While I was
slightly better in 2018 in keeping up with my blog, it remains apparent that I
haven’t focused enough on YA novels, which is the age category that I read the
most. I aim to do better this year.
While I did do a post late last
month showcasing a YA duology, this is my first YA compilation of 2019 featuring
titles that are parts of sequential series in which I’m already a fan. No
new-to-me authors in this batch.
*This is the final book in a trilogy.*
Somewhere along
the way, Gia Kearns became Gianna Bianchi McCabe, Sentinel. Her childhood
friend has been abducted, and she’s seen loved ones die. She needs to protect
the one who can defeat the Tetrad, but before that can happen, she needs to
retrieve seven Chiavi (Chiave, singular) hidden in the great
libraries of the world. To a reader, gateway access to all of the world’s
libraries sounds like a dream, but the gateways harbor astonishing dangers. And
danger always seems to find Gia. Furthermore, there is a disease spreading.
Nana Kearns is developing a cure. The corrupted Wizard Council doesn’t want the
cure given to those in the Mystik world, but many wizards and Sentinels in the
havens have banded together to save the Mystiks. This includes Gia and her
wizard-betrothed Bastien Renard, but does not include former love interest Arik
Baine. They traverse many places through tunnels and realms, gateways and
libraries, including Tír na nÓg (the
faery realm), before facing off against an evil Master Wizard.
I have really enjoyed this entire
trilogy. This urban fantasy has been chock full of magic, wizards and Sentinels
with mystical abilities (I want a battle globe). It contains good and bad,
light times and sadness, fights for life and fights to the death. Drake
strengthened the plot with heroic characters, probably all of them good-looking
(even the non-human ones), but with characteristics we related to or rooted
for. Also, libraries! And traveling to libraries through gateway books!
Now, where is my Sentinel gear?
Book
One: Thief of Lies
Book
Two: Guardian of Secrets
Just Dreaming (May 2, 2017) by Kerstin Gier.
*This is the final book in a trilogy.*
Nobody is safe,
not even in dreams, but who would go into someone’s dream to manipulate that
person? And how would someone obtain such a disturbing ability, much less put
it in motion three times? Is it Anabel Scott, in whom there’s no secret that
she has psychological issues? Or is it Arthur Hamilton, ex-friend of Henry
Harper and Grayson Spencer, who probably also has psychological issues? It
looks like it’ll be up to Liv Silver to uncover clues, solve the mysteries and
battle bad guys. Henry and Grayson will help, though Grayson takes some
convincing, and Jasper Grant has apparently done away with all of the dream
nonsense. Romance is stressing Liv out, a gossipmonger-of-a-blogger continues
to spread tittle-tattle while remaining unidentified, her mother’s planning a
wedding and at least one wicked classmate is set on revenge. It’s too bad that
Liv can’t escape in slumber, because malicious intent may lurk there as well …
Overall, I enjoyed this story. The
ending was conclusive and satisfying; before the very end, Secrecy is identified. I wish I could go off and explore dream
corridors as several of these characters have done through The Silver Trilogy, but without the threat of imagined demons or
deluges of strange feathers or crossing paths with a nemesis or people I simply
don’t care for. The one grievance I have with the story regards Liv Silver’s
possible “first time.” It doesn’t add anything to the overall plot, nor does it
help carry the story. I actually thought those scenes in which she’s worrying
about her first time slowed the story down. The story is otherwise fast-moving
and imaginative. I like the rapport between sisters, and I want someone like
Lottie to be my neighbor, for I’d go over to her house every day to eat
whatever delicious baked goods she’d whipped up that day!
One Dark Throne (Sept. 19, 2017) by Kendare Blake.
*This is the second book in a series.*
The Quickening showed the queens and the
populace that the future Queen Crowned is not as certain as it once seemed. As
powerful as Mirabella has always been, even she quakes at Arsinoe’s supposed
familiar. She also thinks that Arsinoe has betrayed her and is preparing to fight
her. Arsinoe has discovered a secret, but no one outside of her best friends
Juillenne “Jules” Milone and Joseph Sandrin know. She must decide if she can
use this to her advantage. Katharine, once viewed as the weakest of the triplet
queens, is curiously stronger than ever before, now ingesting poison at every
meal. The suitors have arrived to be hosted by the queens. They know that only
the Queen Crowned will choose a king-consort. William “Billy” Chatworth Jr. has
been summoned to Rolanth as Mirabella’s royal taster “on pain of
disinheritance,” but it’s no secret that he favors Arsinoe. The queens must
watch from all sides. To let one’s guard down for an instant could mean poison
in one’s tea, a poisoned bolt in the back, a perfect lightning strike or a
mauling by a bear. Whether the pictured threats are real or imagined doesn’t
matter, for anything is possible in an Ascension year.
Part of the Three Dark Crowns series, “One Dark Throne” is a rich, inventive
fantasy that is intensive and brutal, yet I’m rather addicted to the series and
Blake’s YA novels in general. Despite the darkness expected of them, the
triplet sister-queens are each noteworthy. The humanity which lies within –
obvious in one or two, less so in the third – is easily overshadowed by the
violence. But the violence within the story is wrought by a plot that is
complex and twisted. The world-building is exceptional and the details are as
radiant as they are deadly. The cliffhanger ending has me practically foaming
at the mouth in anticipation of the next installment, and Blake has a wondrous
twist in the story – a Beltane Begot – and it’ll be so intriguing to see where
that story leads. Don’t let the lurking darkness of the novel steer you toward
only dark thoughts. Because even with Blake’s dark writing, her story is
luminous. This isn’t a sisterhood I’d want to be born into, but it’s a
sisterhood all the same. Except this one has ties that bind … to kill.
Book One: Three Dark
Crowns
Companion Novel
(physical form): Queens of Fennbirn