Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Casella and her eighteen-year-old brother, Daniel, are on their way from their home in Arizona to live with their grandmother in Elko, Nevada. The decision to have Audrey and Daniel spend the summer with their nearly eighty-year-old maternal grandmother was made by their father after the "raucous party" Audrey held at home.

Like the rest of her family, Audrey is having a hard time coping with the sudden death of her mother, who was a counselor at her high school. By her own admission she "was busy self-medicating with all manner of troublesome behaviors; Daniel was retreating into avoidance and denial." Meanwhile, her father seems to have stopped living the day of Audrey's mother died. 

However, on their journey to Elko, their father stops at a mysterious hotel called Hotel Ruby, hidden from the road in the trees. Ornate iron gates lead to a driveway lined with trees, a "courtyard, a circle of stone benches and statues, low manicured shrubs with tiny lights brightening everything." The actual hotel is huge - "A white stone front, huge archway with ivy crawling up the walls." Inside is even more impressive: "The lobby is an explosion of grandeur: rich wood furniture, fringed velvet fabrics, and an impossibly large chandelier hanging above it all. Paintings and tapestries decorate the walls, which must be at least three stories high."

In the hotel they meet Kenneth, the concierge, who seems friendly. Audrey's father asks for three rooms just for the night. Kenneth tells Audrey's father that he and Daniel can have rooms on the sixth floor, while Audrey's room will be on the thirteenth floor - definitely an unusual arrangement. After learning about the various amenities available at the hotel, Daniel decides to join the ongoing Anniversary Party-1937 while Audrey and her father take the elevator to their rooms.

Audrey finds the atmosphere of the thirteenth floor mysterious and "heavy. Like the air is too thick." But her gorgeous room quickly removes any ominous feelings she might have. Audrey returns to the lobby and following the sounds of music, discovers the grand ballroom where there is a large party in progress. Like the rest of the hotel, the ballroom is magnificent. "The room is three stories tall, with massive chandeliers, golds and yellows splashed through the room, heavy deep-red drapes framing the doorway. On the walls are panels of intricate tapestries, gold frames." At the party Audrey meets dapper Elias Lange whom she finds herself drawn to. However, it appears that Elias has a girlfriend when he is angrily confronted by Catherine, a beautiful but somewhat cynical woman of Audrey's age. Elias offers to take Audrey on a tour of the hotel, but that doesn't happen when Kenneth questions Audrey, telling her the party is invite only, and firmly requesting she leave the ballroom.

Back in her room on the thirteenth floor, Audrey notices the faint but continuously playing background music which she cannot quite place. Investigation of the thirteenth floor only creeps her out with its chilliness and vacant rooms. In the morning, Daniel comes to Audrey's room. She learns that he received an invitation to the ballroom party but hasn't gone yet. Instead, he spent the night with a beautiful but strange blonde girl, walking the hallways of the Ruby. That girl turns out to be Catherine, Elias's friend. At breakfast, Audrey notices her father looking markedly better. Unexpectedly, he decides they will stay another two nights. As they are eating breakfast, Audrey suddenly sees their waitress, Tanya, with blood oozing from her side. The vision is only momentary but very upsetting to Audrey who quickly brushes it off as her imagination. Later on, Audrey meets up with Elias, who convinces her to let him show her around the Ruby.

During their tour, Elias is vague about why he is staying at the Ruby. When they meet Daniel in the lobby, he complains that he can't get a cellphone signal. They also meet the housekeeper, Lourdes Fuller, who has just returned from leave. Lourdes is upset that Elias has taken Audrey to the basement, fearing that this will make Kenneth, who is in charge of the Ruby, angry and that she will be punished again. Lourdes seems upset when she learns where Audrey's room is located. Lourdes takes Audrey back upstairs and invites her to a party on the rooftop, to celebrate her return to the Ruby.

At dinner that night, Audrey notes the remarkable change in her father. "His wavy salt-and-pepper hair is tamed with gel or mousse, making it flat and old-fashioned. He's clean-shaven, rosy cheeked. But strangest of all, he's interested in our lives again." Her father informs them that he has now "received an invitation to the party in the ballroom tonight."  Daniel plans to attend the party that night, but Audrey cannot as she still does not have an invite. The family dinner does not go well however when her father brings up Audrey's irresponsible behaviour that led to her and Daniel being sent away for the summer. Audrey and Daniel leave, with Audrey going to the rooftop party with Lourdes. Many of the Ruby's staff are in attendance including the waitress, Tanya, the valet, Jerome, Joshua and also Elias. When she suggests that Elias skip the ballroom party, Tanya reminds Elias that there are rules they must follow to avoid being punished. Elias promises to meet Audrey after the party.

Lourdes tells Audrey the story of the Ruby and the fire that destroyed the ballroom on its first anniversary, killing sixty-seven guests who were locked in the ballroom to prevent the fire from spreading. The hotel was rebuilt and "In honor of those who perished, the Hotel Ruby holds a party every night in that ballroom." At the party Audrey learns that the workers have house rules: "No talk of work in the off-hours,...no talk of Kenneth, no talk of our lives outside of the Ruby." 

The group decides to initiate Audrey by scaring her with talk of ghosts and taking her to the memorial buried deep in the forest surrounding the Ruby. After the scary situation, Audrey notices her arm hurts again but she refuses to take the pills Lourdes gives her. Instead, Audrey goes to the lobby and confronts Kenneth about not having an invitation to the party. He tells her to get some rest and then points out the bleeding gash on her forehead. Completely freaked by this, Audrey notices she can barely walk and sees the blood on the handkerchief. But once in the elevator, her head looks fine. This event completely unsettles her.

The next morning at breakfast, Audrey's father apologizes for his behaviour at dinner the night before, and tries to assure her that things are now going to be fine. He tells Audrey that Daniel was also at the party, but didn't want to be there and left early with Catherine. Daniel arrives for breakfast, disheveled and in obvious pain. He tells Audrey he blacked out after leaving the party and he now feels like his head is split in two. When Audrey looks at him, she is horrified at what she sees. Neither Daniel nor her father see what Audrey sees, further upsetting her. This experience along with her seeing Tanya bleeding from her side leave Audrey now questioning what exactly is going on. Little does she know the reality of what has happened to her and her family and what the Hotel Ruby really is.

Discussion

Hotel Ruby is a novel with a fascinating premise that almost works except for the fact that the clues to the mystery of the hotel and to what is happening to the Audrey and her family are easy to discover. The Casella family is struggling to deal with the death of their mother and wife; both children are acting out and their father is unable to function as a parent and therefore help them cope with the loss. Instead of seeking help, the father decides to place the children with their grandmother but nothing is revealed about what he plans for himself. On the trip to the grandmother's home, he crashes the car, fatally wounding everyone.

This sets the stage for the family to enter the Hotel Ruby, by all appearances a normal hotel, but one with a ghastly history: the deaths of dozens of people deliberately sacrificed to save the hotel during a terrible fire. In fact, the Ruby is haunted by those who died during the fire of 1937. Even worse, the ghosts who work in the hotel are controlled by a very evil ghost, Kenneth, who runs the Ruby on their plane of existence and who has the power to punish them by returning them to the state they were in just before they died. While everyone else is willing to go along with this, the rebellious character of Audrey leads her to push back against Kenneth.

Unlike her brother and father, Audrey is not yet dead, existing on thirteenth floor, able to interact with the ghosts and able to see the living. However, Audrey doesn't remember the accident and believes that they are all alive and have simply stopped at the Hotel Ruby. As time passes, through Audrey's narration, astute readers begin to pick up on the many clues that are peppered throughout the novel as to what really happens at Hotel Ruby.

The hints start early, when the Casellas arrive at the hotel on their journey to Elko. Audrey notices immediately that "There's a haggard desk attendant in the corner, tapping the computer keys while he surfs the Internet. He doesn't even lift his head to acknowledge us. I clear my throat to get his attention, but when he still doesn't respond, I sigh..." This seems to suggest that the attendant doesn't actually see Audrey and her family.

The concierge hints that people rarely check out of the hotel suggesting it is something other than what it appears to be. This is also echoed by Joshua at the rooftop party when he states, "At the Ruby...where you can stay tonight. Or stay forever." These hints continue as Audrey is separated from her father and Daniel, in a room on the thirteenth floor - floor that often isn't acknowledged in hotels. The hotel does not seem to have clocks and they are unable to get cell service despite seeing others use their phones.

Audrey also begins experiencing various unexplained transient physical problems. When she gets out of bed the first morning, she notes that her "ankle buckles under my weigh, and I stagger back onto the bed." Her arm begins to hurt at the rooftop party, "an ache starts in my arm, deep in the bone." Kenneth reveals to her the bloody gash on her head. She also begins seeing terrible wounds on various people; first the waitress, Tanya who has a bloody spot on her side, and then her brother Daniel, who has a ghastly head wound. Strangely Audrey never mentions these sights to anyone - even her family.

However, the single most important clue involves the invitation to the party in the ballroom. It's not subtle at all. First Daniel, then Audrey's father receive invitations to the ballroom. These invitations really mean they have died. Audrey has not received an invitation and when she presses Kenneth for one he tells her that only the hotel can get her one.

The assignment of their hotel rooms also foretells each of their fates: Daniel and their father are placed on the sixth floor indicating that they were close to death when they checked into the Hotel Ruby. Audrey however, is placed on the thirteenth floor where surviving souls eventually return to the living.

The reality of Hotel Ruby is revealed in Chapter 17 when Audrey finds herself dying on the road two miles from the Ruby. She realizes she has been in a car accident and becomes determined to save her father and Daniel. However, once back in the Ruby she comes to learn that this is impossible. Eventually she does receive an invitation leading Lourdes to explain what is happening. "Your body is dying, and if you die here, you stay here forever. You'll be trapped in the Ruby with us. The invitation is symbolic. It's letting go." However, readers will already know this - Lourdes is merely confirming their understanding.

Tanya tells her that because she hasn't yet used her invitation, Audrey can still return home. She can live, but living will mean leaving Daniel and her father here to live on a different plane of reality under Kenneth's tyranny. Tanya tells her she and her sister experienced the same situation and that Daniel will understand if Audrey leaves. This leads Audrey to sacrifice her chance to live in order to help her family and those at the Ruby. She decides she doesn't want her life. To Audrey, staying at the Ruby with her brother and her father offer her the chance to be a family again and to heal from the loss of her mother. She feels her life is irretrievably broken, filled with guilt over falling out of love with her boyfriend Ryan and grief over her mother, Helen's sudden death at age forty-three. Audrey believes Hotel Ruby offers her hope. "My father waits with Daniel, both looking heart-broken. Despite that, seeing them together overwhelms me with a sense of hope. Hope for us. Now that Kenneth is gone, there is no fear. I have my family. Those words are everything: I have my family."

The wealth of hints leads to a climax that is less than exciting: Audrey faces a choice that will either lead her to reclaim her life or to follow her family into eternity at the Ruby. In some ways, the ending was disappointing and depressing. A young girl so overwhelmed with the death of her mother and then the death of her father and brother, chooses to reject all the possibilities living might give her, and decides to die. She sees no hope in living, instead finding hope in being a ghost trapped in a hotel, attending a party in perpetuity. None of the characters really try to convince her otherwise. There doesn't seem to be any reason to remain at the Hotel Ruby, other than Audrey wanting to be with her father and brother, and wouldn't they want her to live? And where is her mother who is also dead?

Although Hotel Ruby is not as suspenseful as one might wish for, but the novel is engaging, beginning with its appealing cover and the interesting hook to draw readers in. 

Book Details:

Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young
New York: Simon Pulse 2015
281 pp.

Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

Sarah Carmichael is the daughter of zoologists living and working in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. Sarah has lived all her life in the field, working alongside her parents. Now it's just Sarah and her father after her mother died four months earlier from a bee attack. Helping them is Theo, a Bushman who has trained Sarah to track and to live in the Kalahari.

Sarah and Theo wait by the landing strip for a plane bringing in five teens who have signed on to a educational safari. The teens include seventeen-year-old Joey Xiong, a Hmong American from California, Canadian Avani Sharma, Miranda Kirk and Kase Rider of Boston, and seventeen-year-old Sam Quartermain from Pittsburg. In return for hosting the teens on a conservation exchange program, Sarah's father will receive much needed research funding from the Song Foundation. When the group arrives at camp they are met by Sarah's father who tells the group that they will be staying in tents.

The group has no chance to settle in when Sarah's father and Theo race out of camp in the truck to try to locate poachers who are hunting a white lion. When Sarah's father does not return by dark, she tries to contact him via radio but is unsuccessful. Sam asks Sarah if they should be worried and she tells him that the situation with the poachers has been getting progressively worse. As night comes on Sarah becomes increasingly concerned about her dad and Theo and even more so when they receive a garbled radio transmission that gives their location and that they are being pursued.  The transmission ends with the sounds of gunshots, leading Sarah to believe her father is now in grave danger.  Sarah is unable to reach Henrico, the South African warden located south of their camp, and she cannot contact the military nor anyone else to help them because the satellite radio is in the Cruiser with her father and Theo. 

At first Sarah wants to leave immediately to track her father but Sam insists he accompany her and this results in all five teens deciding not to stay in camp. Packing water and muesli bars, the group sets off the next morning, with Sarah tracking her father and Theo. Eventually they discover tracks that indicate the Cruiser was being followed by another vehicle. By evening Sarah makes another discovery that the trucks are being followed by an adult male lion. As the sun is beginning to set, Sarah and the group discover the damaged Cruiser smashed into a tree. Tracks leading away from the Cruiser lead Sarah and Sam to Theo who is fatally wounded. As Avani, whose parents are both doctors, attempts to help Theo, he warns them of a silver spirit, a lion hunting. Sarah is deeply shaken by Theo's death and mystified by her father's disappearance. She doesn't know if he has been captured or is somewhere out in the bush.

Sarah discovers that the lion has been around the Cruiser but instead of going after the lion, Theo appears to have followed her father. The group also discovers that the food supplies which were in the Cruiser have been ravaged by wild animals. After burying Theo, the group eats some leftover fruit and then try to rest. The next morning they manage to get the Cruiser started and head back to their camp. However, they discover that the men pursuing Sarah's father have visited the camp and burned it to the ground, destroying not only the tents and supplies, but also Sarah's parent's notes and research. They learn that a man named Abramo is in charge and is determined to find them.

Sam tells Sarah that this is all very strange as ordinary poachers would never go to these lengths, to murder researchers. Sarah creates a false trail for the men to track while she leads her group west hoping to meet up with the road that will take them to Ghansi and safety.  The next morning while working to free the truck which has become bogged down in sand, the group first hears and then is attacked by a lion. However this lion is not ordinary - it is "silver, from nose to tail, as metallic and gleaming as mercury." Sarah immediately realizes that this is the lion the men have been searching for and that they have stumbled upon something much bigger than poaching.

The lion attacks the group as they huddle in fear in the truck and they are only saved by Sarah firing her shotgun and wounding it in the shoulder. The group flees in terror into the bush. Sarah and Sam return to the area and discover the lion is no longer wounded, but behaving strangely and watch as it kills an ostrich for no reason. The lion once again picks up their scent and begins pursuing them through the desert. They only manage to escape when the entire group falls into a huge underground cavern filled with water.

Sarah and the group find their way out of the pool by crawling to the top of metal scaffolding that leads them to an above ground pumping station and find themselves in what appears to be some kind of research facility. As Sarah, Sam and the others scout out the camp, which appears to be abandoned, they discover a laboratory and then a room filled with animals in cages. The cages are filled with numerous different mammals from the Kalahari desert. Many of the cages contain animals that have been shot dead. Other cages hold live animals, some of whom are partially silver while others are like the lion, completely silver. They also find a lab worker dead in the room.

Sarah now believes that the animals have some kind of infection and that the scientists from the lab are chasing the silver lion because it escaped from this facility. Sarah's father and Theo were complications they hadn't expected and so they killed Theo and are now hunting Sarah and her group, her father and the infected lion. Sarah and Sam realize that whoever is responsible for creating the infection now want to cover up the research and will be returning to the lab to finish destroying what remains.

In a small trailer, Sarah makes a truly shocking discovery; three scientists who are infected and completely silver, locked in a room. The scientists who are in advanced stages of the infection are incoherent and in obvious distress. In the trailer, Sarah and Sam come face to face with Dr. Carl Monaghan, who admits that he created a metal that is "alive", - a type of inorganic life. Dr. Monaghan explains "Metalcium is inorganic, and yet it self-replicates. It has a kind of metabolism. It adapts to changes in its environment....Just little cells of metal at first...It was when we began adding lead that its true potential was realized." Avani fills in the details for the others, that metalcium sneaks "into an organism's system by hiding behind a mask of lead." Monaghan admits that he had hoped to use his discovery to heal but, instead the metalcium began attacking them, converting every cell into metal.

The doctor explains that they came to Kalahari because their research could be conducted in secrecy and it is rich in minerals which they required for their research. Once Monaghan realized the danger he tried to stop the research, but Corpus, the company funding the research, refused. Now Corpus has sent out Tony Abramo to clean up the mess, by killing everyone involved and everyone who knows about the research. Monaghan tells Sarah and Sam that they must leave immediately.

Sarah knows they have to get to safety and tell the world about the deadly infection but with Abramo on their tail, her father still missing, and the possibility that they have all been exposed to infection, the likelihood of her getting to Ghansi is beginning to seem remote.

Discussion

Jessica Khoury's novels are characterized by unique stories involving futuristic science in the style of John Wyndham. The story in Kalahari is centered around a new virus, Metalcium, that has been created in a lab, and which gradually converts living tissue into metal, eventually killing its host. Although this twist makes Kalahari an intriguing read, it doesn't appear until Chapter Eight. Instead the first hook is the disappearance of Sarah's father and the group's foray into the semi-desert to find him. From there the plot thickens leading the group from one adventure to the next. The resolution to the story flows quickly and ties up loose ends rather neatly.

Khoury immediately sets up the beginnings of a romance between Sarah and Sam, who seem to develop a rapport quickly, learning about each other as the story moves along. There are other pairings as well, although they really don't figure much into the story; Miranda and Kase are already a couple, but Joey, the group clown, likes the brainy Canadian, Avani. The minor characters are not as well developed, only enough to give readers a sense of who they are.

The author does have her main character, Sarah Carmichael experience an inner journey that parallels the physical one she undertakes in the novel. Sarah is not keen to spend time with teenagers. Her one experience in school in the United States was disastrous. "The kids in the class called me Mowgli and threw bananas at me during lunch." However, Theo encourages her, telling Sarah she needs to spend time with humans too. When Sarah first meets the five teens she judges them as shallow and uncaring  However, her opinion begins to change. When Miranda offers her diamond ring for Sarah to use on a stick, Sarah feels ashamed that she has made assumptions about Miranda without really knowing her. "When I studied wild animals, I always waited until I had all the facts before drawing conclusions about their habits and lives -- why couldn't I do that with people?" By the end of the novel, Sarah is glad to have met all five teens despite what they went through.

When Sarah becomes infected with the Metalcium which will be fatal, she begins to regret how she has lived over the past four months since her mother's death. She admits to herself that since her mother's death she hasn't cared much about life. "The world had been covered in a gray veneer, tasteless and uninteresting. She had been the sun that lit the savanna, and when she died, I'd been left in darkness, not caring whether I stumbled forever through the night or fell over a cliff and was lost. " However, now that she's caught the incurable infection, Sarah begins to see life differently. The change of heart has also come from her deepening relationship with Sam who has helped her to recognize that she could be happy again and "that the sun could rise on a world without my mom." Sarah also realizes that's she's never taken the time to cherish all the special moments in her life and that she's taken the time she's had for granted.

Kalahari has a few spots in the storyline which are weak. The first is the unrealistic actions of Sarah's father, Ty Carmichael, who leaves his daughter with five inexperienced teenagers in a bush camp, taking ALL their food supplies AND the satellite radio with him. Ty is not just going for a short drive in the bush, he's going to try to track what he believes are poachers, who present some degree of risk for him and Theo. It's unlikely that Carmichael, as a seasoned field researcher would have done this.

Secondly, although Sarah's father does manage to escape from Abramo and he has considerable skill as a tracker, he never seems to quite be able to catch up to Sarah and her group. That is, until conveniently at the climax of the novel, when Sarah faces down Abramo - making his sudden appearance seem somewhat contrived.

Kalahari is filled with interesting facts about  this semi-desert region of Africa including the wildlife, the climate and geography and about the Bushmen who still live in the area. Khoury spent time in Africa at the Mabalingwe Nature Reserve and in Botswana where she had the experience of tracking elephants, lions and leopards.

Kalahari is book three in the Corpus series. Overall, Khoury's interesting storyline works well, providing readers with plenty of suspense, some intriguing science fiction and a little romance in an exotic setting.

Book Details:
Kalahari by Jessica Khoury
New York: RazorBill, an imprint of Penguin Group    2015
354 pp.

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

"Each mind unique, each thought created for an instant and then broken apart to form new ones. You don't understand the unbearable beauty of being you."

This Shattered World is the second in the original Starbound series by this outstanding duo. The novel features two new characters but also ties into the first novel, These Broken Stars.

Readers will remember in These Broken Stars, Lilac LaRoux, heiress to the LaRoux fortune and soldier, Tarver Merendsen crash landed after their spaceship, Icarus, was destroyed by an encounter with a dimensional rift. They were directed by mysterious "whispers" to an abandoned station on the planet but not before Lilac died and was brought back to life. At the abandoned base they were able to communicate with the "whispers" who confirmed they were responsible for Lilac's recovery and that they have been the source of the visions the two were experiencing. 

They learn that the "whispers" are energy based, non-corporeal life forms that became trapped in the dimensional rift near the planet. Because they are able to convert energy, these beings were trapped and used to power the station as well as becoming test subjects for LaRoux Industries: they were separated from one another making them weak and unable to return to their home. Tarver managed to close the rift, saving the energy beings and also Lilac, who they were keeping alive.

In This Shattered World, the story moves to the terraformed planet of Avon. Eighteen-year-old Captain Jubilee (Lee) Chase is in a bar called Molly Malone's when she is kidnapped by a handsome, Irish rebel, Flynn Cormac, and taken into the swamps. At first Lee suspects this boy, whom she nicknames "Romeo" is a spy for one of TerraDyn's competitors. Flynn takes her to his currach (boat), forcing her to inhale petrol fumes which knock her unconscious and travels deep into the swamps, where the Irish rebels, known as the "Fianna" are hiding.

Flynn has abducted Captain Chase because she's the one soldier who's been on Avon the longest and she is the only soldier unaffected by what has become known as Avon's "Fury" - a condition that causes soldiers to "blank out" and murder civilians. Flynn also believes Jubilee Chase has vital information regarding a secret base that he has just discovered in the east. But when Flynn mentions the secret base, Jubilee has no idea what he's referring to. She knows of no base in the east and tells him so. Flynn wants to know why Avon is "generations behind" its terraforming schedule and since the planetary review is imminent, he wants to know who is behind the delay and why they are doing it. Flynn tells Lee that if Avon doesn't develop as it should, it will be unable to support a growing population and will never be represented on the Galactic Council.

When Flynn takes Jubilee to the location of the base, it is no longer there. As Flynn drags her to search for the missing base, Jubilee begins to experience strange sensations; she has a strong metallic taste in her mouth, she hears whispers and sees a pale green light in front of her. Suddenly she sees the facility surrounded by a high wire fence and a guard dressed in black looking at her. As she collapses, thinking Flynn has drugged her, Lee finds a mysterious object which she manages to hide in one of her boots. Flynn doesn't know that Jubilee has seen the base and after she collapses he takes her to the rebel's caves deep in the swamp where he hides her in a small cave. Flynn knows rebels like his opponent McBride will murder the "trodairi" in retaliation for the execution of Flynn's older sister, Orla, who led an insurrection ten years ago. Flynn has another rebel, Martha, get word to the base that they have Captain Chase and want to trade her for supplies.

Despite his efforts to hide Jubilee, McBride is told of her presence and violently assaults her before Flynn can intervene. As she is recovering from her injuries, Jubilee learns the true identity of "Romeo", Flynn recognizes that Jubilee is in grave danger and decides to take her back to the base, However,  once they arrive at the rebel dock, Lee knocks out Flynn and using a currah escapes back to the TerraDyn base. Jubilee is debriefed by Commander Antje Towers but she does not reveal the identity of the boy who kidnapped her nor the location of the rebel base. In an attempt to see what Towers might know, Jubilee tells her that the boy was looking for information on a base in the east. This seems to trigger Commander Towers ending the debriefing, raising Jubilee's suspicions that Towers is knows more than she is letting on.

Meanwhile Flynn returns to the base to see Jubilee who tells him that one of her soldiers, Mori, killed a civilian as a result of the Fury and has been shipped out to Paradisa. Jubilee tells Flynn that she believes she is not susceptible to the Fury because she does not dream and that doctors do not know why this is. Flynn warns Jubilee that McBride is planning on waging war against the base but refuses to give her the names of the leaders of the rebellion.

Almost immediately after Flynn leaves her quarters, Bravo Barracks is blown up by a man, Davin Quinn killing thirty soldiers and injuring many others including Flynn. Flynn is taken to a makeshift sick bay filled with wounded soldiers, making the discovery of his identity almost certain. He tells Jubilee that it is very unlikely that Quinn willingly bombed the barracks as he preferred to remain uninvolved with the conflict. At this time Jubilee reveals that she saw the mysterious base in the east and that she found an "ident chip" on the island. They discover that the chip has the lambda symbol of LaRoux Industries on it.

When Flynn's face is posted on the base as the man who kidnapped Jubilee, he escapes back to the rebel caves only to find that Jubilee has apparently murdered some of the rebels after experiencing the Fury. When McBride orders Flynn to kill Jubilee, he finds he cannot and they manage to escape. Both Jubilee and Flynn do not understand how she could have experienced the Fury. Jubilee tells Flynn that when she experienced the Fury she had a metallic taste in her mouth and that she felt dizzy and disoriented - the same as she felt when she found the LaRoux chip suggesting that somehow the Fury is connected to the chip, LaRoux Industries and the base. Jubilee wants to report the massacre at the base, but Flynn convinces her not to. The two escape back to the base, with Flynn hiding out at Sophia Quinn's home. As the two struggle to understand the connection between LaRoux Industries and the Fury and how this might be something that is being done to Avon, Jubilee makes the decision to contact her former captain, Tarver Merendsen, who served on Avon almost a year ago. Tarver agrees to come to Avon.

Jubilee is stunned to see that Tarver Merendsen is the expert TerraDyn is sending to evaluate the base's security in light of the recent rebel attacks. Jubilee and Flynn tell Tarver that the Fury has been getting worse, affecting people who were previously immune and also attacking civilians, and that there is some kind of hidden facility in the east that is connected with LaRoux Industries.

When Tarver contacts his fiancé, Lilac LaRoux asking for her help, Jubilee tries to convince her and Tarver that they need to bring what's happening on Avon to the attention of the military command. However Lilac reveals to Jubilee that she and Tarver discovered her father was involved in a major conspiracy which he covered up by destroying the planet they had crash landed on. She tells Jubilee they believed the aliens from the dimensional rift were destroyed along with the planet but only a few months ago they realized that this was not the case. Tarver tells Jubilee they need to find proof of what is happening on Avon and they need to go public with it, while Lilac warns her to trust what she feels and not what she sees since the whispers can manipulate their minds.

Tarver explains more about what happened to them on the planet when the Icarus crashed. He tells them that "LaRoux Industries opened a rift on that planet, a gateway between this dimension and another...this one permanently jammed open, and there were sentient creatures living there. LaRoux's scientists pulled these being through and trapped them." He also explains that the "whispers" as they call these beings, can change the planet they are on. On the planet he and Lilac crashed on, the planet's growth was sped up and the animals altered. This leads Flynn and Jubilee to consider that the whispers on Avon have done exactly the opposite - slowing down  the terraforming process and preventing any life from developing. 

As the conflict between the rebels and the military grows, Jubilee and Flynn set out to try to find the base and learn what is going on. Can Jubilee and Flynn discover the truth about the secret base and Avon amidst the growing violence between the military and the Fianna rebels on Avon?

Discussion

With This Shattered World, Kaufman and Spooner have crafted a well-written story that builds upon the events from the first novel. The authors seamlessly connect the two novels, although readers won't see the connection until they are almost halfway through the second book. Nevertheless this connection is done very well and is one of the strengths of the novels, creating a cohesive storyline that is both interesting and engaging. Second novels in a trilogy can sometimes be the weaker story but in This Shattered World, the storyline is further developed, even though the main characters are new.

In this novel, Kaufman and Spooner tell their story using two narratives, that of Jubilee Chase, a well-trained soldier from Verona, and Flynn Cormac, a member of the Irish "Fianna" rebel group. In keeping with the structure of the first novel, interspersed is a narrative of Jubilee's story from when she was orphaned at age eight on the planet of Verona. This third narrative is important because it helps the reader understand events that happen at during the climax of the novel, filling in some of the back story.

The recipe in This Shattered World is much the same as in the first novel; two very different people who initially despise one another, are thrown together repeatedly, only to discover they both have redeemable qualities. Jubilee is a strong, motivated female character, determined to forge her own path, a "lifer" as she describes her career in the military. She has a daunting reputation as a steely "trodairi", a soldier with a reputation for dealing harshly with the rebels. She has worked hard to put down the rebels, in part because it was rebellion in her city of November on Verona that killed her parents when she was eight years old. When she meets Cormac she finds him surprisingly thoughtful, more concerned about his people and his planet than making war. She "expected him to snap something stupid and noble, like most idealistic young rebels."  and she also expected him to murder her.

Likewise,  supporting character, Flynn Cormac, whose Irish ancestors settled Avon, discovers that Captain Jubilee is much different from what he expected.  "I don't know what I expected her to be like, but it wasn't this. The stories about her say she's made of steel -- she volunteered to come to Avon, the planet that drives men mad. She never runs, never hides, never loses. Stone-faced... inhuman and deadly." But Flynn begins to realize that Jubilee is not inhuman and that she does feel fear.
 
Neither act as they are expected to. Jubilee does not provide her base commander with Flynn Cormac's identity and when he returns to the base, she doesn't turn him in. Flynn doesn't kill her or allow McBride to murder her, even after it seems Jubilee has killed his cousin, Sean Ahearn's nephew and other children. Eventually Jubilee and Flynn come to love one another, despite their very different backgrounds, mirroring the romance between Tarver and Lilac in the first novel.

Besides the story of Avon and the blossoming love between Jubilee and Flynn, Kaufman and Spooner continue to develop the storyline involving the sentient life form discovered in the dimensional rift on the planet in the first novel. Those beings are also on Avon where LaRoux has attempted to recreate the dimensional rift. Jubilee manages to speak with one of the whispers who tells her that they have been with her for some time now, since she was a child on Verona. The whisper is what Jubilee thought was a ghost when she was a child. The whisper reveals that they were moved from Verona to Avon and that they were forced to make the people on Verona kill her parents. They did not understand what they were doing because death does not exist for them and were told that if they did this they would be sent home. Instead they were sent to Avon by Laroux where they were tortured.  The pain they suffer has driven most of the whispers to become different, "to fall into violence and despair, into pain" causing harm to the people on Avon. This whisper however, understands humans better because of its relationship with Jubilee. It recognizes that humans are different -- they can be individuals but for the whispers, to be alone is agony as they are made to be connected to each other. Concerned that the other whispers will harm humans, the whisper convinces Jubilee that she must destroy the base which is being powered by their own energy. This will destroy them but force them to keep their knowledge of the human world secret.

This Shattered World is another fine novel by this amazing duo. Fans of science fiction will find a compelling mixture of romance, suspense and action. 

Book Details:
This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Los Angeles: Hyperion     2015
390 pp.

Defector by Susanne Winnacker

Defector is the second novel in the Variants Series by Susanne Winnacker. It picks up immediately after the mission completed in the first novel, Impostor.

Alec and Tessa are returning to their FEA (Forces With Extraordinary Abilities) base after Tessa's first mission which was almost a disaster. Alec has told Tessa that he has ended his relationship with Kate and is interested in being with her. On their first date night in response to Tessa's questions about his relationship with Kate, Alec tells her that he and Kate became a couple due to their involvement in a mission together.

The group of agents are called to a meeting by Major who is in charge of the FEA because another agent has disappeared. The meeting includes Alec and Tessa, Tanner, Kate, along with newcomers Devon whose variation is healing and Phil whose variation is producing a killing toxin. Agent Stevens has disappeared, likely due to Abel's Army, the rogue Variant organization. Major believes that Abel's Army needs reinforcements, "Variants with useful talents" and that they were likely targeting Devon and Phil who were being guarded by Agent Stevens.

Abel's Army broke away from FEA years ago and are involved with illegal activities associated with the Russian, Italian and Chinese mafia. Alec states that he has heard that AA has a Variant in their group who is able to alter memories, thus keeping the Variants existence a secret.

Kate approaches Tessa to reveal to her about Alec's secret second Variation - his ability to manipulate other's emotions. Kate tells Tessa he is a Dual Variant and that he has used his second variant to manipulate her. Tessa confronts Alec and learns that what Kate told her is true and then questions Alec as to whether he has manipulated her emotions. She learns that he has done this "Only for your own good. I wanted to help you."

Before Tessa has time to digest these new revelations, Major informs Tessa, Alec and Tessa's roommate and best friend, Holly that they have been assigned to a new mission - Tessa is to impersonate a politician, Senator Jack Pollard who has been receiving death threats, while Alec and Holly will provide security backup. Tessa agrees to this and meets Pollard so she can grab his DNA enabling her to impersonate him. She also learns that someone has stolen the files on the FEA prison where rogue variants are being housed. The event does not go according to plan however as they are attacked by Abel's Army and Holly is kidnapped.

Despite the recapture of the missing Agent Stevens, Tessa is furious. Stevens refuses to divulge any information about Abel's Army except to tell Tessa that they want her and not Holly. Stevens also stuns Tessa with the claim that she has Abel's unique turquoise blue eyes. This revelation, which is confirmed by Major, unravels Tessa's commitment and loyalty to the FEA. Major tells her that by not telling her Abel is her father, he was trying to protect her because he would have recruited her if he knew about her Variation. Abel learned about Tessa from the Livingston mission and discovered she too was a Variant.

This revelation leads Tessa to long for the father she cannot remember and to question why he left her and her mother and what has become of her brother who must also be a Variant. Suspecting Tessa's interest in her father, Major paints a picture of Abel as a ruthless man, telling her that her father only keeps those Variants he can use and that Abel abandoned her when he no longer needed her. Major tells Tessa that Holly will be used as bait to trap her and he refuses her request to help location Holly.

Tessa suspects that Major has not told her all of the truth about herself or her family. So she decides to assume Major's body and to break into the restricted area which houses top secret files. Tessa finds files on her father, Abel Crane, her mother Heather Crane and herself. Her mother is identified as a "volatile" Variant, meaning she is either prone to mental illness or has lost control of her Variation which is regeneration. In her father's files she finds pictures of him when she was much younger and information that he might be with his group in the American Southwest. Tessa also learns that her mother has been in contact with her father multiple times during the past year. Tessa's file indicates that she is considered possibly Volatile and that Kate and Alec have been assigned to watch her.

Tessa is discovered by Major who takes her back to his office. He considers her behaviour over the past few days to be erratic and informs Tessa that he will be sending her to their facility to be treated for her emotional instability. Major walks her to her room where he forces her to take sleeping pills and injects her with a tracker device. When he leaves Tessa decides that she needs to get to Devon so he can help neutralize the sedative with his healing Variation. With Devon's help Tessa manages to escape the FEA compound intent upon finding her father and the truth about her past. It is a journey that will see her change alliances and begin to unravel the past of her mother and father.

Continuing the X-Men theme, in Defector we meet more Variants with unusual powers; Alec who can manipulate the emotions of those around him, Stanley whose spittle drugs people (seriously?), Jago who can transport people over short distances, Will who shatters glass and her brother Zach who can store memories and replay them for others as well as change those memories . Winnacker keeps her readers interested with strange twists in the storyline, yet this doesn't stop the plot from falling into a predictable ending. Defector is mostly about Tessa's journey to learn more about her missing father, whom she discovers is the leader of the rebel Variants. In Defector, she's overwrought and rebellious, struggling with her identity and feeling betrayed by FEA and the boy she loves, Alec.

Winnacker paints the FEA as a typical government agency, not to be trusted, ruthless, with a spin on every story, including the ones they tell their own agents. For every story or "truth" that Major tells Tessa, there is a corresponding explanation given by Tessa's father, mother and brother. In this respect, Defector shines, because like Tessa, the reader simply doesn't know who to believe. Although at the end of the novel, Tessa feels she has come home, the reader wonders if the memories Zach has provided about her life before her mother left Abel are real or have been altered.

It's likely the third novel in this series will see Tessa learning the truth about Abel and her mother Heather and having to decide which version she can live with and how she chooses to live her own life. This paranormal romance really has nothing new to offer. The writing is adequate, the storyline an old one, and the character not in any way captivating.

Book Details:
Defector by Susanne Winnacker
New York: Razorbill, An imprint of Penguin Group (USA)     2014
272 pp.

Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney

Julien Garnier lives in Paris with his parents where he attends the Lycee d'Aile. Julien has a deep connection to art; his mother runs the Musee d'Orsay, an art museum that displays works from 1884 to 1914 and he also sketches. He works at the Musee d'Orsay where he runs tours after school. AS a result, he is allowed into the building whenever he wants. 

One night he sees a most astonishing sight - subjects in the paintings come alive before his very eyes. Dancers from the Degas paintings step out and pirouette, a peach rolls out from a Cezanne painting, and a black cat slinks down from Manet's Olympia. The art coming alive continues for several weeks before the beginning of his story.

Julien is not sure just yet what is happening to the art so he keeps what he has seen a secret. Meanwhile he is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Auguste Renoir's lost painting, The Girl In The Garden to the Musee d'Orsay. This painting surfaced a month ago in a family of high fashion designers, the Clemenceaus, who claim to have had the painting in their family for over a hundred years. Julien is desperate to view this lost treasure, so as an incentive, his mother tells him if he does well in his literature class he will be able to see the painting before it goes up in the gallery.

 A few days later, Julien's mother takes him to see the long lost Renoir at the Clemenceau's home on Montmartre. Mrs. Clemenceau's cross-dressing son, Bonheur, invites Julien to a surprise party for his eighteenth birthday on Friday evening. It is a surprise party because he will be giving away one of his strange ceramic creations, a five-legged calf, as a prize to the person who exhibits the best surprised expression during the party.
 
During his visit with Bonheur, Julien makes an interesting discovery in the Clemenceau home when he finds himself in the wrong room on the way to the bathroom. There he finds a chalk reproduction of half of Renoir's Dance at Bougival showing Suzanne Valadon who was also an artist herself and the first female painter admitted to an art school in France. Julien wonders what the connection is between the Clemenceau family and both Valadon and Renoir, and how the Clemenceau family came to have the missing Renoir.

Dance at Bougival 

While Julien's mother reviews the documentation attesting to the authenticity of the Renoir painting, Bonheur shows the recovered Renoir painting to Julien. Julien is immediately taken with the painting, that of a beautiful girl with blonde hair in a flower garden and feels inexplicably drawn to it.

Meanwhile, Julien continues to experience strange phenomena around artwork. When he is with Emilie, an aspiring ballet dancer, he hears strains of Giselle which leads him to encourage Emilie to work towards getting in to the Paris ballet. When Julien and his friends attend Bonheur's party, Julien sneaks down into the basement and can hear women's voices from below the basement floor. He later learns from Bonheur that these voices are those of the nine Muses from Greek mythology (Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania).

Julien learns that the house at Montmarte where Bonheur lives is the same house where Suzanne Valadon lived and that he is indeed distantly related to her. Bonheur tells Julien that The Girl in the Garden is not like other paintings and that his family has been entrusted to keep it safe. Bonheur allows Julien another chance to view the lost Renoir painting and during this viewing, he witnesses one slender finger from the beautiful girl slip out of the canvas, which shimmers with silver.

The strangeness continues when Julien is sent to the Louvre to check on sun damage on a Renoir painting. There his hand is burned by the candle flame in a La Tour painting, he notices the repaired Renoir painting is showing damage again, and Rembrandt's Bathsheba has a drooping stomach. At first Julien thinks that he's crazy, but when he returns the next day to the Louvre, he discovers more paintings have damage.

Bonheur tells Julien that art is made to come alive in museums and that he has been told by the Muses that only special people like Julien can see art come to life. Bonheur also reveals to Julien that he speaks with the Muses who exist below his home and that they have given him the silver dust that he places in his five-legged ceramic calves. Bonheur tells Julien that the paintings can only come alive in museums.

Sure enough once The Girl In The Garden is hung in the Musee d'Orsay, the beautiful girl comes out of the painting, revealing herself to Julien as Clio one of the nine Muses. Julien is entranced by Clio and they go on dates in the museum, since she cannot leave the building. When Clio goes back into the painting she lives in Monet's garden. Eventually she begins to take Julien into the paintings.

As the art begins to sicken, not only in the Louvre but in galleries and museums around the world, Julien begins to suspect that a terrible curse that involves Renoir and Clio might be behind the damage and that only he and Clio will be able to save the world's priceless art, at a cost that might mean losing everything that matters most to both.

Discussion

Starry Nights is a unique and fantastical love story about a boy who falls in love with one of the Greek Muses who has been trapped in a painting due to a curse placed by Renoir. In this imaginative novel, Whitney has Clio and Julien go on dates where they travel from painting to painting - through Monet's works many of which include the bridge in his famous garden. The author has packed her story with numerous facts about paintings and various artists, although the painting at the center of the story is in fact, fictional. Nevertheless, readers might be inspired to look up Van Gogh's Starry Night, Toulouse-Lautrec’s Dancing at the Moulin Rouge, or Manet's Olympia.

The principal characters in Starry Nights are well crafted.  Julien is a tender, romantic young artist who cares deeply about art as well as inspiring others to create art. Unlucky his first time in love, he finds his "soulmate" in Clio, the Eternal Muse who spends her time inspiring art. Bonheur, the cross-dressing son of the Clemenceaus is based on the real Rosa Bonheur who lived in the 1800's and was known for her portrayal of animals and for wearing men's clothing. He's a sweet soul who helps Julien recognize his ability to heal art as the only human muse and who believes in true love. It's unfortunate other characters in the novel were not more fully developed. Instead these characters such as Julien's friends, Simon and Lucy, were one dimensional and mostly uninteresting.

Readers may find the story line somewhat complex, fantastical and will have to make a careful reading of this novel, but they will be rewarded with a satisfying conclusion to this unique story.

Image credit: Dance at Bougival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_at_Bougival#/media/File:Dance-At-Bougival.jpg

Book Details:
Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney
New York: Bloomsbury      2013
275 pp.

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Lilac Rose LaRoux is the only child of Roderick LaRoux, the wealthiest and most powerful man in the universe. Lilac is traveling through dimensional hyperspace on the Icarus, one of her father's spaceships with a friend, Anna and her bodyguard, Swann, on her way home to Corinth. On the same ship is decorated war hero, eighteen year old Major Tarver Merendsen, heading home for his next posting. Men consciously avoid Lilac LaRoux, heiress to an unimaginable fortune, because even to be seen talking to her can have deadly consequences for a man.

Tarver is unaware who Lilac is when he first sees her. He moves to intervene in an altercation and manages to meet Lilac, whose beauty, red hair and straightforward manner appeal to Tarver. They spend a few minutes talking until Anna returns and Tarver understands he is supposed to leave. When they meet a few nights later on the observation deck of the Icarus, instead of a friendly encounter, Tarver finds he is dismissed abruptly by Lilac. Although Lilac finds she likes Tarver, she knows that he might be in danger from her father if they are seen together.

Their lives are suddenly thrown together again when the Icarus is ripped from hyperspace and begins to collapse. As Tarver is making his way to his escape pod he manages to save Lilac from the chaos of panicking crowds. They make it to a pod which aborts its launch due to a power failure but Lilac hotwires it and they escape the dying ship.  Tarver and Lilac are shocked to discover that they are near a planet on which they crash land. Both Tarver and Lilac are uninjured, but their communication array has been destroyed.

Tarver decides  to hike to the top of a nearby hill to get a look at the surrounding area. They appear to be on a terraformed planet, but Tarver notes that the vegetation is unusually uniform and very large, despite the planet's rich air. Lilac insists on accompanying Tarver, despite wearing a long gown and designer high heels. During their hike, they watch the destruction of the Icarus as it enters the planet's atmosphere and crashes beyond the mountains in the distance. Tarver tells Lilac that if they are to have a hope of being rescued they need to be where the Icarus crashed as that is where the rescue crews will search.

Most of the novel now recounts their journey towards the Icarus and the change in their relationship as they endure the hardship of survival on an alien planet. Their walk through the forest is slowed by Lilac's large dress and her unsuitable footwear which cause her feet to swell and blister. She is convinced that they should stay at the escape pod and this leads to an argument and the two of them separating with Lilac determined to return to the pod. It is at this time that Lilac begins to notice the background whispers of the forest; "Snatches of sound rise up from the awful, untidy forest all around me for a moment sounding just like voices, high and distressed." Lilac notes that Tarver doesn't seem to hear the voices or if he does, they don't seem to bother him.

 On her journey back to the pod, Lilac is immediately confronted by a large cat-like animal. When Tarver returns to rescue Lilac they continue their journey onward but things rapidly begin to change.  While waiting in the forest as Tarver scouts ahead, Lilac again notices "The forest is full of sound and movement I can't track, things that flicker out of the corners of eyes, vanishing before I can focus on them. The major doesn't seem to notice...But it's as though the forest is whispering all around us...".

From his scouting, Tarver finds an escape pod at the edge of the forest with all the occupants dead. He buries them but does not allow Lilac to see how many or who they are. He strips the boots off a dead woman and gives them to Lilac. She is horrified but agrees that if they are to make it to the Icarus she needs something more suitable to wear. When they arrive at the edge of the forest they make camp at the beginning of the plains. That night Tarver is awakened by Lilac who insists she can hear a woman crying - a woman whom she later realizes sounds like her. All-night searches by Tarver reveal no human presence.

As they journey across the plains, they see no signs of colonists, but Lilac insists she hears a man's voice. Worried, Tarver urges Lilac to rest, concerned that she is suffering from exhaustion and hallucinating. Because they are running out of the nutrition bars they have been surviving on, Tarver collects grasses for them to eat and also sets snares to catch small animals.

Lilac continues to hear the voices but now they are coming from the direction of the mountains and the Icarus wreck. She also notices for the first time, that what they thought was a second moon appears to be an array of lights in orbit. As they journey across the plains in a soaking downpour, Lilac hears heartbreaking sobs over the rain. Struggling to maintain her sanity, Lilac is further frightened when she goes to the river to get water and sees a group of people pointing towards the mountain pass leading to the wreck of the Icarus. Lilac however, doesn't believe she is going insane because she tells Tarver that one woman wasn't wearing boots and of the five people she saw, one was a soldier with dog tags and two were men in evening dress. She is convinced that these are the dead people from the escape pod and she knows she is correct by Tarver's reaction.

Their understanding of what is happening on the planet changes drastically when Lilac is warned by the voices to leave the cave they have sheltered in during a blizzard. Both Tarver and Lilac begin to realize that she is not going mad and they must consider "the possibility that she's receiving communications..." from something or someone. They are pushed further in this direction when both see the same vision of Tarver's home. When they arrive at the Icarus they work to unravel a startling mystery about the planet that will forever change their lives.

Discussion

These Broken Stars is a well-written novel with a unique and interesting story. The novel begins with two young people, a heroic soldier and a beautiful, wealthy heiress marooned on a strange planet. Initially they struggle to work together to survive. However, it quickly becomes apparent that something very strange is happening, when Lilac begins hearing what she describes as whispers and then seeing visions. 

The struggle to survive gradually begins to draw Tarver and Lilac closer together. The previous misconceptions they had about one another begin to dispel as they learn more about each other. They spend time talking about their lives and Tarver reveals that his mother is the famous poet, Emily Davis, whom Lilac happens to read. Lilac also learns that Tarver's older brother, Alec, was killed in action. For the first time since meeting Lilac, Tarver feels that she is finally seeing him as he really is, and not as a war hero or a lower class soldier. Similarly, Lilac begins to sense that Tarver is becoming more comfortable with her and that he considers her beautiful. As their relationship develops they work together to discover that Lilac's father's corporation is involved in the imprisonment and torture of a unique group of aliens, for personal and industrial gain. 

Lilac and Tarver come to realize that they are experiencing some kind of telepathic communications and they must now determine their origin. The mystery of the "whispers" and visions that Lilac is experiencing is gradually revealed throughout the remainder of the novel. The mysterious "whispers" eventually lead Lilac and Tarver to an abandoned station on the planet but not before Lilac dies and is brought back to life. At the abandoned base they are able to communicate with the "whispers" who confirm they are responsible for Lilac's recovery and they have been the source of the visions. In their search for the station's power source, they see the upside-down letter V of the lambda - the insignia of LaRoux Industries which once operated the station.

Lilac senses that there is something unusual in the station. This is confirmed by their discovery in the basement of the station, of a circular door made to dilate like the iris of an eye as they both experience strange shivers and a coppery taste. Documents at the station mention a dimensional rift and attempts to recreate the rift using the super-orbital reflectors around the planet as well as on another planet, Avon, which Tarver was stationed on a few months earlier. They also mention the "extraction of test subjects" from the dimensional rift which are described as having telepathic abilities and are "phased life-forms, energy based, noncorporeal". Lilac realizes that "these beings, experimental test subjects to my father's teams, have led us across the wilderness to this spot...I wish we knew what they want."

Lilac also understands that the "whispers" are able to temporarily convert energy which is what they did to make her come alive again and that she needs to get behind the door to help them and save herself.  Using her name as the password, she opens the door and gets the power to the base running to send out a weak distress signal. In the power control room they discover the rift but also realize that the "whispers" or creatures are the power source for the station and are trapped in the power grid. With Lilac beginning to fade, Tarver destroys the dampening field, allowing the "whispers" to speak to him using his dead brother, Alec's form. They tell him that they came to Tarver's world out of curiosity but were imprisoned, unable to enter this world or return to their own and then became unwilling test subjects. They are all interconnected but somehow, LaRoux was able to separate them, making them weak.  Tarver is told that Lilac's distress signal is weakening them so he shuts it down. To save Lilac, Tarver jumps into the dimensional rift thereby closing it, creating a large energy surge. This ends the rift for the "whispers" and saves Lilac.

Lilac and Tarver are rescued by one of her father's ships where they learn that fifty thousand souls died in the Icarus accident. They are separated, inspected, monitored and interrogated. But during interrogation, Lilac and Tarver each play their part, Lilac "a spoiled heiress, too traumatized to remember anything" and Tarver, "a big, dumb soldier." in order to protect what they found on the planet. Both have developed a mutual respect and maturity that enables them to take on Lilac's powerful father.  The only issue in this story is the age of the two major characters: they are far too young and would have been more suitable as young adults in their twenties.

Kaufman and Spooner tell their story in the alternating narratives of Tarver and Lilac. In between sections of this narrative is a short page featuring part of Tarver's debriefing by authorities post-rescue, which reveals to readers that the two are ultimately rescued and indicates that Lilac's father and the scientists know Tarver has not revealed what really happened on the planet. This seems to set up the next installment in this series, which is called Starbound. The second novel will be a companion novel which tells another related story but with different characters.  If it's as unique as the first novel, readers will be in for yet another treat from this wonderful writing duo.

Book Details:
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
New York: Hyperion      2013
374 pp.

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Jacob Portman along with a motley crew of peculiars, children with special abilities, have left the island of Cairnholm, to seek safety on the mainland. Jacob is also a peculiar, being able to sense hollows or hollowgast which are monsters who are hunting the peculiars. Scattered among three lifeboats the peculiars include Emma Bloom who can make fire with her hands, Millard Nullings the invisible boy, Olive Abroholos Elephanta who is lighter than air, Bronwyn Bruntley an unusually strong girl, Horace Somnusson who has premonitory visions, Enoch O'Connor able to animate the dead, Hugh Apiston the boy with bees in his stomach, Claire Densmore the girl with two mouths and Fiona Frauenfeld who can make plants grows. Accompanying them is Alma LeFay Peregrine, a ymbryne or time manipulator and shapeshifter. Miss Peregrine is the protector of the peculiars but she has been injured and is in bird form. She can create time loops and manipulate time.

Out on the sea, the children suffer through a violent gale that causes them to lose most of their food and belongings and to land on an unknown shore. The children are being pursued by the wights in a submarine and they must be off the water by nightfall. Wights are hollowgasts who have matured after eating a sufficient number of peculiar souls. They can assume human form and can exist among humans.

On the island the children find a brief reprieve until the wights land and begin tracking them at nightfall. Mysteriously the children manage to avoid them and in the morning seek a way out of the forest. The night before the children read a story from the Tales of the Peculiar about a giant named Cuthbert who is turned to stone in the middle of a lake. Unbelievably they discover a lake with a rock formation that looks like a giant's head. Emma decides to wade out to the rock and climbs into the mouth of the formation, discovering a new time loop.

The new time loop turns out to be exceedingly dangerous however, when they encounter a hollowgast bent on eating them. After destroying it, the peculiars meet Miss Wren's menagerie which includes a talking bulldog who smokes a pipe and various other odd creatures.  The bulldog, Addison MacHenry, was brought to this loop by another ymbryne named Miss Wren who they learn has left for London to help her ymbryne sisters.  Miss Wren is the only remaining uncaptured ymbryne. Her spies, a flock of peculiar pigeons, have told her that the ymbrynes have been captured and are being held in punishment loops which were originally designed to hold wights. Now the wights and their hollows are guarding these loops.  With all of the ymbrynes captured, there will be no one to maintain the time loops and they will collapse.

The peculiars decide to reveal Miss Peregrine to Addison and explain to him that she is unable to revert back to human form.  Addison is certain Miss Peregrine has been poisoned so that she cannot change back. He tells the peculiars that they must find another ymbryne to help her change. The more time Miss Peregrine spends as a a bird, the less likely she will be able to return to human form. Addison tells Emma and Jacob that she has at most three more days before returning to human form will become impossible.

The Peculiars decide they must go to London to find Miss Wren and have her heal Miss Peregrine.Addison tries to dissuade them, telling them the loops are guarded by hollows. However, Emma and Jacob realize this is the only way they can save Miss Peregrine.

They return to the 1940 loop and take a road to a town named Coal.  However, the wights have resumed their pursuit of the children. When they encounter a gypsy caravan on the road, the peculiars take shelter among them. Upon arriving in Coal, the peculiars manage to purchase train tickets for London, but are intercepted by the wights who capture them. Hugh and his bees save the day and they reconnect with the train, arriving in London.

In 1940 London, turmoil reigns as the city is being bombed by the Germans. The peculiars now face a race against time to find help for their beloved Miss Peregrine. They must first locate Miss Wren's pigeons, who they hope will lead them to the ymbryne herself. But in devastated London, hunted by hollows, this proves to be more difficult than they ever imagined. Jacob, Emma and their fellow peculiars must deal with new peculiars, a deceit that destroys all their hope and a murderous plot that seeks to destroy peculiardom once and for all.

Hollow City is a strange story told in a unique way with a collection of photographs that reinforce the storyline. The strength of Rigg's second novel is that it further develops the main characters we met in the first novel, expanding on their peculiarities while revealing more about the world of the peculiars. It appears that Jacob's peculiar ability to detect hollows is either evolving or he is discovering more about what he is capable of. This ability provides a unique twist near the end of the novel just when it seems that all is lost. Jacob grows in confidence in his ability not only to detect and destroy hollowgast but also discovers he can manipulate them.

The other peculiar characters are presented in more detail through their interactions with the narrator, Jacob. Emma is a confident, caring young woman who is concerned for all the children and stands up to Enoch, who despite his sarcasm, can be insensitive. Horace struggles with his fear of the unknown while Hugh often feels neglected and useless.

Emma and Jacob's relationship deepens in this second novel, as their adventures together serve to draw them into falling in love. However Jacob's feelings for Emma are a source of conflict for him because he wants to stay with Emma in her time loop and yet he longs for a normal life back with his family in his own time. Emma too is conflicted. While she loves Jacob she knows he cannot stay with her. She wants Jacob to have a proper life and not one like what she has experienced for the past seventy years. She tells him that she is an old woman hiding in the body of a young girl and that she and the others would never choose the life they have over the life Jacob has a chance to live back in his own time.

Hollow City tends to drag somewhat through the middle, with most of the action happening in the last few chapters. Ransom Riggs manages to keep the reader engaged however through the clever use of strange photographs. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers wondering how Ransom Riggs will wrap up his story in the third novel. This novel is definitely not to be missed by fans of Miss Peregrine and Ransom Riggs!

You can enjoy the very original book trailer:



Book Details:
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Philadelphia: Quirk Books      2014
396 pp.

Flip by Martyn Bedford

When 14 year old Alex Gray goes to sleep the night of December 21 and wakes up one June morning in the body of another boy, Philip Garamond (known as Flip to his family and friends), he is completely freaked out. What has happened to him? How did he get inside another boy's body? Where has he been the past SIX months of which he has no memory? And where is HIS body?

Eventually Flip learns the truth about his situation. Alex, the victim of a hit and run, is in a coma in London and has been for the past six months. Somehow, Alex has switched bodies with Philip.

Alex as Flip (Philip) explores the next few months of life,inside the body of Flip, whose life is so completely different from that of Alex. He lives in a different town, goes to a good school and lives with Philip's family who is well to do. But try as he might, Flip cannot adjust to living Philip's life. Philip is everything Alex is not. He is popular, athletic, very healthy and he has two girlfriends. But Philip is also a player and Alex is not like this.

Alex eventually discovers via the internet that he's not the only one who has experienced "psychic evacuation" - that is a soul switching bodies. But unlike the others who have experienced this situation, Alex's original body is still alive. Although he tries to live in Flip's body, he doesn't behave like Flip, he doesn't have the same interests as Flip and he doesn't want Flip's life. He also comes to realize that the nightmares he's having are a sign that Philip is fighting for his body too.

For Alex, it becomes a question of integrity, and how he lives his life.

"If he allowed himself,he could imagine things continuing like this. Merge his life with Flip's. Accept the switch, adapt and move on -- like the others of his kind had done. Carry on being Philip Garamond, or at least the new, modified Alex-as-Flip he was starting to turn into. With Alex's spirit in Flip's body, he could stay in Litchbury....complete his education at a good school...After that, a long, healthy life to look forward to, another sixty, seventy years, maybe. He could be whatever, and whoever, he liked.
But that wasn't being himself. Being properly himself. That life would mean living a lie. Lying to himself every hour of every day, for as long as it took Flip's body to die. Lying to the Garamonds. To everyone he met or worked with or became friends with in the many years to come."

Eventually Alex must make a decision about whether to stay or to try to find a way back to his own body.

The inside flap of this book states that it deals with questions of identity, the will to survive and what a person is willing to sacrifice to remain alive. Indeed Flip does push the reader to explore all of these questions. Flip also forces the reader to explore metaphysical questions. When Alex, in Flip's body climbs a rocky cliff he thinks about jumping and wonders "If he died in Flip's body, where would his soul go?"

I enjoyed this book immensely. Unlike Amy By Any Other Name, Flip has a happier ending, although with a bit of a twist. Sometimes I felt that I knew more about Philip Garamond than who Alex really was. But Alex's personality is revealed gradually. It was obvious that the tremendous contrast between rich kid Philip who had a tendency to be superficial towards others was in deep contrast to Alex who cares about the people in his life. It is this characteristic of Alex's personality that leads him to make the decision that he does.

The only thing I found a bit of a drawback in my reading experience was the author's use of English colloquialisms that Canadian teens might not be familiar with. Otherwise, an enjoyable read and a book I highly recommend.

Book Details:
Flip by Martyn Bedford
Doubleday Canada 2011
258 pp.