The Mark of the Dragonfly

Johnson, Jaleigh. The Mark of the Dragonfly. 2014. 400p. ISBN 9780385376150. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

Life in Scraptown 16 is hard for Piper, especially since her father left to work in the factories of the Dragonfly Territories and subsequently died. Left alone, young Piper has been eking a living fixing mechanical objects for the other town residents. Every storm that strikes the area brings with it meteor showers. These showers result in odd pieces of technology coming from exotic lands, but they also bring green dust, a deadly substance if exposed to it long enough. It is during one of these storms that Piper finds herself outside instead of the town shelter, looking for her only friend, when she spots a caravan. Soon the caravan is destroyed by meteors.

When the storm abates, Piper explores the caravan and discovers a girl still alive in the wreckage. Her friend having been hurt, Piper returns to town to get help and soon both her friend and the strange girl are brought back. On the girl’s arm is an intricate tattoo, marking her as someone of significance in the Dragonfly Territories. Suddenly Piper’s future looks bright. If she can reunite this girl with her family, surely she will be handsomely compensated!

Piper manages to revive the girl, named Anna. Anna doesn’t remember who she is or where she is from, but she possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the world around her, and she loves to create order out of chaos. Another passenger of the caravan survived, however, and now Master Dolan wants the girl back. Anna doesn’t remember Dolan, but she knows she doesn’t want to go with him. Piper and Anna manage to escape Dolan by boarding the 401, a heavily armored train from the Dragonfly Territories that deliver cargo throughout the continent.

Questioned by Gee, the head security officer aboard the 401, the girls are reluctantly allowed on board due to the tattoo, and the train takes off, eventually heading to the Territories’ capital. Dolan, however, has other plans for Anna and begins chasing the girl across the continent. With a powerful enemy behind them, can Piper, Anna, Gee, and the rest of the 401’s crew protect the train and make it safely to the capital?

A great standalone steampunk novel, The Mark of the Dragonfly is nonstop action and adventure. Fans of Leviathan and Worldshaker need to read this book. Other great steampunk books include Etiquette and Espionage and The Inventor's Secret.

The Leaving

Altebrando, Tara. The Leaving. 2016. 432p. ISBN 9781619638037. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Eleven years ago, six children went to kindergarten and disappeared from the school. Prior to leaving young Scarlett told her mother she was going to The Leaving. The six literally vanished between the end of the school day and the time their parents came to pick them up. At the time there were reports of an unknown school bus, or of a white van. Some thought the kids had been abducted by aliens, others by psychopaths. Television specials were made about their disappearance. Thousands of articles were published, and extensive police investigations were conducted. For eleven years the children have been missed. Families broke up, some family members died. Everyone coped with this disastrous event in their own way.

Now five of them are back. Sixteen years old, they find themselves on a playground that looks familiar. Scarlett. Kristen. Sarah. Adam. Lucas. They don’t remember where they have been, what they have done, or even who they are. But they remember pieces of information. They recognize the playground. They know they are not all friends. They have hints left on them, such as a tattoo on Lucas, and a piece of metal swallowed by Sarah. They know they can drive, and they are up to speed on current events and cultural references. They vaguely remember where they lived when they were 5, and they all head home. But home has changed forever. And they all remember one of them is missing. What happened to Max?

Avery, meanwhile, is shocked to hear of the missings’ return, and crushed that Max is not among them. She barely remembers her older brother, but feels his loss every day. With the return, she wants answers to her questions. But the Missings don’t remember a thing. Or, at least, they claim they don’t remember a thing.

Told from Scarlett, Lucas, and Avery’s point of view, this book explores what it means to not have any memories of your own. What if you couldn’t remember who you were? How far would you be willing to go to recover your memories? Avery, Lucas and Scarlett are about to find out.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Johnson, E. K. Exit, Pursued by a Bear. 2016. 387 mins, 248p. ISBN 978-1-10199458-0. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Palermo Heights is a small Canadian high school where cheerleading is the most competitive and highly rated sport. Forget football, basketball and hockey. Cheerleading is the sport every serious athlete participates in. For three years Hermione (her parents were big Harry Potter fans) has worked hard. The only freshman with her friend Polly to join the varsity squad, she has climbed the cheerleading pyramid to become captain her senior year. Even Leo, her boyfriend, is a member of the squad.

Every summer, during the last two weeks of August, cheerleading teams from many Ontario high schools meet at a camp where they train to get ready for the new season. The Palermo squad is looked up to, but when the time comes to share a dedication at the beginning of camp Hermione aims to end once and for all a curse that has plagued the team since the death of a student seven years ago: Every year, one of the cheerleaders has become pregnant and has had to drop out of the squad. This is the year that the curse ends.

However, when someone slips a drug in Hermione’s drink and then rapes her, she becomes that girl from the curse. Pregnant, Hermione has some hard decisions to make. How does she regain control when she can’t remember anything that happened that night? How does she deal with Leo’s jealousy and the rumors that spread around school? Can she avoid becoming this year’s cautionary tale cheerleaders will talk about at future camps? And will a run to the provincial cheer championship trigger her into a total meltdown when she has to return to the site of the attack? Readers will appreciate the hard choices Hermione makes to deal with this situation and end her senior year on a hopeful but inconclusive note.

Readers who enjoyed this book will appreciate Speak, where Melinda finds herself in a similar situation but deals with it in a completely different way.

The Siren

Cass, Kiera. The Siren. 2016. 327p. ISBN 9780062391995. Available at FIC CAS on the library shelves.

Despite the Great Depression, Kahlen’s family is doing well financially. Her family ends up on a transatlantic ship. Feeling uneasy one day, Kahlen witnesses her father, mother, and brothers becoming entranced by a strange music coming from outside the ship, and, along with all of the ship’s passengers and crew, jump in the ocean, answering the call of beautiful sirens singing their death song. As Kahlen sinks, her will to survive is strong enough that the Ocean offers her a bargain: Sing for her for a hundred years, and then Kahlen will be released with no memories of what happened to lead a new life. Refuse the bargain, and drown with the rest of the passengers.

Kahlen accepts Ocean’s bargain and for the next eighty years serves her faithfully, sharing her feelings and emotions as well as luring strangers to their deaths. She cannot talk for a single word from her is enough to send a person to their watery death, and Ocean has warned all of her sirens that they cannot reveal their existence. But when she meets Akinli on a college campus in Miami, she realizes that she doesn’t always have to keep company with other sirens only. Though she loves her three siren sisters dearly, she longs for human companionship, and Akinli provides her with something she never thought she would experience as a siren. Complete and utter acceptance. Suddenly, Kahlen finds herself falling for this beautiful and loving boy, and she quickly develops a relationship despite the difficulties in communicating with him.

But loving a human is forbidden and Ocean will be upsets if she finds out. Kahlen breaks it off with Akinli, but following another shipwreck she runs away from her sisters and inadvertently finds him again, this time in a small town on the coast of Maine where he works as a fisherman. She hopelessly falls in love with him, and him with her. Kahlen cannot wait another twenty years to listen to her heart, but their lives are now in danger. What will be the cost of true love?

If you enjoyed this book, be sure to look at The Selection, also by Kiera Cass.

Cuckoo Song

Hardinge, Frances. Cuckoo Song. Amulet. 2015. 416p. ISBN 978-1419714801. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Twelve years old Triss wakes up not recalling the last few hours. Her parents tell her that she fell in the river but she is recovering well. Her younger sister Pen immediately turns hostile upon seeing her, however, and this level of hostility shocks Triss. Since the death of their older brother, Sebastian during the First World War, her architect father and her stay-at-home mother have been distant. And now, Triss feels different, as if she were someone else.

As she begins to discover clues about Pen’s anger towards her and her ravenous hunger, Triss becomes enmeshed in the revenge plans of a mysterious man known as the Architect, who wishes nothing but their destruction. Running on borrowed time with the help of Violet, Sebastian’s fiancee, and Pen, Triss must stop the Architect’s grand vision from coming true before it is too late.

Based in the early 1920s in England, this family has suffered a tragedy and is unable to cope with it. Every character is fleshed out and their motivations are clear, all except for Triss who, appropriately for the story, remains a work in progress as she discovers who, or what, she really is. Hardinge slowly and craftily builds a horrific yet spellbinding narrative that culminates in an unforgettable confrontation. There are only gradations between good and evil in this book, and each character perform acts they later regret. Triss and her family cannot escape the fact that their fate is intertwined. Fans of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Marina: A Gothic Tale and those who like their horror served with a side of hopeful frightfulness will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Cruel Beauty

Hodge, Rosamund. Cruel Beauty. 2014. 352p. ISBN 9780062224736. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

For nine hundred years, the Gentle Lord has ruled over Arcadia. The Lord of Bargains, he protects the inhabitants (mostly) from the shadow demons that lurk on the edge of the world. Sundered from the rest of the world, Arcadia has been mostly at peace, but even while protected there are weak minds and hearts who are willing to pay any price to obtain favors. And thus these mortal men and women seek the Gentle Lord and agree to foolish bargains with him.

At seventeen years old, Nyx and her younger twin sister Astraia should have all their lives in front of them. Unfortunately, this is only true for Astraia, for Nyx is to marry the Gentle Lord. Seventeen years ago, her father made a bargain with the Gentle Lord: Let his wife have children, and in exchange he would marry his daughter to him. The wish was granted. Nyx and Astraia were born, but their mother died in childbirth. Thus, their father was deprived of his love. And as Astraia looks more like her mother and Nyx more like her father, it has been easier for him to not love Nyx and instead prepare her for the day she would be taken away by the Gentle Lord.

Trained to kill and to destroy the Gentle Lord’s house, Nyx is apprehensive when the day comes. But she quickly realizes that the Gentle Lord is in fact more than a cruel demon. Though all powerful, he does not force himself upon her, but instead sets her on a quest to discover how to free both of them from this prison that is Arcadia. Ignifex has a slave, a shadow called Shade. Nyx discovers that Shade is the last prince of the kingdom, forever enslaved to Ignifex nine hundred years ago by the gods for his offense. Both Shade and Ignifex share many characteristics, and Nyx is the only one who can save them both while rescuing her country from its isolation.

But when the choice comes, will she choose the Lord, the slave, or Arcadia? Based on the Beauty and the Beast myth, this story also incorporates several elements of Greek mythology. Fantasy readers will enjoy this love triangle in an exotic locale, and will certainly be clamoring for more.

A Book of Spirits and Thieves

Rhodes, Morgan. A Book of Spirits and Thieves. Razorbill. 2015. 368p. ISBN 978-1595147592. Available at FIC RHO on the library shelves.

Crystal and Rebecca are not getting along. The two sisters have drifted apart over the years, with Crys spending time engrossed in photography while Becca works at the family’s bookstore. But when a magical book sends Becca into a coma, Crys must help her come back. Becca, meanwhile, is transported to another land where magic exists, and where an evil queen reins. Only appearing as a ghost, she meets Maddox, a necromancer, and becomes party to a conspiracy to overthrow the queen.

Crys discovers that the book is somehow tied to a secret society, called the Hawkspear. This society long ago consumed her father, but now she must infiltrate it to help Becca. She meets brooding Farrell, one of the most trusted members of the society, and she must maneuver carefully among the dangers for her very life, and that of her sister, is at stakes.

A news series based on the Falling Kingdoms, Rhodes tells the tale through multiple perspectives and two different worlds which connect together at the end of the book. Knowledge of the previous series is not necessary, however. The main characters are well developed and possess conflicting emotions and desires. The plot moves quickly, and the evolving relationships between Crys and Farrell and Becca and Maddox promise more conflicts in the future. Amateurs of fantasy will appreciate the mesh of our reality and a magical world, and will look forward to the next installment.

For a similar book, read The Accidental Highwayman.

Conversion

Howe, Katherine. Conversion. 2014. 402p. ISBN 9780399167775. Available at FIC HOW on the library shelves.

Colleen Rowley is in the middle of her senior year at all girls St. Joan’s Academy, the elite religious school she attends. Life is very stressful for Colleen and her friends. There are college applications to be sent out and decisions on where to attend made. There are relationships and boyfriends. Colleen herself is in a battle for the valedictorian spot, with a mere 0.1% separating her from her rival. There are issues with parents and siblings at home. Even with all of these activities, however, everyone, including Colleen, is expected to remain polite, graceful, and dedicated.

Upon returning for the 2nd semester, Colleen’s AP history teacher is gone and has been replaced by a substitute. And though they were going to read The Crucible, the substitute informs them that they will no longer do that. Her friends Deena and Anjali are shocked, but her best friend Emma seems to hold something back.

When Carla, one of the most appreciated students at school suddenly falls ill in school and must taken away in an ambulance, everyone is concerned for her. But then more and more girls begin to fall sick, with fits, shakes, and visions. Suddenly everyone knows someone who is getting sick. When the media hear of this story a frenzy ensues.

Meanwhile, three hundred years earlier, Anne Putnam is square in the middle of the Salem witch trials. She, along with a few younger girls, is responsible for setting the whole thing in motions and now she doesn’t know how to get out of it.

The two stories quickly intertwine and connect both Colleen’s and Anne’s lives in parallel ways. Is witchcraft real? And, if not, what is affecting Colleen and the girls at St. Joan’s?

The Program

Young, Suzanne. The Program. 2013. 405p. ISBN 9781442445802. Available at FIC YOU on the library shelves.

Suicide among teens has become an epidemic, with over one in four teens taking their life. At a loss, adults have turned to the Program, an intensive therapy involving involuntary commitment, heavy doses of sedatives and other chemicals, and forgetting one’s own memories. So far, the Program claims a 100% success rate in preventing suicide in teens who have been admitted and released.

But the Program is hated by all teens because it robs them of their memories and of their personalities. Teens that come out of the Program and are reinserted in society do not remember key events of their lives, and in many cases their personalities have changed.

Sloane and James, her brother’s best friend, have been dating for a while now, but when her brother committed suicide James was the only one left. As more and more people in her circle of friends succumb to the epidemic, Sloane worries that the Program will come for them. James is the first to crack, and is hauled away. When he returns eight weeks later, Sloane barely recognizes him. Feeling bitter and antagonized from society, she heads down a dark path. Her mother, worried for her daughter, has her committed to the Program.

Alone and terrified, Sloane tries to resist the therapy mandated by the program, but finds it more and more difficult. But then she meets Michael, another patient in the Program. He’s not James, but he wants to help Sloane. Can Sloane survive the eight weeks of treatment, and, more importantly, will she remember who she loves, and who she really is?

Six Months Later

Richards, Natalie. Six Months Later. 2013. 323p. ISBN 978-1-4022-8551-6. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Chloe has always lived for the moment. Her motto might as well be “why do today what could be done tomorrow?” On a regular school day in May of her junior year, she puts her head down in her study hall instead of completing her assignment. When she wakes up, the room is dark, night has fallen, and there’s now coming down from the sky outside. In a panic, Chloe discovers she’s missed the last six months. Add to her terror the fact that Adam, the school criminal, shows up and tells her she just called him. What has Chloe been up to these last six months?

Her life changed dramatically once she joined the SAT study group. She’s now dating dreamy Blake. Her grades went from mediocre to outstanding, and she’s likely to be the valedictorian. She’s applying to Notre Dame and Brown, and knows she’ll get in with her perfect SAT scores. And she had a terrible fight with her best friend Maggie. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember any of it.

Now that she knows something is missing, Chloe begins to reconstruct what happened to her, and all hints point towards Jillian, who moved away suddenly with her family from this sleepy Ohio town to California. But as she digs, she begins to discover that Blake scares her, she has feelings for Adam, Maggie is still mad at her but may come around, and her therapist may be involved in her memory loss.

As the pressure mounts, and as Chloe discovers her past, memories return. Poking around becomes deadly, however, and Chloe may not survive the truths she’s about to reveal.

Suspenseful and well-crafted, this book will be appreciated by fans of mysteries and realistic teen fiction with a twist.

The Inventor’s Secret

Cremer, Andrea. The Inventor’s Secret. Book 1 of the Inventor’s Secret series. 2014. 336p. ISBN 978-0-3991-5962-6. Available at FIC CRE on the library shelves.

The American Revolution was crushed by the might of the British navy and army when both France and Spain refused to support the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries were imprisoned in Boston or executed. Now, years later, the steam-powered British Empire remains firmly in control of the colonies. Colonists now must serve the Empire for 20 years of hard labor, but in practice most do not survive this punishing sentence in the colonial foundries and workshops.

Despite of, or maybe because of this oppression, groups of rebels are still seeking to overthrow the Empire and fight it at every turn. Charlotte has long lived in the catacombs on the edge of New York, the heart of the colonies alongside her brothers. Children of rebels are sent here for their safety and to be educated. When they come of age, they can join the rebellion. Her brother Ashley has led their small group, along with Jack and Charlotte.

When Charlotte comes upon Grave, a boy who doesn’t remember anything, she decides to save him from the Imperial Labor Gatherers, large steam-powered robots that hunt escapees through the colony’s forests. Without knowing it, however, she sets events in motions that will make her question everything she knows. Is her relationship with Jack simply that of sparring partners, or is there more to the chemistry that takes place between the two? What does her brother know that he’s not sharing with her? Who, or rather, what is Grave? Is he the answer to the rebellion’s prayers or the best way to quash it?

If you enjoyed this book, you will like Worldshaker, the largest floating ship of all times, and the fight for the Filthies' freedom! You will also like Etiquette & Espionage,  The Mark of the Dragonfly and Leviathan.

Scorch Trials

Dashner, James. Scorch Trials. Book Two of the Maze Runner Series. 2010. 360p. ISBN 978-0-3857-3875-0. Available at FIC DAS and as an eBook on Overdrive.

When they escaped the Maze, Thomas and the Gladers thought they had come to the end of their trials. But, as horrific as the maze was, it was only a prelude to a worse trial. Free from the confines and controlled environment of the maze, the surviving Gladers are now thrown into another trial, this one even more deadly than the maze. Given two weeks, the Gladers must cross the Scorch, an area all but burned out and destroyed years ago. And this time, WICKED has adjusted the variables to ensure that the odds are stacked against the Gladers.

The Gladers have been joined by another boy. Aris was the only boy among girls in Group B, fulfilling Theresa’s role with the Gladers. Now, with Cranks stalking them, and both groups in a race against time, since they have been infected with the flare and the antidote is at their destination.

As they encounter Cranks and machines in the Scorch, Thomas and the Gladers must also survive the harsh environment WICKED has put them in. How many of them can survive this round? The story concludes in The Death Cure.

Cinder

Meyer, Marissa. Cinder. 2012. 390p. ISBN 9780312641894. Book 1 of the Lunar Chronicles. Available both as a book at FIC MEY on the library shelves and as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Cinder is a lowly mechanic who works in one of the marketplaces of New Beijing. Her life forever changes when Crown Prince Kai comes to her to fix his nanny android, Nainsi. Self-conscious, Cinder is terrified the Prince will discover her secret. Cinder is in fact a cyborg, a sixteen years-old girl who has several cyborg appendages and a computing unit embedded in her brains.

Adopted at the age of 11, she does not remember her previous life, but she has powerful memories of a fire. She’s been told that she was involved in a terrible hovercraft accident that literally cost her an arm and a leg. And the father who adopted her died of Letimosis, a powerful contagious disease that cripples then kills its victims, leaving her alone with her stepmother and her two stepsisters. Both Adri, the stepmother, and Pearl, the older stepsister, are horrible to her and mistreat her every chance they get.

Fixing the Prince’s android creates a cascade of events and throws Cinder’s life into chaos. First, Kai appears to be falling in love with her, and he invites her to the Ball thrown every year by the Eastern Commonwealth. Second, Cinder is given by Adri to the authorities as a test subject for the Letimosis plague, but when injected with the disease her body defeats it. The doctor examining her realizes she is more than she thinks, and he eventually reveals to her that she is a Lunar.

Coincidentally, the Lunar Queen, Levana, arrives on Earth to participate in the funerals of Kai’s father, who died of the Letimosis plague. A villainous queen who uses her bio-electric abilities to glamour those who see her and influence their thoughts, the queen seeks nothing more than total world domination, beginning with the Eastern Commonwealth. Kai has been investigating the murder of her niece, Princess Selene, thirteen years ago, hoping to find a solution out of war, but he knows that time is running out and when Queen Levana does not get what she wants she will send her armies to fight Earth.

When the Queen sees Cinder, she realizes that there are Lunars on Earth and obliges Kai to give her up so she can be brought back to Luna, tried and executed. Kai loves Cinder, but a rash move gets her imprisoned in the palace. The doctor then reveals to her that she is in fact heir to the throne of Luna. She is Princess Selene. And her life is in mortal danger.

Cinder must now make a decision. Will she use her Lunar gift to influence others to escape, fulfill her destiny and claim the throne, or will she remain plain old Cinder? Can she survive the intrigues beyond her control?

Cinder's story continues in Scarlet. If you liked The Selection or Matched, you will definitively enjoy this series.

Antigoddess

Blake, Kendare. Antigoddess. 2013. 333p. Book 1 of the Goddess War Series. ISBN 0765334437. Available as an audiobook  on Overdrive.

Gods and goddesses are immortal. They can be hurt, they can be physically injured, but they cannot be killed. And for thousands of years, the gods have been playing with humanity. Athena, goddess of war, shipwrecked Odysseus and prevented him from going home for ten years. Apollo, god of the sun and of prophecies, toyed with Cassandra of Troy, first giving her the gift of seeing the future, but then cursing her by ensuring that no one would ever believe her. Hermes, the winged god, delivered messages and enforced the will of the gods in Olympus.

Today, however, the old gods are dying. Athena has begun sprouting feathers, and is slowly transforming into an owl, her symbol of wisdom and war. Hermes’ speed is slowly consuming him alive. And as death looms for them, camps are drawn. The gods will fight amongst themselves to survive. But they need weapons, and Cassandra the prophetess is one such weapon.

Cassandra lives in Kincaid, New York, and is an average teenager, except for the fact that she sees the future. She can accurately predict a coin toss, and she has visions of what will happen. So when she begins to see horrific monsters and the murders of innocents, her boyfriend, Aidan, becomes concerned for her. Her protector, Aidan is really Apollo, and as the other gods converge on Kincaid for a final stand, Cassandra’s universe is thrown into question and her real identity is revealed even to herself.

As two worlds collide, Cassandra and her friends are thrown in the fight between immortals, and it may just cost them their lives!

Fans of The Alchemyst will revel in the merging of legends and reality.