Umberland

Spinale, Wendy. Umberland. Book 2 of the Everland series. 2017. 275p. ISBN 978-0-545-95318-4. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

In Everland, Gwen and her siblings escaped the heart of London and the Bloody German Queen’s Marauders with Pete and the Lost Boys and found safe haven at Alnwick Castle, where the Queen of England still rules. Unfortunately, the Queen is dying, and the Horologia virus that affects the remaining children is mutating following Doc’s intervention to create a vaccine. Duchess Alyssa is ready to take over the leadership, but Kat opposes this move and plans a revolution of her own. With time running out, Doc can think of only one possibility to stop the virus. Someone must travel to the Black Forest to retrieve a poisonous apple believed to be extinct. Protected by a deadly maze and located deep within enemy territory, the hopes of even finding this apple are slim to none.

Alyssa travels to the Queen’s garden, where she meets Maddox Hadder, a transfuge from Germany. Maddox agrees to help her, and the two of them travel to Germany and enter the maze. Hook, meanwhile, has returned to meet with his mother the Bloody Queen, and she tasks him and his half brother to enter the same labyrinth and find the apple so that Germany can possess an antidote to the virus. Gwen and Peter, meanwhile, face an assault by Kat and her forces. As the three pairs travel their separate ways, the virus spreads even further and a life-threatening situation turns deadly as obstacles litter their journey. Are they willing to pay the cost?