New YA Fantasies: Realm Breaker, Steelstriker and Gilded

 Three popular fantasy authors have new books out that might be perfect for holiday gift giving. Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen series) kicks off a new series with Realm Breaker, which introduces a world where doors to other realms must be closed before an evil entity can seize power.  Marie Lu (Legend series) wraps up the Skyhunter series with Steelstriker, chronicling the battle to overthrow the Premier and dismantle the controlling Karensa Federation in a dystopian world. Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles series) reimagines Rumpelstiltskin in Gilded, adding a romance between the miller's daughter and the magical being who spins the straw into gold. 

Realm Breaker is set in Allward, a world where Spindles - doors to other realms - are thought to be a myth, as are the Immortals and Elders, beings who can manipulate the Spindlegates that connect Allward to other realms.  The prologue details a disastrous battle which takes place when Companions of the Realm seek to stop Taristan, a rogue Immortal, and his wizard accomplice from using a Spindleblade to tear new spindles between realms to aid the evil entity he worships.  Half the companions are human and half are Immortals.  The only two who escape with their lives are Elder Domacridhan and Andry, squire to the knight Cortael, who manages to flee with Cortael's spindleblade.  When the story begins, Dom and Andry are heading to a Spindle temple to thwart Taristan's plans. They must engage the help of Corayne, secret daughter of Cortael and a pirate queen, who has the corblood required to wield the spindleblade.  Along the way they enlist the aid of assassin Sorasa and others to help their cause.  Shifting viewpoints and flashbacks detail the characters' backstories, setting up the quest to protect Allward and make sure the Spindles that can open destabilizing passages between realms are closed.  This complex tale will have readers spellbound as the ragtag band of heroes overcomes one challenge after another. 

Steelstriker, the final book in the Skyhunter duology, opens six months after the fall of Mara, as the Karensa Federation absorbs the formerly free nation into its empire.  Talin, an elite striker for Mara, has been taken hostage and turned into a skyhunter, a war machine complete with steel wings.  The story alternates between Talin's point-of-view and Red's, a skyhunter who escaped the Federation and bonded with Talin in the series opener.  Although held captive by Premier Constantine, who uses the threat of killing her mother to control her, Talin tries to aid her friends who are still waging a rebellion against the Federation.  As the Premier tries to harness a technology used by the "Early Ones," (presumably nuclear power) he is sabotaged by people in his inner circle.  Several of Mara's strikers have been taken prisoner and are awaiting execution or transformation into zombielike monsters called Ghosts.  Talin and Red communicate telepathically to orchestrate a rescue and a plan to overthrow the Premier in this romantic action-packed series closer.  I would recommend reading Skyhunter (see review in my October 2020 blog) prior to Steelstriker.

In Gilded, an inventive reimagining of Rumpelstiltskin, the sadistic Erlking and his undead followers appear every full moon to steal children and hunt magical creatures.  The miller's daughter Serilda knows to stay in on those nights, but she hears the hellhounds chasing two moss maidens and feels compelled to save them.  She hides them in their root cellar only to be confronted by the Erlking, whom she tells she's harvesting straw to spin into gold.  He departs but abducts her on the next full moon and takes her to his undead castle. He throws her into a cell piled with hay and threatens to kill her if she doesn't spin it into gold.  She assumes she is doomed until Gild, a redheaded undead teen, appears and completes her task.  She is immediately drawn to him and and looks forward to their next encounter.  Their star-crossed romance, as well as the suspense-filled conflict with the Erlking and the cliffhanger ending, will leave readers anxious to read the sequel Cursed, which comes out November 8, 2022.

Boulder Barnes and Noble Summer Kick Off

Barnes and Noble in Boulder is hosting a Summer Reading Kickoff Saturday June 6th at 11 AM.  I will be doing teen summer reading book talks at the event.  Although some of the books will include realistic novels dealing with serious issues, a fair number of my suggestions will be "summer escape reads," which, of course, include new fantasy books.  Here are a few I will be recommending.  Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard introduces a world split into two factions depending on blood color. Silvers are elites whose blood gives them supernatural powers and Reds are born to service and conscription. Dove Arising by Karen Bao is set on the Moon, which has been populated after wars and pollution make the earth almost uninhabitable. Undertow by Michael Buckley focuses on a race of ocean dwelling warriors, who are half fish and half human, who show up on the beach in Coney Island. Finally, From a Distant Star by Karen McQuestion involves an extraterrestrial who crashes to earth just in time to save a boy dying from cancer.

Red Queen introduces Mare Barrow, a lower caste thief living in a world of elite Silver bloods with magical powers and Reds who are born to conscription.  When Mare is taken to serve in the Silver castle, she unwittingly displays powers of her own, and the royals claim her as a long lost silver princess and betroth her to their younger son.  As she becomes a royal insider, she still conspires to help the Scarlet Rebellion, whose goal is to dismantle the caste system and put an end to the wars waged by the Silver royalty. The problems in the story reflect many of today's social issues including political corruption, ethnic and class inequality, pollution, warfare, and the power of the media to manipulate the truth. Of course, there are potential love interests for Mare, but these take a back seat to the action at this point in the trilogy.  With the book already optioned for a movie, and two sequels on the way, this is a hot YA read!

Dove Arising, focuses on Phaet, a young moon colonist who hopes to become a bio-engineer, but finds herself volunteering for the military when her mother is quarantined and she and her siblings need a means of earning money.  If Phaet can finish at the top of her class, she will earn enough to keep her family out of the "Shelter," a filthy, poverty stricken district.  Learning all she can from Wes, a boy who excels in their training exercises, Phaet struggles to save her siblings, free her mom and find meaning in the military life she never wanted. Discoveries of corruption in the government and a budding romance between Phaet and Wes will entice readers to pick up the sequel when it's available.

In Undertow a race of ocean dwelling Alpha warriors complicate Lyric Walker's life when they arrive on the beach near her home in Coney Island. Her mother is actually an Alpha who arrived with an exploratory party, married Lyric's dad and is now blending as an earthling.  When six Alpha youth integrate her high school, Lyric is recruited to help Fathom, the Alpha crown prince, assimilate. Little did she know she would fall for him just as violence breaks out between the Alphas and the group of townspeople who resent their arrival. Sinister government plots, warring Alpha factions and forbidden attraction make this a page turner that will leave readers anxiously awaiting the sequel.

From a Distant Star opens with high school senior Emma anticipating her boyfriend Lucas's death from cancer.  When he makes a miraculous recovery at the same time a UFO lands on his family farm, she is overjoyed but suspicious.  The recovered Lucas is nothing like the boy she knows and loves.  When Emma and Lucas's brother realize an alien has possessed and healed Lucas's body, they struggle to come up with a solution to get the alien home so that Lucas can re-emerge. Then government agents arrive asking questions, and she decides she and Lucas must escape their watchful eyes and find a way to figure things out on their own. This cross between E.T. and Starman is a fun summer read by the author of the Edgewood series.