A Venomous Past

Serial Killers aren't a new phenomenon, they are just more commonly talked about. So, is it hard to imagine the dark dealings that may be going on in the shadows of a city like Venice? In Fiona Paul's new series, The Secrets of the Eternal Rose, she explores the mystery of murders only a young girl is willing to investigate.

Cass lives the life of any other Venetian girl of means: she waits to be married off so she can become a proper wife. The only problem is her fiance, Luca, is a terrible bore. When her friend succumbs to an illness and dies, Cass has a hard time dealing with the loss, especially after having lost both her parents. At night she slips out of her house to visit her parents' graves, and when she does so to visit her friend, she finds the body has been replaced by another body- one that certainly doesn't belong there and certainly did not meet a peaceful end. With a giant X carved into her chest, the girl clearly met an ugly ending. Terrified, Cass leaves the crypt and bumps into a man named Falco. She should be scared of any guy wandering the graveyard at night, but there is something about Falco she finds intriguing. When he agrees to help her investigate the girl in the crypt, Cass finds herself with a new partner in crime.

Together, Cass and Falco delve into the seediest areas of Venice, places Falco is clearly comfortable with but that Cass has never experienced. Throughout their investigation, Cass finds herself drawn to him in ways a proper engaged girl shouldn't be thinking about a man who isn't her betrothed. Of course, she isn't exactly proper as she escapes into the night in her nightgown with a strange man to hunt down a murderer. Cass's connection with Falco makes her forget just how dangerous what they are doing truly is, but the shadows of Venice can only stay hidden for so long. 

I had actually started this book a while ago and put it down only a few pages into it because I just wasn't in the mood for historical fiction, and I am really glad I did, because when I finally did read it, I really enjoyed it. Good historical fiction doesn't get bogged down with too many specifics of the time period, but rather allows them to come out naturally through the progression of a really good plot. That was how this story was. It had a great pace, a solid story, and it really kept me intrigued right to the last page. In fact, I really loved how the whole setting developed around the plot. 

Sometimes I was a little annoyed with Cass, especially with her volleying feelings about Falco and Luca. There were times when it felt like her feelings went from one guy to the other six times before the end of a page. It was so frustrating! But in the end, I was surprised but not displeased with where the story left her between the two men. It left me wanting to come back for more and check out the next book in the series. The story deals with some ugly parts of the time period (prostitution, lack of police protection, murder, indentured servants, etc.) and might be better for older readers. But if you have a younger student who is a strong reader and enjoys historical fiction, this is for you! 

Unicorns as the Ultimate Cure All?

Diana Peterfreund's first unicorn novel was amazing. Her sequel, Ascendant, was just as good, but took some surprising twists. It took the life of Astrid, a unicorn hunter, in a new direction. Since unicorns are no longer sweet, sparkly myths with this series, we see Astrid struggle with her role as a hunter of these terrifying and majestic creatures and an admirer of the animals they really are.

Astrid continues to live in the Cloisters and hunt with the other girls, but things aren't progressing well. They are having trouble finding new recruits, and the Cloisters becomes a focus of attention for both the world at large, once people finally realize unicorns are real and deadly, and the Catholic church, from whom the convent they live in comes from. Astrid's mother Lilith has been in her glory touring talk shows and raising awareness about unicorns (and embellishing her own and her family's role in the unicorn world). Meanwhile the girls fight the deadly fight every day. When one girl gets sick and loses her hunter powers, Astrid agrees to go to England with her for protection. Before she goes to England, though, she stops in France to pursue a lead on the boy who raped her cousin Phil (Philippa) and disqualified her from being a hunter.

Once in France, Astrid quickly finds out she wasn't following the boy who hurt Phil, but rather her ex-boyfriend, the one her mother saved with the last of the world's Remedy (anti-unicorn). Brandt is still the guy who spread rumors about her in her high school, but she can't help but be drawn to him. When he takes her to the pharmaceutical lab that has been studying the unicorns (and tried to kill the hunters), she finds it is being run in a new way since the guy who plotted against the hunters was gored to death by a unicorn. Now his estranged wife is running the lab, and she wants Astrid to stay and manage their unicorn herd. Astrid agrees, but she quickly realizes the job isn't what she thought. When a baby unicorn is born right in front of her, Astrid hides it from the scientists, but they find out about her secret. Unable to bear the thought of what they will do to the baby, Astrid abandons the lab to return to the Cloisters. It is there she discovers the Cloisters is falling apart and they are down hunters. With only four working hunters, things quickly become very dangerous for Astrid. But she can't stop thinking about the herd she left behind. With unicorns in her head, things can quickly go downhill for Astrid. Will she survive the most dangerous job in the world?

This was a very interesting sequel, but it took some turns I was surprised by. Although the first book had some dark and gritty details, I wouldn't qualify it an overwhelmingly "dark" book. But this story got very disturbing. The descriptions of the treatment of the unicorns at the lab was almost too much to bear at times. When the secret of the Remedy is revealed, it is a plot twist I totally did not see coming, and am kind of stunned by! I was actually taken aback by some of the twists in this story, but they kept me reading! Sometimes the story seemed a little lost between "chunks", but overall it was a very intriguing follow-up.

Like the first book, I would probably give this to an older student, in particular one interested in fantasy and mythology. The history behind the hunters is really interesting, but my concern is that all the elements are never revealed. There are always gaps to the history and the story that are never fully explained. They don't keep you from understanding the story, and maybe they will be revealed in another book, but I wish they weren't given so sparingly. I would have like to have the full picture. In all, though, great sequel! Who can resist fanged, poisonous, flesh-eating unicorns?!

Killer, Man-Eating, Poisonous Unicorns

You know when you pick up a book and a few pages in you realize it is going to be AWESOME?! That was my experience with Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. This isn't a super new book, in fact the sequel is already out, but I just picked it up and decided to give it a try. I am so glad I did because this book was so exciting it kept me hooked all day until I finished it!

Astrid has always taken her mother's loony ravings about being a descendant of an ancient line of unicorn hunters with a grain of salt... until her boyfriend is attacked by a small unicorn. Astrid calls her mother and Lilith arrives with the ancient Remedy- the only known cure for unicorn venom. That's right, venom. See, unicorns are not all sparkly and adorable like every children's story would have us believe- nope, they are evil, angry, man-eating (and livestock) beasts with poisonous "alicorns" (their horns). Alicorn poisoning kills almost immediately, but the hunters are immune to it. That is why the unicorn didn't attack Astrid. She was born to be a hunter.

Unicorns were supposed to be extinct, but the new emergence has led to many attacks all over the world. It also leads to Lilith's barely controlled enthusiasm as she packs up Astrid and ships her off to Rome where the Cloisters exists- the home to the Order of the Lioness, a group of virgin unicorn hunters centuries ago. And the Cloisters looks like it hasn't been touch in centuries. When Astrid arrives, she is greeted by Cory, a hunter, and her uncle Neil, the man who took the responsibility of "don" or leader of the group. It becomes clear that Cory lives, breathes, and eats unicorn hunting and would have loved having Lilith for a mother.

More girls start arrive, including Astrid's cousin and best friend Phil (Philippa), and the girls start cleaning the Cloisters and training. When their first hunts go badly and result in many injuries, it becomes clear that something is wrong. The pharmaceutical company funding the hunters is making strange decisions and eventually disappears after a particularly disastrous hunt. More and more, the girls and Neil become suspicious of the situation, but they continue hunting. When Neil leaves to track down their contact, Lilith comes to supervise as donna. Under her supervision, Astrid almost dies and is instead approached by a karkadann, the largest and most fearsome of all unicorn species. The karkadann has a proposition for Astrid, one she can't pass up. Especially if she wants to keep her fellow hunters alive.

This was an A.MAZE.ING story and I simply couldn't get enough of it. I plowed through this book like it was life or death (and sometimes it felt like it was!). It was so well-written and a new take on old myths. The unraveling of the secrets and myths were so intricate and kept the reader enthralled (as did the fight scenes of course). The characters in the story were very interesting as well. They were a motley group of young women, from pampered princesses to a homeless drug addict. Their stories and backgrounds were just as interesting as those of the main characters, making the reader highly invested in all the hunters. There is clearly a sequel out already, but the book ends well. It isn't left with a cliffhanger, but definitely leaves the reader wanting more.

The target audience for this book is tough because it is definitely in the fantasy/mythology realm, which I find appeals to kids from early middle school through high school (and most fantasy is pretty clean so will work in this wide range of ages). But this book is dark. Very dark. The hunting scenes with the unicorns are bloody and gruesome, but imagine hunting something the size of an elephant with a poisonous alicorn! Perhaps the darkest part was when one of the hunter's was raped and it turns out someone may have set her up to lose her virginity and therefore forfeit her status as a hunter. I think this is a book that should be given to either older students or a younger high school student who is mature enough to handle the violence. A good rule of thumb might be if you think a kid could handle Hunger Games, then they could handle this story. None of the violence was overdone, but there might be that student who is too delicate to handle the more bloody scenes in the book. This was an amazing story, and I will be devouring the sequel as soon as it gets here (but not devouring in the same sense as the evil man-eating unicorns, of course!).