Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

Click to purchase

Waterfire Saga, Book One

Serafina has been preparing for ages for her betrothal ceremony. The ceremony consists of three parts: the first will test her as a true descendant of Merrow’s bloodline; the second is the songspell she must sing to perfection; the third will bind her to her husband-to-be as well as the kingdom of Miromara. Unfortunately, what should be one of the happiest days of her life soon turns tragic as the kingdom is overcome by invaders. Sera’s mother is shot and Sera is forced to run with only her friend Neela by her side. The young mermaid is left with the uncertainty of her mother’s fate – and whether she has now become Regina of Miromara in her place.

With assassins on their tails, the two girls soon come to a shocking realization: the invasion of Miromara is linked to a dream that has been plaguing them both. In the dream, the girls witnessed the Iele (sea witches they thought were only children’s stories) singing of six mermaids tasked with saving the oceans from a creature known as Abbadon. And Sera and Neela aren’t the only ones aware of the Iele’s prophecy. The mer trying to capture them has heard the legend as well and he has no desire at all in seeing Abbadon defeated.

On the one hand Deep Blue is an excellent example of world building. The reader is literally immersed in the undersea setting from the very start. The history and mythology of the world are fascinating and the imagery is vibrant.

On the other hand this teen title reads much younger than I’d expected. Serafina and her peers all come across more flighty and immature than I’d thought they would based on their character set up. They’re all supposed to be about sixteen (or older in some cases) so some of that’s to be expected, especially allowing for the expected coming-of-age bit of character development, but it left me with the overall sense that the best audience for the book is on the early end of the teen spectrum.

6/14 Becky Lejeune
DEEP BLUE by Jennifer Donnelly. Disney-Hyperion (May 6, 2014). ISBN 978-1423133162. 352p.

Click to purchase

Some people say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world, but for West Grayer this is her reality.

After the universal cold vaccine left everyone sterile, it was up to science to ensure the continuation of the human race. With war waging everywhere, a small group set off to begin their own city. Citizens of Kersh are protected from the wars of the Surround, and each section of the city produces a necessary commodity. But with the population now healthy and booming, resources have become limited. To ensure that only the strongest and most worthy survive, each child is born with a genetic twin, or alternate. When they come of age, each twin is set with the task of killing their alt in order to complete.

West has lost everyone she loves. Her mother was a PK or peripheral kill, and her father couldn’t take the loss. Her older brother Aave and her younger sister Ehm both died at their alt’s hands. She and her brother Luc are the only ones left until she loses him as well. But now West has to set aside her misery because her own assignment has come up, and her alt is going to be ruthless, set on her own survival.

This new series from Elsie Chapman is dark, dark, dark. It’s a teen read similar in theme to other dystopians (like the Hunger Games) and (also like the Hunger Games) features a strong female lead. In spite of those similarities, Dualed is fairly different from other titles in the dystopian vein. West is an assassin and much of the book takes on an urban warfare kind of feel. There is a romance but it’s almost pushed to the background with the main plot focused on West’s finding and surviving her assignment. The world building and politics are fairly light in this first outing, but are featured more prominently in its sequel, Divided.

6/14 Becky Lejeune

DUALED by Elsie Chapman. Ember; Reprint edition (May 27, 2014). ISBN 978-0307931559. 320p.