territory, but the final revelation of an unexpected new dimension to Rory's talent for the supernatural will leave readers eager for the next in the series.

A mite short on chills for a supernatural murder mystery, but the loving portrayal of London from a foreigner's perspective, the plot twists, and the quirky characters entertain and delight.

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THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Scholastic Press (October 18, 2011)

Some race to win. Others race to survive.

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

Some riders live.

Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn't given her much of a choice. So she enters the competition - the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

As she did in her bestselling Shiver trilogy, author Maggie Stiefvater takes us to the breaking point, where both love and life meet their greatest obstacles, and only the strong of heart can survive. The Scorpio Races is an unforgettable reading experience.

Maggie Stiefvater, best known until now for her "Shiver" werewolf romances, has created a story of timeless appeal in The Scorpio Races, adapting Celtic water horse legends to create a stark and isolated island community off a mainland that could be Scotland, Ireland or Wales, but is never named. 

 In this close-knit community one boy is legend. Sean Kendrick is gifted with an intuitive understanding of the capaill uisce, almost untamable horses that surge out of the waves on November 1st each year and are captured and trained to run in a life or death race. Sean's employer's capaill uisce, Corr, is the love of Sean's life until a local girl, Puck Connolly, shocks the traditional community by entering the Scorpio races, hoping to use the prize money to save her home from repossession by the owner of the stables Sean works for. 

 The story unfolds in seamless alternating first-person, providing valuable insight into the emotionally wind-swept inner lives of both Sean and Puck, whose terse island manners would otherwise render them remote. 

Puck endures many challengers to her desire to run the race from the misogynistic islanders, and Sean is more of an extension of the sea and land than a member of the community, but their mutual respect of their horses and their desire to preserve what is best about the island of Thisby turns from tentative acceptance, to friendship, to romance. 

 The annual influx of tourists and Americans who migrate to the island for the races provide an interesting foil to the islanders and allow Stiefvater to explore themes of financial inequality, family unity in times of stress, and loyalty to one's homeland vs seeking opportunity abroad. 

 In this affectionate and evocative depiction of small island life Stiefvater has built a mythology and belief system that feels as though it could have existed for hundreds of years, resulting in a poetically rendered and literary respite from the hackneyed excesses of much current YA literature.

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A stop motion animated trailer by Maggie Stiefvater for the October 2011 novel, THE SCORPIO RACES. Done with several hundred frames, some cool paper, and a very manky paintbrush. Music composed by Maggie Stiefvater, performed by Maggie Stiefvater & Kate Hummel.

CLOCKWORK PRINCE by Cassandra Clare

Genre: Historical YA Fiction, Steampunk
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (December 6, 2011)

"In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister’s war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them.

Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart."

Author Cassandra Clare hits her stride in CLOCKWORK PRINCE, the second book of the Infernal Devices series, delivering deeper insight into characters only superficially introduced in the first book, CLOCKWORK ANGEL, with a particular focus on Will Herondale.

Although the plot is well-constructed, with clear goals, a ticking clock, betrayals, and power plays, it is the dynamics between the main characters and the mystery of the origins and identity of the main protagonist, Tessa, that take center stage here. If you enjoy love triangles, with shifting point-of-view scenes allowing deeper understanding of the motivations behind the main players, this is the book for you. The ensuing drama leads to an ending that is sure to have readers declaring themselves either for Team Will or Team Jem. As this isn't the last book in the series, we can safely assume that the triangle has more ground to cover, too, and although the ending was clearly telegraphed, it was an experience comparable to watching a train wreck happen in slow motion, mingling horror at the pain caused to the unsuccessful suitor with happiness at the pathos of the other's success. The bromance between the two suitors, who are bound to protect each other, further intensifies the conflict.

Any love triangle runs the danger of making the girl, caught in a dither about which boy to choose, rather unlikeable and I don't think Tessa entirely escapes that problem here, but the two boys' backstories go a long way to supply adequate reason why a kind girl might be drawn to make the dying Jem happy despite finding the mercurial Will compelling. Which one does she ultimately choose? I couldn't possibly say. You'll have to read it yourself to find out!

Clare has researched her material and included literary quotes as epigraphs to each chapter, yet readers can rest assured this is not a heavy read.

VIXEN by Jillian Larkin

Reading level: Ages 12 and up
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Ember (August 9, 2011) 
Genre: Historical

"Jazz... Booze... Boys... It's a dangerous combination. Every girl wants what she can’t have. Seventeen-year-old Gloria Carmody wants the flapper lifestyle—and the bobbed hair, cigarettes, and music-filled nights that go with it. Now that she’s engaged to Sebastian Grey, scion of one of Chicago’s most powerful families, Gloria’s party days are over before they’ve even begun . . . or are they?

Clara Knowles, Gloria’s goody-two-shoes cousin, has arrived to make sure the high-society wedding comes off without a hitch—but Clara isn’t as lily-white as she appears. Seems she has some dirty little secrets of her own that she’ll do anything to keep hidden.

Lorraine Dyer, Gloria’s social-climbing best friend, is tired of living in Gloria’s shadow. When Lorraine’s envy spills over into desperate spite, no one is safe. And someone’s going to be very sorry."

After a somewhat unsympathetic opening (two of the society girls' goals extend no further than wanting to become flappers and the third wants to hide from the painful repercussions of her past as an uber-flapper), this book was hard to put down as the three point of view characters' lives became more entangled in a world of intrigue, parties, Mafia-run bars and the streets of 1920's Chicago. I started reading at midnight and found myself staying up until 3.30 am to finish the book.

It hasn't got anything very deep to say, despite one girl's taboo relationship with a black jazz pianist. The girls' goals are only wrapped up in their men - the good, the bad, but none of them ugly. Even Gloria only discovers she wants to be a jazz singer because she falls for a handsome pianist in a bar. Yet the characters became more interesting, the motives and mystery more intriguing, and the pace more urgent as the book progresses.

Considering it's set in a time when many women were fighting for equality, a voice in government, and many other worthy causes it's a shame that the mean girl cat fights entirely rule the action as the girls go after the men of their dreams, but it's a fast, fun read nevertheless.

Clara was perhaps the most appealing of the three, as waiting for the truth to be revealed about her past gave the book much of its suspense and tension. But Raine's self-destructive desire to be noticed made her misguided actions almost sympathetic and deepened my interest in her POV. Perhaps the least well-developed was Gloria, but as this is only the first book in the series, I suspect subsequent books will delve more deeply into the problems of mixed-race romances and the shifting social identity of women of the 1920's as these naive young girls begin to deal with the repercussions of their choices.

Despite some anachronistic elements (did girls really learn their lessons using flashcards in the 1920's?) this series is sure to be a hit with older YA girls, even those who don't normally read historical fiction. Be prepared for some sexual elements, drinking and violence. But that's not a surprise, is it? Mobsters, Chicago, and prohibition? It's a given.