#Review - The Kill Factor by Ben Oliver #YA #Dystopian #Horror

Series: Unknown
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: April 16, 2024
Publisher: Chicken House
Source: Publisher
Genre: YA / Dystopian / Horror

A brand-new game show that offers young criminals the chance at freedom has been greenlit. Little do they know, winning is their only chance at survival. A captivating examination of the dark truths around the criminal justice system, Ben Oliver, critically acclaimed author of The Loop trilogy, delivers an action-packed thrill ride with deadly high stakes.

Fifty contestants. Five mental and physical challenges. One winner.

In a near-future where a virtual currency of digital content fuels a fame-hungry society, a brand-new experiment that combines social media and reality TV has been greenlit.

Voted on, and contestants are sent to a maximum-security reform camp on an island where they can have no contact with the outside world. To lose means prison. But to win is to be free. The most popular young offender with the most upvotes by the end is given both a second chance in society and a cash prize.

This kind of money could mean everything to Emerson and her family who live in the Burrows, one of the subterranean villages where the government have buried affordable housing. It's more than freedom. It could mean the chance to change her family’s circumstance and finally find a place in the society they’ve never been allowed into.

But what Emerson doesn’t know, what the viewers don’t know, is that the prison on the island is empty. Those who lose, those who are voted off aren’t incarcerated. Each challenge will leave more and more contestants to die. And the only choice they have is to win over viewers before it’s too late.

Ben Oliver's The Kill Factor is a twisted young adult centered dystopian horror mash up featuring 16-year-old Emerson Ness who is a Burrower. A Burrower is a person who lives in the tunnels below the city. Emerson has scraped and dug and, yes, stolen, trying to support herself and her brother Kester, with minimal help from her father, a would-be influencer convinced that someday, his cast will take off and they can become one of the Topsiders living in luxury. 

After she is arrested for theft, arson, and manslaughter and a huge bag of money she planned on using to help her younger brother who is hearing impaired, she is visited by a man known as the Producer. He claims he is part of a brand-new game show that offers young criminals the chance at freedom has been green lit. Little do they know, winning is their only chance at survival. Fifty contestants. Six mental and physical challenges. One winner. 

In a near-future where a virtual currency of digital content fuels a fame-hungry society, a brand-new experiment that combines social media and reality TV. Contestants are sent to a maximum-security reform camp on an island where they can have no contact with the outside world. To lose means prison or death. To win is to be free. The most popular young offender with the most upvotes by the end is given both a second chance in society and a cash prize. 

This kind of money could mean everything to Emerson and her family. It's more than freedom. It could mean the chance to change her family’s circumstance and finally find a place in the society they’ve never been allowed into. But what Emerson doesn’t know, what the viewers don’t know, is that the prison on the island is empty. Those who lose, those who are voted off aren’t incarcerated. Each challenge will leave more and more contestants to die. And the only choice they have is to win over viewers before it’s too late.

*Thoughts* A captivating examination of the dark truths around the criminal justice system, Ben Oliver, critically acclaimed author of The Loop trilogy, delivers an action-packed thrill ride with deadly high stakes. This concept is Hunger Games but a prison reform camp version, or even a Black Mirror episode mixed with the TV show Survivor where you face elimination by the number of likes you receive. A big chunk of this is a social commentary about how modern society has become dependent on likes and follows on social media which I refuse to adhere to. 

If you follow me, thank you, if not, that's okay too. I am not a fan of learning that this is not a standalone. How can it be when the author leaves a roundabout way of saying it's not over yet after a brutal ending that leaves more questions than answers. Like, who created the show? Was it the government? Was it a powerful corporation? Was it some billionaire who has too much money and is able to change the laws with a bribe here and there to certain politicians?

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble

#Review Damsel by Evelyn Skye #Fantasy #Dystopian

Series: Standalone / Movie Tie In
Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: April 18, 2023
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Dystopian

Elodie never dreamed of a lavish palace or a handsome prince. Growing up in the famine-stricken realm of Inophe, her deepest wish was to help her people survive each winter. So when a representative from a rich, reclusive kingdom offers her family enough wealth to save Inophe in exchange for Elodie’s hand in marriage, she accepts without hesitation. Swept away to the glistening kingdom of Aurea, Elodie is quickly taken in by the beauty of the realm—and of her betrothed, Prince Henry.

But as Elodie undertakes the rituals to become an Aurean princess, doubts prick at her mind as cracks in the kingdom’s perfect veneer begin to show: A young woman who appears and vanishes from the castle tower. A parade of torches weaving through the mountains. Markings left behind in a mysterious “V.” Too late, she discovers that Aurea’s prosperity has been purchased at a heavy cost—each harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices its princesses to a hungry dragon. And Elodie is the next sacrifice.

This ancient arrangement has persisted for centuries, leading hundreds of women to their deaths. But the women who came before Elodie did not go quietly. Their blood pulses with power and memory, and their experiences hold the key to Elodie’s survival. Forced to fight for her life, this damsel must use her wits to defeat a dragon, uncover Aurea’s past, and save not only herself, but the future of her new kingdom as well.

Evelyn Skye's Damsel is the story about a damsel in distress who takes on the dragon herself in this epic twist on classic fantasy—a groundbreaking collaboration between New York Times bestselling author Evelyn Skye and the team behind the upcoming Netflix film Damsel, starring Millie Bobby Brown. Elodie is the daughter of a Duke and her family is responsible for a barren land called Inophe. The country has suffered 70 years of drought and their people are hungry and barely getting by.

So when a representative from the rich, reclusive kingdom of Aurea, offers her family enough wealth to save Inophe in exchange for Elodie’s hand in marriage, she accepts with some reservations after exchanging letters with Prince Henry. Swept away to the glistening kingdom of Aurea, Elodie is quickly taken in by the beauty of the realm—and of her betrothed, Henry. But as Elodie undertakes the rituals to become an Aurean princess, doubts prick at her mind as cracks in the kingdom’s perfect veneer begin to show: A young woman who appears and vanishes from the castle tower. 

A parade of torches weaving through the mountains. Markings left behind in a mysterious “V.” Too late, she discovers that Aurea’s prosperity has been purchased at a heavy cost—each harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices three princesses to a hungry dragon in order to save the Kingdom from destruction. And Elodie is the next sacrifice. This ancient arrangement has persisted for centuries, leading hundreds of women to their deaths. But the women who came before Elodie did not go quietly.

Some of them like Victoria left clues behind for those who followed her to hopefully survive. Their blood pulses with power and memory, and their experiences hold the key to Elodie’s survival. Forced to fight for her life, this damsel must use her wits to defeat a dragon, uncover Aurea’s past, and save not only herself, but the future of her new kingdom as well. And, to make thinks even more unimaginable, her younger sister, Floria, may end up taking Elodie's place if Elodie doesn't manage to survive long enough to end a centuries long curse.

*Thoughts* So, I picked Damsel after watching the movie trailers for Damsel featuring Millie Bobby Brown. I have to say this. I really hope the author and the producers don't screw this book up. If they do the job I think they can do, the movie is going to be fantastic. I have to say that yes, Elodie is a little naive, but once she figures out she's been sacrificed, there are no holds barred. Her love for her sister is adorable, and I was rooting for Floria to find a way to help Elodie survive somehow. Damsel is not a fairytale with a happy ending. It is a story of a handsome prince and his family who have been sacrificing young women to Dragons every year for 800 years. It is about the women who, like Elodie, are put through hell in order not to become the next Dragon sacrifice. 

Elodie

Inophe was the sort of place for which the globe moved backward. While the rest of the world progressed, barren Inophe slid further and further into the past. Seventy years of drought had reduced the duchy’s meager croplands to endless sand dunes. The people harvested their gardens of cacti for water, and they existed in a system of bartering—­a length of homespun cloth in exchange for the chore of mending a fence; a dozen eggs for a tincture to ease a toothache; and on special occasions, a goat in exchange for a small sack of precious imported flour.

“It’s a beautiful place, despite everything,” Duke Richard Bayford said as he rode his horse to the edge of a plateau that overlooked the soft brown landscape, broken up here and there by the lean branches of ironwood trees and the yellow flowers of acacias. He was a tall and wiry man, his face wrinkled by four and a half decades under the relentless sun.

“It’s a beautiful place because of everything,” his daughter Elodie chided gently as she rode up beside him. At twenty, she’d been helping him with the Duchy of Inophe for as long as she could remember, and she’d one day inherit the role as its steward.

Lord Bayford chuckled. “You’re right as usual, my dove. Inophe is beautiful because of everything it is.”

Elodie smiled. Below their plateau, a long-­eared fox sprang from the shade of a desert willow and chased something—­probably a gerbil or lizard—­around a boulder. To the east, undulating dunes rose and fell, mountains of sand cascading toward a glittering sea. Even the dry heat on Elodie’s skin felt like the welcome embrace of an old friend.

There was a rustle in the scrub behind them.

“Pardon me, Lord Bayford.” A man emerged, carrying a staff. A moment later, his herd of bearded gray desert goats followed, indiscriminately biting off the heads of spiny flowers and their thorned stems and swallowing them whole. If only the people of Inophe had such gums and stomachs of iron, they’d be able to survive much better in this harsh clime.

“Good day, Lady Elodie.” The shepherd swept off his tattered hat and dipped his head as the duke and Elodie dismounted.

“How may we be of service, Immanuel?” Lord Bayford asked.

“Er, your lordship . . . My oldest son, Sergio, is about to be married, and he’ll be needing a new cottage for his family. I was hoping that, uh, you might be able to . . .”

Before the pause could grow awkward, Lord Bayford jumped in. “You need building materials?”

Immanuel fiddled with his staff but then nodded. Inophean tradition held that fathers gifted their sons with new homes on their wedding day, and mothers gifted their daughters with handmade gowns. But decades of impoverishment meant it was harder and harder for the old ways to continue.

“It would be an honor to provide the materials for Sergio’s cottage,” Lord Bayford said. “Do you need assistance with its construction? Elodie is particularly good with rigging solar stills.”

“True,” she said. “I’m also good at digging latrines, which Sergio and his wife can use after they’ve drunk the water they collected in the solar stills.”

Immanuel’s eyes widened as he stared at her.

Elodie cursed herself under her breath. She had, unfortunately, a gift for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. When faced with social interaction, especially the expectation that she say something, Elodie seized up—­her shoulders tightened and her throat went dry, and her once coherent ideas tumbled on top of one another like books from an upended shelf. Then she’d end up blurting out whatever thought had landed at the top of that pile, and it would inevitably be inappropriate.

That wasn’t to say she was unappreciated. The people respected her devotion to Inophe. Elodie rode several days every week under the scalding sun from tenancy to tenancy, checking on what the families needed. She helped with everything from building rat traps around henhouses to reading tales of princesses and dragons to children, and Elodie loved every moment of it. She had been raised for this. As her mother used to say, giving yourself to others is the noblest sacrifice.

“What Elodie means,” Lord Bayford said smoothly, “is that she doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty.”

Thank goodness Father is still in charge, Elodie thought. One day she would be duchess of these lands. But for now, it was a relief that the duchy had the charismatic Richard Bayford at its helm.

Elodie kept an ear on the conversation as Immanuel detailed how much wood and how many nails he would need, but she turned her body so she could look past the dusty landscape to the open water beyond. Ever since she was a child, the sea had soothed her, and as she focused on the waves shimmering under the sun, some of the sting of her latrine faux pas faded, and her shoulders began to release some of their tension.

She sighed in relief.

Perhaps, in a past life, she’d been a sailor. Or a seagull. Or maybe even the wind. For although Elodie devoted her days to the work of Inophe, she spent her evenings dreaming of being out on the ocean. She liked sitting in the local taverns, listening to stories the seamen brought from abroad—­what festivals and customs other kingdoms celebrated. What their lands looked like, how the weather was. How they lived and loved and even how they died. Elodie collected sailors’ yarns like a crow hoards shiny buttons; every tale was a rare treasure.

Once the list of requirements for Sergio’s new home was finished and Immanuel and his goats had departed, Lord Bayford rejoined Elodie at the edge of the plateau. As they gazed out at the horizon, a small speck sailed into view.

Elodie tilted her head, perplexed. “What do you suppose that is?” It was not yet the season for Inophe’s trading vessels to return from abroad with much-­needed grain, fruit, and cotton.

“There’s one way to find out,” Lord Bayford said, climbing onto his horse and winking at Elodie. “Whoever arrives at the harbor last has to dig Sergio’s latrines!”

“Father, I’m not racing—­”

But he and his horse were already charging down the plateau.

“You’re a cheater!” she called after him as she leapt onto her own horse.

“It’s the only way I have a fighting chance of winning,” he shouted over his shoulder.

And Elodie laughed as she took off after him, because she knew it was true.

The ship’s flags bore the colors of wealth, a rich crimson with gilded edges, and the gold dragon on its prow gleamed proudly. The officers on board wore uniforms of velvet with fine golden embroidery around each button and cuff, and even the ordinary sailors sported berets of deep red decorated with a jaunty gold tassel.

In contrast, the Inophean harbor stood hunched like a wizened old man, splintered and gray, its docks weather-­beaten by both salt and sun. The posts were composed of more barnacles than wood; they creaked noisily with every wave, the ancient bones complaining of the wind and the damp.

The port was a sizable one, for Inophe depended on trade to feed its population. The duchy produced two natural resources—­gum from acacia trees and slabs of guano, dried bird excrement used as fertilizer—­and in exchange, Inophe received just enough barley, corn, and cotton to get its people by.

Elodie had spent as much of her life in the dry plains inland as she had here on the piers, tallying export and import receipts and picking up bits and pieces of new languages from the traders. But this ship’s colors were unfamiliar to her, as was their coat of arms: a gold dragon clutching a sheaf of wheat in one claw and a cluster of what looked like grapes or berries in another. When Elodie reached its dock, Lord Bayford was already there.

She exhaled. “All right, you win. It’s a good thing I was planning on digging Sergio’s latrines anyway.”

He waved away her concession. “There are more important things at stake now. Elodie, I would like you to meet Alexandra Ravella, royal envoy of the Kingdom of Aurea.” Her father gestured to a trim woman in her fifties, wearing a gold tricorn and a crimson velvet uniform. “And Lieutenant Ravella, may I present the older of my daughters, Lady Elodie Bayford of the Duchy of Inophe.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Lieutenant Ravella said in perfect Ingleterr, one of the common languages used in international trade and also the official language of Inophe. She removed her hat, revealing silver hair tied back in a neat knot, and bowed deeply.

But Elodie frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. Father, what’s going on?”

“Only the very best of news, my dove.” Lord Bayford wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Forgive me for keeping secrets from you, but I confess I have met Lieutenant Ravella before, several months ago. When we negotiated your engagement.”

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - A Glamour of Blood by L.E. Sterling #YA #Dystopian #Fantasy

Series: Standalone
Format: Kindle, 350 pages
Release Date: August 28, 2023
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: YA / Dystopian / Fantasy

All that glitters is deadly… She survived the Plague. She lived through the Battle of the True Born's. But he might just be the death of her…

Blade Runner meets Divergent in this gritty, high-energy, and noir-inspired dystopian read...where what you see isn’t always what is.

With the release of A Glamour of Blood, L.E. Sterling returns to the world of the True Born (which ended in 2018) with a new book featuring some new, and old characters like Doc Raines, and Nolan Storm, the leader of the True Born in Dominion City and the most powerful man around. In this world, the plague ravaged the population for years. It turned people into Splicers, True Born, and Lasters. Thanks to the work of those like Doc Raines, the plague was stopped, but things are not exactly free of emotion, and hatred.

This book features Serena Rogue (not her real name). Serena has survived almost everything. The plague. A brutal battle that touched—in eerie and wondrous ways—every citizen. Serena has been living on the streets of Dominion City since she was 12 years old. After the death of her mother, the high priestess of the Order of the Cernunnos, she was abandoned by her stepmother Marjorie and rejected by her clan. She and her familiar Carl  Chiba, who is 1/2 man, 1/2 cat, were members of the Rogue Army.  

With the towers of Dominion City smoldering in ruins, the citizens are dying of hunger and someone has been snatching the children left to the streets, including a little girl named Macy who calls Serena Sky Lady, Serena takes it upon her self to investigate. Serena was once one of those kids, and she won’t stop until she finds whoever is behind this. Even if it means having to strike some kind of peace treaty with the one man who wants her dead. Because Nolan Storm isn’t one to cooperate when he can kill—especially if it’s someone who betrayed him. 

Now an evil is rising from the ashes of Dominion City—shrouded in power, mystery, and a history almost as long as civilization itself—and Serena and Nolan don’t have a choice. The only way they’ll survive the Order is by working on the same side. But enmity and attraction are a lethal combination. Serena will be forced into facing her past face to face, and be challenged at every turn because she is the only person in the known world who has the abilities that she does which makes her the ideal consort to Nolan Storm. If they don't kill each other first.

*Thoughts* The author has stated that she wrote Serena to have eye issues because that make her more likable and realistic. Plus, the author herself has struggled with eye issues. I normally get these books from the publisher, but found that Kindle Unlimited offered it to me for free. I would suggest that you go back and read the final novel in the True Born trilogy just so you really know who Nolan Storm and Doc Raines are. It would also make sense to find out why Nolan was ready to kill Serena on sight when this story opens. I also think that the story's ending is predictable in the way things play out. Not that there's anything wrong with predictable! 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Ending Eleven by Jerri Chisholm #YA #Dystopian

Series: Eleven Trilogy (#3)
Format: Paperback, 400 pages
Release Date: March 6, 2023
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian

My name is Eve Hamilton.
Everyone in Compound Eleven thinks I was killed. But they’re dead wrong…

I spent my entire life in Compound Eleven as a fighter. Surviving in an underground city filled with violence, oppression, and tyranny. We were told the world above was scorched, an immediate death sentence. I should have died never knowing the truth. Instead, when I fought Wren—a boy from the top floor, a Preme—I fell for him. And eventually learned that my reality was an insidious lie.

Escaping Compound Eleven nearly killed me and Wren. Now we’re aboveground, where the world is anything but a toxic, burning wasteland. It’s green and lush, filled with sunshine, fresh water…and hope. All of which tastes bitter when I see what it’s cost me. Because something in Wren has changed. He’s broken—along with whatever it was between us.

Now the tides of violence in Compound Eleven are rising, threatening to spill out and shatter this peaceful place with brutality, corruption, and death.

But do I stop them…or join them? 

Ending Eleven, by author Jerri Chisholm, is the 3rd and final installment in the authors Eleven Trilogy. Four generations ago, Earth was rendered uninhabitable, the sun too hot, the land too barren. Those who survived were forced underground, where civilization divided into compounds. In Compound Eleven, only the cruel survive. Fighting is entertainment, violence is a way of life, and hierarchy is everything. For the Primes who inhabit the fifth floor, life is comfortable. For the Lower and High Means and the Denominators who live on the floors below, it is anything but.  

This story picks up right where Unraveling Eleven ended with Eve Hamilton and an injured Wren Edelman fleeing the Eleven compound to the world above that they discovered in the previous installment. What was supposed to be a massive hot zone, has since made a comeback, as nature tends to do when it is left alone, and now humans are able to live and thrive thanks to those like Michael. Her only error was leaving her mother behind. A mother who has never been the same since the Preme found out that she had an illegal son named Jack. 

But with her mother left behind, and Wren hanging on by a thread, Eve has to make some choices. One of those choices is to return to Eleven and see if she can make her mother leave with her. One things turns to another and suddenly Eve discovers that there is a rebellion growing within Eleven. A rebellion that includes friends of her she also left behind hoping to return for them. Unfortunately for Eve, she also senses something is wrong with the group that she discovered, and now Wren seems to be a totally different person thanks to people who hate Michael. 

Besides the fact that others are treating her with scorn because of her closeness with Michael, Eve is still hopeful that she was find her brother outside and save her mother. She also finds that she's willing to help the rebellion arm themselves which means going against Michael's determination to keep all weapons locked up while also searching the abandoned city which is now a mass graveyard. If you are a reader who loved the Hunger Games, or The 100, or even Divergent, you should read this series. 

Eve is a character who has been through so much. From being taught by her father to fight when she was a young girl, to becoming a circuit fighter, to learning that everything she was told about the outside is a lie, to becoming the face of a rebellion, she never forgets that there are those who tried to take everything from her family, and did take her brother away. Eve struggled to reconcile the part of her that longs for a peaceful and quiet life. Eve's conflict with Wren was, in my opinion, unnecessary, but perhaps it is a sign of her growth that she doesn't totally fall to pieces when everything things to be changing.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Poster Girl by Veronica Roth #Dystopian

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Release Date: October 18, 2022
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Source: Publisher
Genre: Dystopian

For fans of Anthony Marra and Lauren Beukes, #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth tells the story of a woman's desperate search for a missing girl after the collapse of the oppressive dystopian regime—and the dark secrets about her family and community she uncovers along the way.

WHAT'S RIGHT IS RIGHT.

Sonya Kantor knows this slogan—she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation.

And then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. And its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives.

Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past—and her family’s dark secrets—than she ever wanted to.

With razor sharp prose, Poster Girl is a haunting dystopian mystery that explores the expanding role of surveillance on society—an inescapable reality, even if cracked.

Veronica Roth's Poster Girl tells the story of a woman named Sonya Kantor aka Poster Girl in her desperate search for a missing girl after the collapse of the oppressive dystopian regime—and the dark secrets about her family and community she uncovers along the way. 10 years ago, 17-year old Sonya Kantor was the Poster Girl for the Delegation who required everyone to be implanted with Insight technology that could track their every movement, as well as DesCoin which paid citizens for their good behavior, and deducted coins for bad behavior.

After the Uprising, the Delegation fell and its most valuable members were locked away for life in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city of Sea-Port. Everyone else is now free from the Insight’s monitoring and went on living their lives. Thanks to a new law called The Children of the Delegation Act, the Triumvirate who replaced the Delegation has decided to release certain individuals who were young adults 10 years ago when the Delegation fell during the Uprising. Sonya was the only member of her family that was caught and set to the Aperture. 

Losing every member of her family, and a decision she made that day to safe herself, still hangs over everything she does. Even though she's self taught herself how to fix things, she knows that it is unlikley that she will ever leave thanks to her name and face and notoriety. Until Alexander Price, the boy who betrayed her family, shows up claiming that Sonya is being given a chance at her freedom by the Triumvirate. All she has to do is find a girl who has been missing for 10 years. A girl who was taken because she was an illegal second child unlike Sonya who was given special permission from the Delegation to be born and not taken from her family.

The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past—and her family’s dark secrets—than she ever wanted to. She finds that Alexander hasn't exactly had the best lives after he betrayed her family and may be her only friend. She also finds that the new regime is not as squeaky clean as they've told people, and that secrets will eventually bite Sonya in the ass if she doesn't watch her back. Because of her past, Sonya is liked by almost no one, not really even her fellow political prisoners.

Reason for my review: First, there is literally no world building. We are told of an uprising. We are told that the Delegation was bad, and the new regime is more people friendly. We later learn that there's a rebellion gaining traction right under the new regime's noses, and they, along with Emily Knox, a hacker who Sonya uses to find the missing girl, are not exactly ready to open their arms to Sonya. The story also ends flat and there's a whole lot left to be explained. 

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Furysong by Rosaria Munda #YA #Fantasy #Dystopian

Series: The Aurelian Cycle # 3
Format: Hardcover, 496 pages
Release Date: August 9, 2022
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian

In this explosive conclusion to the epic trilogy that began with Fireborne, Annie and Lee are fighting for their lives—and for each other—as invading dragonfire threatens to burn their home to the ground.

A new revolution is underway, and nobody will emerge unscathed.

In New Pythos, Griff is facing an execution by the dragonborn, who are furious at his betrayal. He has allies on both sides seeking to defy his fate, but the price of his freedom might come at a dear cost. And Delo will have to make a choice: follow his family, or finally surrender to his conscience.

Meanwhile, Annie must race home to hatch a plan to save her Guardians and their dragons. With Callipolis on the brink of collapse and the triarchy set to be reinstated, she may be the one person who can save the city—if she can overcome her own doubts about her future.

Lee is a revolutionary at heart, but now he’ll have to find a way to fight with diplomacy. Going up against the dragonborn court and a foreign princess, he faces a test of loyalty that sets his head against his heart.

As the fate of Callipolis darkens, Annie and Lee must determine what they are willing to sacrifice in order to save each other, defeat their enemies, and reclaim their home. 

 "But sing me first her vengeance and her reckoning.
Sing me now your fury-song.

 

Furysong is the third and final installment in author Rosaria Munda's The Aurelian Cycle trilogy. This book picks up where Flamefall left off. The story alternates between four main characters: Antigone, Lee, Griff, and this time, Delo. Griff is a peasant on New Pythos called a humble rider because he was claimed by a dragon. Leo Stormscourge aka Lee Sur Paller is Dragonborn. Antigone aka Annie is First Rider and Fleet Commander of Callipolis Dragon fleet. Annie and Leo grew up together after she was orphaned.

The story also alternates between New Pythos and Callipolis. Lee has been blindsided. He must put aside thoughts of rebellion in favor of diplomacy when Ixion arrives on his shores with Freyda, a Bassilean princess with a dragon that is impossible to fight against. Ixion first acts are to get rid of Annie's Guardians while putting a bounty on her head until she agrees to face him in battle. Annie has no knowledge of what’s going on at home because she’s in New Pythos, trying to incite a rebellion there. Annie, who lost her entire family to dragon scourge, doesn't want to return to the days where she would be a common folk with no rights.

 

After surviving being dropped for treason, Griff paves the way for a revolution in New Pythos, but devastation of his family brings his happiness to a halt. He feels adrift, but everyone is looking to him for leadership. Delo struggles with how much he loves his family and his conscience, with his feelings for Griff contradicting the former and reaffirming the latter. It is fair to say that both Ixion and Freyda are as important to the story as Annie, Lee, Griff, and Leo due to the fact that Ixion is all about bringing back oppression to Callipolis, while Freyda has her own surprising agenda that culminates in an entertaining finale to the series. 

 

Annie realizes that a counterrevolution has devastated Callipolis thanks to Ixion and Freyda. When she heads back, she must keep her wits about her if she has any hope of helping her fellow Guardians and country regain their freedom they won 10 years ago. Annie grapples with returning to save a country that has turned against her and constantly vilified her, no matter her best effort and intentions. What's more, she struggles with her own future with Lee, especially since he's expected to warmly welcome Ixion and his plans for Callipolis. Same could be said with Griff, who is expected to lead his country, and Delo, whose family was dethroned by Griff's revolution.

 

I am not displeased by this finale. I only wish that Annie had been more like she was in the previous installments. It wasn't until she faced an untenable situation, that she wakes up and rises to the occasion. I don't care for the whole not having a family as long as you are a dragonrider. That seems archaic at best. I wasn't really a fan of Griff's for most of the book either. He has some issues, but who doesn't have issues in this book? 

 

Delo

New Pythos

It's the eve of the Long-Awaited Return, and I'm about to lose everything.

Everything. That is what he's become for me, this boy who kneels beside me as I stare down my family, my court, as if I were alien to them. Griff Gareson, the humble-rider, the peasant, whom I never was supposed to love. I look down at his damp curls, at the burns that glaze the muscles of his neck, and wish we were alone so that I could kiss them one last time. I marvel at how steadily he holds his head.

Does he not realize what is happening?

"Why did you give it to him?" Lady Electra asks.

My crime: I gave Griff Gareson the key to his muzzled, chained dragon, which he used to find Antigone, Firstride of the Callipolan Fleet, and turn spy against us.

Tonight, Griff's crimes have been uncovered even as our plan proceeds unfoiled. Ixion still sets out to bring Callipolis to its knees with the help of a foreign princess and a promise of bread. I'm closer to returning to my home now than I've been in these ten long years of exile. I should be glorying in our triumph.

But all I can think is that the one I love is about to be dropped.

The dragonborn exiles in this room look at me, look at him, and make their assumptions. They assume I was a lovestruck fool, too smitten to ask what he did with that key.

I was smitten. I am smitten. But I was never a fool. I didn't ask what he did with that key, but I knew.

I let him.

Why? That is the question that turns over and over, like sea-smooth stones knocking in my hand. Why did I enable this treachery?

I have prepared for the Long-Awaited Return to Callipolis as eagerly as the rest of them. I long to go home. I feel the absence of the Skyfish Summer Palace like the ache of a missing limb, still waking up, ten years later, from dreams where I smell the Medean wafting through sunlit marble halls and hear the ghostly laugh of a mother the usurpers took from me.

"It's been a pleasure serving all of you," says Griff, bowing low, before he is dragged from the room.

Once he's gone, Father makes the one demand commensurate with my failure.

"You will be the one to drop him."

 

***

Hours later, in my chambers where I wait for dawn, a knock sounds on the door and my surroundings return to me. The tomes spread across my desk contain the old poems with their heroes; I've been staring at them, unseeing, since I lit the lamp and slumped in this chair hours ago. The childhood comforts have not worked tonight.

Outside the door, I find a young Norcian woman holding a note.

Mabalena, called Lena, was once a humble-rider, like Griff. Her limp, her strangely angled limbs, and her lopsided face are a reminder of the punishment she suffered six years ago. Found guilty of sedition and dropped, as Griff will be-though only an idiot would believe sweet, bumbling Mabalena capable of anything they accused her of. She's served in the citadel ever since. Her quarters are in the dungeons, in an unlocked cell; there's no point locking Lena in. She has nowhere left to go.

For her, the drop was a life sentence of pain. For Griff, it will be an execution.

"A message from Lord Rhode, my lord."

Rhode has written: Do not despair so soon, brother. There are plenty more peasants to warm your bed.

Moments like this, I strain to remember the childhood in which Rhode and I were friends.

I look over the letter at Mabalena, who waits with eyes downcast, her face placid, her usual matted hair limp as if a coarse brush had been recently forced through it. It's hard to believe, looking at this broken girl, that she ever rode on a dragon's back. The unasked questions shriveled on the vine years ago: Do they touch you? Do they hurt you? The same questions I learned not to ask Griff when Julia started summoning him and laughing about it afterward. What could I do with my knowledge? Nothing. And when nothing can be done, discretion is the last decency.

I used to wonder what was wrong with me, for caring. Whether it's me who is perverse, or my family, remains a matter of opinion. But with Griff about to drop, it's a little late for my cure. I take two steps to the fire and drop the note in it. Mabalena watches the parchment burn with flames reflected in her eyes.

"How is the Callipolan prisoner?"

Mabalena's eyes dart from the fire to my face. What tearstains she sees there, she doesn't linger on. "He struggles with sorrow spells still," she says. "Missing his skyfish. But he is kind. We speak a little Dragontongue. Daily he improves; his wounds heal."

All the prisoners are Mabalena's charges, but I noticed, when I surrendered Duck Sutter into her care two months ago after finding him improbably alive in the rubble of a blazesite, that she took particular interest in his rehabilitation. The Callipolan's sorrow at the loss of his dragon is something she understands, just as she knows what it is like to survive a fatal drop, and live with a shattered body, as Duck Sutter has had to do.

I hoped they would help each other. All the same, I'm not prepared for what Mabalena murmurs next. "The Callipolan has been . . . sunlight to my darkness, my lord."

She sounds as if she isn't sure it's a good thing. Her expression is, for a moment, so vulnerable it looks naked.

Sweet Mabalena, who fell so hard. Doesn't she know that happiness is something we're not allowed?

I gesture at the armchair between us, and Lena eases into it like a perching bird. I take the seat opposite. The expression on her scarred face grows all the more disconcerted as I pour wine into two goblets and offer her one. She drinks when I drink.

"Griff has been found guilty of treason."

Her fingers tighten on the goblet. Understanding, as only Mabalena could, what that word forebodes.

"Father has ordered me to do it."

"Then you should," she says.

Only when she says it, and I feel no surprise, do I realize this is what I needed her to say.

Because I've been thinking it, too.

Lena's eyes are ice gray. Like they've been drained of color. "You can assure that it is done well, for the sake of his family. You can assure that his family is-spared."

Last time, Rhode did it. He was the one who decided to drop Lena's family and then her.

I've closed my eyes. A soft pressure cools my face: Mabalena has placed her fingers on my cheek. "Before Rhode gave me his message to deliver," she murmurs, "I saw your Griff, in the cell where they've put him. He had a message, too."

I look at her, and now my heart is racing. "What did he say?"

"He said to take Gephyra out before the drop. Take a long flight. Summon your courage, make your vigil, and when you come home-do your duty."

Annie

They intend to drop Griff at dawn, but we're ready long before that.

The pillars of karst surrounding New Pythos are black fingers against a gray sky when Aela and I leave the lairs of the ha'Aurelian citadel. On the crown of Thornrose Karst, among winter-dead brambles overgrowing their shrine of standing stones, Griff's sister, Agga, hides with her two children. They were moved here for their safety in the night. The three of them emerge when Aela lands, and the little boy, Garet, beckons me to a place on the edge of the cliff where I can watch for sunrise.

Garet. The same name, and nearly the same age, as my brother when he died. Our languages, Callish and Norish, share roots like they share damp winters and long hungers. I can't help feeling that I've got more in common with this peasant family on the other side of the sea than I do with the Callipolan elites who've been my classmates for the last ten years. Agga's barely older than me.

Her daughter, Becca, watches from a pace apart, her eyes traveling slowly from me to the dragon and back. She blinks very little, as if we might vanish if she doesn't keep her eyes wide open.

"It's done," I tell Agga.

Her voice is pitched low. "The poison?"

The lairs were still dark when Aela and I left them. The smell of smoked fish and charred leather was identical to that of the nests in Callipolis, though the murmured Norish of the squires, Griff's friends, was too quiet for a semester's worth of study to understand. I did not know these dragons, but they did, and they were the ones I gave the amphora of drachthanasia to and told to divvy it up.

"The squires did it. Aela and I took care of the muzzles."

With a squire named Fionna leading the way, Aela and I wormed our way down the damp corridor of the lairs, Aela taking each iron muzzle into her mouth, one by one, and breathing fire on it until the metal glowed and snapped. When we freed Fionna's, a tawny aurelian with deep black eyes, the woman's shoulders slumped in relief and the dragon whimpered.

Agga's eyes are rimmed white in the gray light. "They can fly free? They can fire?"

I nod. "The squire on duty will release them on our signal."

 

I ask Agga to show me where the drop will take place on the silhouette of the main island. Her trembling finger identifies Conqueror's Mound, a sloping hill at the center of the Norcian villages opposite the ha'Aurelian citadel, overshadowed by the statue of an invading lord. The Norcians will be summoned to witness and learn the lesson.

 

Griff Gareson, dropped for treason.

 

Griff Gareson, dropped for conspiring with the Callipolan Firstrider.

 

Dropped for conspiring with me.

 

And we will turn this moment into the opportunity Griff needs to stage his revolution. Agga's grandfather Grady is rallying the four trusted clans now, waking village elders, and spreading word to prepare for war.

 

"I don't think you poisoned all of them," Agga says.

 

I'm about to ask her how she knows. There were empty stalls where some of the dragons should have been, leaving us all with a lingering unease. Ixion's stormscourge, Niter, was not among them, nor was the dragon that belongs to Freyda, the Bassilean princess he's courting. Her goliathan, a great breed from the continent, is rumored to be large enough to blot the sky. The squires filled the troughs of the missing dragons with poisoned feed anyway, assuring me that those absent must only be on patrol and would be back before dawn.

 

When I follow Agga's gaze now, I realize she means a specific dragon.

 

A skyfish has breached the clouds a few miles out, her slender silhouette a gray line against the wisps of fog hanging low in the morning, her narrow wings a crossbar as she glides. Her rider looks like a tiny toy soldier atop her back.

 

I stretch a hand toward Aela, stilling her. "Everyone get down."

 

We slide to our knees in the bracken as the skyfish streams overhead.

 

Garet's shrill voice hisses as his neck cranes for a glimpse of the dragon. "Isn't that Gephyra? It's Delo sur Gephyra. We don't have to fear Delo."

 

Agga forces Garet's head down and breathes her answer. "Today, we do."

 

I feel a small hand slip into mine, and find Becca crouched beside me. She looks up, not at the dragon, but at my face. Her tiny nails dig into my palm. Beside us, Aela's amber wings hug her sides and her neck twists so that one slitted pupil can take in the dragon passing overhead.

 

With a flick of her tail, Gephyra vanishes into the streaks of fog above us.

 

Becca's fingers untwine from mine. Garet shrugs off his mother's arm. We unfold from our crouches, and Agga's gaze lingers on the clouds into which Delo sur Gephyra vanished.

 

"Poor boy," she murmurs. "They'll make him do it."

 

I remember the way Griff's voice caught when I taught him how to write his family's names and he asked to add a single more. The way he carefully spelled Delo Skyfish in a practice notebook. I get to my feet, brushing twigs from my knees. "I thought the dragonborn were accustomed to taking peasants into their beds."

 

"Their beds, yes. Not their hearts."

 

So, less like the dragonlords of old and more like Lee and me. Or like we would have been if his father were still alive, and Lee's loyalty still to his people, when he learned to love me.

 

Come back to me, Lee said.

 

And I will, as soon as I get this job done.

 

"At least Griff will be the only one he'll have to drop."

 

The squires told me that the last time a Norcian rider was dropped in punishment, her family was dropped too. They whispered her name: Mabalena. The story, and their awed horror, was too familiar for comfort. Across miles, with a sea between us, with fire or without, the dragonlords punish families in the same way. I was my village's Mabalena.

 

So I was the one who insisted we move Agga and her children here, for their safety, until the plan is completed.

 

Because this has been my concern, I'm a little surprised at what Agga chooses to say next.

 

"I am grateful for your help today." Her children can't hear her low voice over the whistling wind. "But I want you to know, when I heard he had been meeting with you, I wept."

 

There is a fire in her eyes not unlike Griff's as she holds her son's shoulder and dares to look me in the eye. It has taken her courage to say this: I can see how her gaze darts to my dragon, then my face.

 

There must have been a moment, when my father imagined the cellar he could dig and decided to make the gamble that would bring dragonfire down on our heads.

 

Agga knows, and I know, that I was that gamble for Griff.

 

I am the recourse to violence. I am the last resort. At best, I am the lesser evil.

 

I'm a dragonrider, and I'm here to do my job.

 

"You were right to weep."

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Dance with the Devil by Kit Rocha #SyFy #Dystopian

Series: Mercenary Librarians # 3
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: August 16, 2022
Publisher: Tor Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Science Fiction

The Mercenary Librarians and the Silver Devils are back in the explosive conclusion to USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Kit Rocha’s post-apocalyptic action/romance, with hints of Orphan Black and the Avengers

POWER IS NEVER GIVEN, ONLY TAKEN

Tobias Richter, the fearsome VP of Security of the TechCorps, is dead. The puppetmaster is gone and the organization is scrambling to maintain control by ruthlessly limiting Atlanta's access to resources, hoping to quell rebellion. Our band of mercenary librarians have decided that the time for revolution has come.

Maya uses her wealth of secrets to weaken the TechCorps from within. Dani strikes from the shadows, picking off the chain of command, one ambush at a time. And Nina is organizing their community—not just to survive, but to fight back. When Maya needs to make contact with a sympathetic insider, Dani and Rafe are the only ones with the skill-set and experience to infiltrate the highest levels of the TechCorps. They'll go deep undercover in the decadent, luxury-soaked penthouses on the Hill.

Bringing Dani face-to-face with the man who turned her into a killer. And forcing Rafe to decide how far he'll go to protect both of his families—the one he was born to, and the one he made for himself.

Victory will break the back of Power. Failure will destroy Atlanta.

Dance with the Devil is the third installment in author Kit Rocha's Mercenary Librarians. A trio of information brokers led by Nina, have joined forces with a squad of elite super-soldiers led by Knox and his Silver Devil Squad (Conall, Rafe, Gray, and Mace), to use their knowledge to help the hopeless in a dystopian post-apocalyptic United States (mostly Atlanta) ruled by a corporate autocracy. Nina and her friends Maya and Dani were part of a government program specializing in clones and genetic modification to be Executive Security operatives.

Maya, who never forgets anything she learns, uses her wealth of secrets to weaken the TechCorps from within. Maya has a huge bounty on her head because she knows some damaging secrets. Dani strikes from the shadows, picking off the chain of command, one ambush at a time. Dani is a walking weapon who shouldn't be taken lightly. And Nina is organizing their community—not just to survive, but to fight back with help from people like Jaden Montgomery, and Savitri.  

Knox's Silver Devils are now considered Rogue by TechCorps who has tried hard to take them down. As with the previous installments, this book features two characters, while also including a rash of other characters. Danijela (Dani) Volkova and Rafe Morales are the primary characters, while the rest of the Silver Devils as well as Maya and Nina all play their parts. Dani is a character who I have been waiting to learn more about. Dani was genetically engineered in a clone facility to be the perfect warrior. 

From the first moment she was introduced, it was explained that she could not feel pain, and that she was nearly untouchable and has been on a mission to destroy various aspects of the Protectorate. It was presumed that she had a heart as cold as ice, but this story tries hard to fix that. Rafe was military intelligence who has had a biochemical implant planted in his brain who finds Dani to be a challenge that he aims to solve. Rafe is smart and he absolutely knows that by pushing Dani she might not ever let her walls down. 

Now that Tobias has been removed from the equation, there are others who are itching to take his place including Helen Anderson and the Professor. When Maya needs to make contact with a sympathetic insider, Dani and Rafe are the only ones with the skill-set and experience to infiltrate the highest levels of the TechCorps. They'll go deep undercover in the decadent, luxury-soaked penthouses on the Hill. This book has a few additional characters that have apparently joined with Nina's group since they are all basically clones. 

Those like Ava who is Nina's sister, Beth, and Phoenix who helps Dani and Rafe when they agree to go on an undercover mission to get closer to who is now pulling the plug at Techcorps. If you've read this series from the beginning, you know that Ava is not an easy character to like. There are those like Mace who would love to see if he can get through her shields. Beth is a creme puff who is always smiling and it seems as though nothing bothers her. She is a helluva fighter though. Then comes Phoenix who has her fingers in many pies all at once. When all is said and done, Phoenix proves she can be a team player. Then comes Rainbow. Rainbow is adorable and not to be ignored. 

Even though the synopsis claims this is the final installment in the series, why would the authors leave a open ended cliffhanger which really needs to be addressed.  

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Revew - Gravity (The Taking #1) by Melissa West #YA #SyFy #Dystopian

Series: The Taking # 1
Format: Kindle, 306 pages
Release Date: October 30th 2012
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Amazon
Genre: Dystopian / Science Fiction

In the future, only one rule will matter: Don't. Ever. Peek. Seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander just broke that rule and saw the last person she expected hovering above her bed -- arrogant Jackson Locke, the most popular boy in her school. She expects instant execution or some kind of freak alien punishment, but instead, Jackson issues a challenge: help him, or everyone on Earth will die. Ari knows she should report him, but everything about Jackson makes her question what she's been taught about his kind. And against her instincts, she's falling for him. But Ari isn't just any girl, and Jackson wants more than her attention. She's a military legacy who's been trained by her father and exposed to war strategies and societal information no one can know--especially an alien spy, like Jackson. Giving Jackson the information he needs will betray her father and her country, but keeping silent will start a war.

Gravity is the first installment in author Melissa West's The Taking trilogy. In a near future, Earth will have destroyed itself and billions of humans will have died thanks to power and greed in what's being called World War IV. The Ancients bailed out Earth and in return humans must enable them to habituate their bodies to Earth so they can cohabit the planet. The aliens would help rebuild the world as well as providing food while humans would give their antibodies to the aliens (otherwise they wouldn't be able to survive on Earth) as well as water. 

Earth was then divided in nations such as Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australian destroyed itself. Each nation has a central president and the presidency is passed down by blood. Ari and her family live in a place called Sydia which is the capital of the Americas. Thanks to the Treaty of 2090 between Zeus and the leaders of Earth, each human is assigned an Ancient arriving from Loge to become hosts. Each night, 17-year-old Ari Alexander must put on a patch that paralyzes them, and allows the Ancient assigned to them to enter their bedroom for The Taking. 

One night Ari loses her patch and opens her eyes to see her classmate Jackson Locket hoovering above her. Ancients are not supposed to be living undercover and she knows she should report him to her father, The Commander, but first she wants to get answers from him. Jackson explains that he needs her help because his people are ready to acclimate and live among the humans, and if earth does not agree, war will ensue. Soon Ari finds herself mired in a treacherous situation. Who does she trust? Jackson the Ancient or her father? Is everything she has been taught her entire life a lie? 

Are the Ancients out to destroy humanity, or will humanity destroy itself? Since Ari is the daughter of the Commander she has had to train in combat and military tactics all her life because she is supposed to be the next Commander. She's top of her class in almost all areas of guns, fist fights, and basic ops. The downside is that Ari is supposed to marry the President's son, Lawrence, to enable a very strong leadership/partnership but how can Ari trust anyone in leadership when she learns what Parliament plans to those Ancients living on Earth?

She finds herself entangled in things that quickly spiral out of control when the leaders of Earth do something really stupid which makes me want to scream. I genuinely hate scientists, and there's literally a million people on this planet that died because of scientists who screwed around and caused the Pandemic we are currently dealing with. Her father was a cold piece of work most of the time, but her mother genuinely cares enough to break rules in order to save her daughter. 

The book does end on a cliffhanger which you should expect since this is the first book in the trilogy. I admit that I took way too long in starting and finishing this book, and now I need the next two books to cross another series off my bucket list.

Amazon