King’s Cage

Aveyard, Victoria. King’s Cage. Book 3 of the Red Queen series. 2017. 507p. ISBN 9780062310699. Available at FIC AVE on the library shelves.

Captured by King Maven at the end of Glass Sword, Mare Barrow is now a prisoner under his complete control, with silent stones handcuffs that prevent her from accessing her control over electricity. As the Scarlet Guard relentlessly keeps attacking outposts of Norta, the pressure on Maven to maintain his kingdom keeps increasing. Powerless, her thoughts turn to her friends, and she wonders whether they even managed to escape Maven’s clutches.

Desperate to free Mare, Cal sends agents in Archeon to help her escape, but they are captured by Maven’s men. With continuous assaults by the Reds and the New Bloods, Maven launches a campaign, using Mare to recruit his own army of New Bloods. He also engineers an unlikely alliance between Norta and Lakeland, and secures the Lakeland princess’ hand in marriage, much to the chagrin of Evangeline Samos, who expected to be the next Queen of Norta.

Guided by Farley, the rebels’ Central Command launches a daring operation against Corvium, and manages to seize the city from Maven’s forces, capturing a large number of Silvers. Maven’s court becomes a hotbed of conspiracies, and he suffers an assassination attempt. On Maven’s wedding day, the Scarlet Guard attacks Archeon, and Maven barely escapes. House Samos withdraws to the Rift, and declares its own Kingdom. Mare is reunited with Cal, while more and more Reds and New Bloods join the Scarlet Guard.

With Maven on the run, and with his grandmother plotting to install Cal as the rightful heir to the throne, Mare once again finds herself in between the two brothers, with two different social vision. But while Silvers fight Silvers, the entire world is about to burn.

Unbelievable

Shepard, Sara. Unbelievable. Book 4 of the Pretty Little Liars series. 2008. 335p. ISBN 978-0-06-088741-4. Available at FIC SHE on the library shelves.

At the end of Perfect, Hanna was hit by a large black SUV driven by A, and was rushed to the hospital. Thankfully, the damage was minimal but Hanna’s pretty face is marred by the trauma she suffered, and she has no recollection of A’s identity. She reconciles with Mona, and they begin planning Hanna’s recovery with a party.

Caught in Maya’s company despite her parents’ warning, Emma is sent to live with her very religious aunt and uncle in rural Iowa, but she is immediately betrayed by her cousins who take her to a barn party only to rat her out as the instigator the very next morning. Emma runs away, but upon seeing her parents in tears on television begging her to return, she heads back home. A, however is still after her.

Aria is kicked out of Sean’s house for pursuing a relationship with her English teacher. Not welcomed at her mother’s house, she reluctantly moves with her father and his girlfriend, soon to be wife, Meredith, who is now pregnant with her father’s child. Wishing to escape her life, Aria takes an art class at the college where her father and Meredith work. She runs into Jenny, who was blinded by Alison, and whom Aria suspects is A.

Spencer’s entry into the golden orchid competition is really her sister Melissa. Spencer knows she has forgotten crucial details of Alison’s last night before her disappearance, and she suspects she might be responsible for her death.

With A now out for blood and getting more bold, the four friends have to watch out for each other as their lives increasingly spiral out of control.

The Holy Roman Empire

DeCarlo, Carolyn. The Holy Roman Empire. Part of the Empires in the Middle Ages series. 2018. 48p. ISBN 978-1-68048-782-4. Available at 943.02 HOL on the library shelves.

An idea more than anything else, the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire, yet it exerted a significant influence Europe for more than a thousand years. Born from the desire of Charlemagne to restore the Roman Empire and claim its trappings and authority, the Holy Roman Empire evolved into a coalition of German states with an elected Emperor nominally in charge of a decentralized multi-ethnic state stretching from France to Poland and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. The Empire never evolved an overarching system of law or governance, but instead remained dependant on the goodwill of those entities which were supposedly vassals of the Empire.

As a structure, the Holy Roman Empire supported the Pope and acted as a bulkward against both the Orthodoxy of the Byzantium Empire, and the subsequent expansion of the Ottoman Empire and of Islam. Eventually, the rise of Napoleon and his wars of conquests rang the death knell of the Holy Roman Empire, which was finally dissolved in 1806 and replaced by a loose coalition of German states. Never fully implemented, the Holy Roman Empire continues to intrigue and spark conversations of whether the Roman Empire could have been resurrected in the West under more favorable circumstances.

Titles in the Empires in the Middle Ages series include:

• The Byzantine Empire
• The Crusades
• The Islamic Caliphate
• The Mongol Empire
• The Ottoman Empire

Ray vs. the Meaning of Life

Stewart, Michael F. Ray Vs. the Meaning of Life. The Publishing House, 2018. 275p. 978-1-989-13300-2. Available at FIC STE on the library shelves.

When seventeen-year-old Ray’s grandmother is killed by a grizzly, Ray has one month to discover the meaning of life so he can inherit a million dollars and Sunny Day, the campground where he’s lived his entire life. If he can’t, both his mother and his uncle Jamie will get everything. His mother wants him gone. His twenty-five-year-old sister, Crystal, an avid hunter, wants him dead. Tina, the girl he likes and the daughter of Salminder, the one person who acts like a father, has bigger issues to contend with than helping Ray in his quest. The summer guests have begun to arrive, and there’s still an iceberg floating in the pool. Fortunately Grandmother left some help for Ray through a paid contract with Dalen, a celebrity motivational speaker. Armed with platitudes and an infectious positivity, Dalen sets to assist Ray in not only finding what the meaning of life is, but also truly discover who the real Ray is, and in the process help the entire campground community. But will one month be enough?

Filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, Ray’s struggles are realistic and are told with humor. Containing much of the “wise” sayings from countless Internet memes, the wisdom disgorged by Dalen still represents the fundamental building blocks of philosophy, and through them Ray eventually figures out that one person’s meaning of life is not necessarily another person’s. Every reader will empathize with Ray’s heartfelt struggles to discover the meaning of life, and by extension himself. A brief attempt at awkward sexual activity makes this better read for older students searching for themselves as well as those looking for a humorous book.

LeBron James: Basketball’s King

Nagelhout, Ryan. LeBron James: Basketball’s King. Part of the People in the News series. 2017. 104p. ISBN 978-1-5345-6029-1. Available at B JAM on the library shelves shelves.

Every generation has its greatest basketball player. In the 1990s, it was Michael Jordan, who drove the Chicago Bulls to six championships. In the 2000s, a prodigy arose straight out of high school to join the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA. LeBron James, son of a single mother, showed signs of being a great basketball player earlier on, but really began to shine in high school where he was quickly noticed by local and national media. LeBron’s mastery of basketball and his growing following forced his high school to move games from the gym to the local university. LeBron was also the first player on a high school team to be broadcasted live on ESPN 2.

After graduating high school, LeBron immediately entered the NBA with the Cavaliers, and turned the team around. Unfortunately, despite breaking records and making the playoffs, LeBron and the Cavs were unable to win a title. Reaching free agency in 2007, LeBron elected to move to Miami and join the Heat. He won two championships with the Heat, before returning to Cleveland to win one more with the Cavs. Still a dominant player on the court, with multiple awards and nominations, LeBron is also a strong marketing presence with contracts with Nike and other companies, and donates time and money to favorite causes such as the Boys and Girls of America.

Sports fan, especially basketball players, will enjoy reading this excellent biography about LeBron James, demonstrating that effort and hard work pays off.

Archie, Vol. 2

Waid, Mike & Fiona Staples. Archie, Vol. 2. 2016. 176p. ISBN 978-1-62738-799-6. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

Following Archie, Vol. 1, Veronica and Archie are now dating, and each has to get used to the other person’s world. While Archie has difficulty dealing with Mr. Lodge, who is doing everything he can to exile Archie away from his daughter, Veronica has trouble adjusting to the Andrews’ middle class lifestyle and attempts to change it by providing a butler, a maid, and a super-large screen television. Betty, meanwhile, is still upset at Archie about the lipstick incident, but she hates to see him ruin his life for a rich brat. With a political campaign between Betty’s uncle and Mr. Lodge for Mayor of Riverdale, and with a battle of bands brewing, Archie finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom of explosive situations, with Reggie hovering in the background, ready to ground his archrival in the dust. Can Riverdale survive their adventures?

Genuine Fraud

Lockart, E. Genuine Fraud. 2017. 264p. 406 mins. ISBN 978-0-385-74477-5. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Why is it always men that are portrayed as the muscled saviors in movies, while women stand to the side as eye-candy or love interests? Jule enjoys being an action movie star. She has created her own origin story, with her parents being murdered by villains, and her being rescued by her aunt, who works for a secret special ops outfit. The fact that none of that happened to her doesn’t matter. That’s she story she likes. Working out every day has bulked Jules up, and she sports serious muscles, something two kids harassing her at the arcade violently find out. Jules very much enjoys using her strength.

Moving from a small southern town to Florida then to New York, she is mistaken for the classmate of a rich and spoiled girl who has just run off to Puerto Rico and cut all contacts with her parents. Imogen’s parents hire Jule to go to Puerto Rico and report on what their daughter, Imogen, is doing. Instead, however, Jule and Imogen become fast friends, and begin spending a lot of time together. As a multimillionaire, Imogen can afford to support Jule. Her cotlery of friends are also rich and shallow. But as time progresses, Jule, who has passed for one of Imogen’s old classmates, realizes she could very well also pass for Imogen ...

Told in reverse chronological order, this book starts with Jule being tracked down by law enforcement in Mexico, and each subsequent event, which happened in the past, explains how she ended up in the previous chapter. A thoroughly unsympathetic character, readers will nonetheless appreciate how Jule manages to keep ahead of her lies and secrets to keep her freedom.