The Kiss of Deception

Princess Lia has no intention of marrying some fusty old prince she's never met.  She refuses to tie herself to a man who won't even meet her before the wedding in a kingdom far from everyone she knows and loves.  That's why she and her maid Pauline run away just before her wedding.

The two young women flee to a picturesque seaside village where they get jobs as maids at an inn.  Lia adapts to her new life fairly quickly and enjoys the freedom of anonymity in her new simple life.

But not everyone is happy with Princess Lia's decision.  Two men are on her trail.  One is her fiance who's come to find out just who this girl is who would defy two kingdoms.  The other is an assassin.

When two handsome strangers arrive at the inn, Lia is interested, but she has no inkling of who they really are, and neither Kaden nor Rafe recognizes the other for who he is.

In a crazy love triangle complicated by political ramifications, will Lia discover the truth in time to save herself and her kingdom?

This is Mary E. Pearson's first book in the Remnant Chronicles, and if you're a fan of fantasy love triangles, you've just met your new match!

Masterminds

Why would anyone ever leave Serenity, New Mexico?  There's no unemployment or poverty, no crime, and no one lies.  Even better, everyone has a nice house with a pool in the backyard!  Sure, it's a small town in the middle of a desert, but Eli, and everyone else, lives a peaceful and prosperous life.

When Eli and his best friend Randy decide to go on a bike ride just outside the city limits, both their lives are upset.  Once they pass the city limits, Eli is overcome with terrible stomach cramps.  Randy isn't.  This convinces Eli to dig deeper, and he recruits his friends to help.

The more they look, the more secrets they uncover.  Just what exactly is going on in Serenity, and who can Eli and his friends trust?  Read Gordon Korman's new series opener to find the truth!  This was a fun read.  My only complaint is that there is no real ending.  This really is part one of the story.  I guess I'll just have to keep reading to find out what happen next!

Nightmares!

Every time Charlie Laird goes to sleep, he has nightmares, but that's not even the worst of his problems.  Even though he is still struggling with his mother's death, his father has remarried Charlotte, and Charlie is sure she's a witch.  He's seen things he can't explain any other way.  Plus, she made the family move from the house they shared with Charlie's mother to the creepy old purple mansion her family has owned for generations.

Things get even worse when the witch who torments Charlie in his dreams comes into the waking world.  That's when he knows he has to do something.  Charlie goes into the nightmare world awake to face his worst nightmares and save all the children of his town.

Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller have created a nightmare world this both frightening and funny layered on to the real world where Charlie is still struggling with grief over his mother's death.

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom

Everyone wants to be famous, right?  Especially, if you are Prince Charming of fairy tale fame, but the princes who bear that name have a couple of complaints.  First, they did all the work rescuing princes, fighting dragons, etc, so why are the stories named after the girls?  Everyone knows Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, but have you ever heard of Liam, Gustav, Duncan, and Frederic?  Didn't think so.

Also, the princes didn't realize when they got caught up in those famous stories that they would end up married or engaged to those girls regardless of whether they liked each other.

The princes find themselves kicked out of their homes (and sometimes kingdoms), and they stumble across each other in the forest.  They also stumble across a plot from a wicked witch named Zaubera who has kidnapped the four most famous bards in the four kingdoms.  Now Cinderella has been kidnapped, too!

Who will save her if not a band of Princes Charming?

This first book in Christopher Healy is fun and exciting though it does get bogged down a bit in the middle.  Recommended for fairy tale and humor fans.

Challenger Deep

Caden Bosch is on a dangerous adventure aboard a pirate ship headed to the Marianas Trench, the deepest point on earth.  It is there he will discover the truth.  The ship is led by a ruthless captain and his mutinous parrot.

But as demanding as The Captain may be, another world tugs at Caden.  It's a world with parents, family, friends, and school.  Reality.  Caden has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the world inside his mind is quickly becoming more real to him than the world outside.

As he descends into his journey aboard the ship, his behavior becomes increasingly erratic, and his family is finally forced to realize they can't help him.

This is a powerful story inspired by the author's experiences with his own son who does the illustrations in the book.  This is no simple movie of the week where answers and solutions are easy.  This is a complex story that weaves reality into Caden's fantasy world as he searches for healing.

This book is different from Neal Shusterman's other stories and deals with mature themes, but it is still written with his signature style and skill.

The Story of Owen

"Listen!  For I sing of Owen Thorskard:  valiant of heart, hopeless at algebra, last in a long line of legendary dragon slayers.  Though he had few years and was not built for football, he stood between the town of Trondheim and creatures that threatened its survival."

Owen is in training to be the next great Thorskard dragonslayer.  His Aunt Lottie is probably the most famous dragonslayer since St. George, but an accident put her out of commission.  Now it's her brother, Owen's father, who is out slaying dragons while Lottie trains Owen.

Instead of moving to one of the big cities and taking a job with a big corporation, the Throskards have moved to Trondheim, a small town in the middle of nowhere.  They now protect the people and their farms in the surrounding area.  This is all part of their plan to take dragonslaying back to its roots.

Siobahn is another part of that plan.  Dragonslayers haven't had bards for years.  Reporters have been the ones telling their stories, but reporters tell the stories in the way that best pleases them.  Lottie thinks Owen needs a bard to tell his story, and she know just the girl.  Siobahn was one of the first people Owen met at school, and their friendship continued because Owen needed a math tutor, but Siobahn is also a musical genius who doesn't need much convincing to fall into training right next to Owen.  Owen will fight the dragons and Siobahn will compose the music that tells the story.

Things are not going quite according to plan.  The Thorskards thought country dragonslaying would be easy, but there are so many sightings, and the numbers are increasing every day.  Something isn't right.  If they can't do something to stop the increasing numbers, Trondheim and the surrounding area will be completely destroyed.  Siobahn and Owen are young, but there is no time for hesitation; the time has come for battle.

E.K. Johnston's debut novel is a fun and inventive fantasy.  Highly recommended to dragon fans!

A Mad, Wicked, Folly

Victoria Darling wants nothing more than to become an artist and make decisions about her own life.  Unfortunately, she lives in England in 1909 where women have almost no rights.

After being sent home in disgrace from her boarding school in France, Vicky's parents are strict about how she will be spending her time, and it doesn't include art.  Her mother is only concerned with rebuilding her tattered reputation and getting Vicky married before she does anything else.  She even has the man picked out.  Her father is only concerned with the disgrace she has brought to her family and to his business.

When Vicky finally meets her fiance, she thinks she sees a way out of her father's stranglehold on her life.  She will marry Edmund and be free to live her own life.  It doesn't really matter that she doesn't love him; she barely knows him.  He's handsome, and he seems to enjoy her personality quirks.

In secret, Vicky begins working on a portfolio to submit to the Royal College of Art.  If she can just get proper training, the art world will take her seriously.  It doesn't matter that the RCA accepts very few women.  Vicky believes she can get in if she can show her best work.  This brings us to her other problem.  Her father has taken all her art supplies, so she'll have to be creative there as well.

In her quest to create new art, she crosses paths with the suffragettes, a group of women who are protesting to demand the vote for women.  At first, she just sees the movement as fertile ground for drawing, but the more time she spends with these women, the more she begins to question her place in society and if she will ever have any freedom.

She also begins spending time with a handsome police officer named Will.  Vicky says it's all about art, but could there be more to it than that?

I really enjoyed Sharon Biggs Waller's book about the suffragette movement in Great Britain.  This is one of my favorite time periods and one I wish it got more attention  People just aren't aware of the struggles those early women's rights activists faced.  This book is a great introduction because the reader can learn along with Vicky as she has her own personal awakening.  Highly recommended.