Posts in "recap"

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

The basics

Title: The Immortal Rules

Author:

Series: Blood of Eden #1

- The Immortal Rules (2012)
- The Eternity Cure (2013)
- The Forever Song (2014)

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Goodreads Summary:

To survive in a ruined world, she must embrace the darkness… Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them—the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters. Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend—a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for…again. Enter Julie Kagawa's dark and twisted world as an unforgettable journey begins.
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The Archived by Victoria Schwab

The basics

Title: The Archived

Author:

Series: The Archived #1

- The Archived (January 2013)
- The Unbound (January 2014)

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Goodreads Summary:

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.

In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.
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The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

The basics

Title: The Name of the Star

Author:

Series: Shades of London #1

- The Name of the Star (2011)
- The Madness Underneath (2013)
- The Shadow Cabinet (2014)

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Goodreads Summary:

The day that Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London to start a new life at boarding school is also the day a series of brutal murders breaks out over the city, killings mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper spree of more than a century ago. Soon "Rippermania" takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him--the only one who can see him. And now Rory has become his next target. In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humor, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.
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Insurgent by Veronica Roth

The basics

Title: Insurgent

Author:

Series: Divergent #2

- Divergent (January 2011)
- Insurgent (March 2012)
- Allegiant (October 2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

One choice can transform you--or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves--and herself--while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable--and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
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Divergent by Veronica Roth

The basics

Title: Divergent

Author:

Series: Divergent #1

Divergent (January 2011)
- Insurgent (March 2012)
- Allegiant (October 2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.
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Taken by Erin Bowman

The basics

Title: Taken

Author:

Series: Taken #1

- Taken (2013)
- Frozen (2014)
- Forged (2015)

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Goodreads Summary:

There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?
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Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

The basics

Title: Unraveling

Author:

Series: Unraveling #1

- Unraveling (April 2012)
- Unbreakable (April 2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Janelle Tenner is used to having a lot of responsibility. She balances working as a lifeguard in San Diego with an intense academic schedule. Janelle's mother is bipolar, and her dad is a workaholic FBI agent, which means Janelle also has to look out for her younger brother, Jared.

And that was before she died...and is brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a mysterious, alluring loner from her high school. When she discovers a strange clock that seems to be counting down to the earth's destruction, Janelle learns she has twenty-four days to figure out how to stop the clock and save the planet.
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Severed by Sarah Alderson

The basics

Title: Severed

Author:

Series: Fated #2

- Fated (January 2012)
- Severed (November 2012)
- Shadowed (March 2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

Fate brought them together. Now it’s threatening to tear them apart.

As the last in a long line of demon slayers, Evie’s destiny is to end the war that has raged for centuries between humans and demons. Lucas, the half-Shadow Warrior half-human who was sent to kill her, has betrayed his own Brotherhood and his family to fight alongside her. With an army of unhumans on their tail, Evie and Lucas are forced into an uneasy alliance with a group of rogue Hunters who offer protection and the promise of answers.

As the past is untangled and the dark history of the Hunters revealed, Evie discovers that severing the realms is going to require a lot more than just fighting. It’s going to require a sacrifice – one that only she can make.

…More than realms will be severed.
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Fated by Sarah Alderson

The basics

Title: Fated

Author:

Series: Fated #1

- Fated (2012)
- Severed (2012)
- Shadowed (2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

What happens when you discover you aren't who you thought you were? And that the person you love is the person who will betray you? If your fate is already determined, can you fight it?

When Evie Tremain discovers that she’s the last in a long line of Demon slayers and that she’s being hunted by an elite band of assassins –Shapeshifters, Vampires and Mixen demons amongst them – she knows she can’t run. They’ll find her wherever she goes. Instead she must learn to stand and fight.

But when the half-human, half-Shadow Warrior Lucas Gray is sent to spy on Evie and then ordered to kill her before she can fulfil a dangerous prophecy, their fates become inextricably linked. The war that has raged for one thousand years between humans and demons is about to reach a devastating and inevitable conclusion. Either one or both of them will die before this war ends.

If your life becomes bound to another’s, what will it take to sever it?
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Fever by Lauren Destefano

The basics

Title: Fever

Author:

Series: The Chemical Garden #2

- Wither (March 2011)
- Fever (February 2012)
- Sever (February 2013)

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Goodreads Summary:

Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever.
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