A Web of Air by Philip Reeve

Set far in the future, the sequel to Fever Crumb brings us to when Fever is sixteen years old.  The highly rational Engineer is now working and living with a group of traveling performers.  When she arrives in the city of Mayda, she finds out that there is a man named Arlo Thursday working furiously to rediscover the lost secret of flight.  However, every person before him who dreamed of flight mysteriously died before they could real their goal.  Fever and Arlo race to finish a flying machine amongst deadly plots and skeptical religious fanatics.  There is only one thing they need to do: fly, when no one has left the ground for hundreds of years.

This book is slow to take off, but once it does, prepare for a wild ride.  Fever's cold and rational character and her background may come as a bit of a shock to those who haven't read the first book, but she is surprisingly relatable.  The plots takes unpredictable twists and turns, and no one that Fever meets can really be trusted.  Be prepared to become annoyed with several of the characters! A Web of Air is a great read for anyone, but be sure to read Fever Crumb first so as to understand the setting and Fever's background.

4 stars

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Theseus Cassio, known as Cas, is a ghost hunter.  He's not your run-of-the-mill Ghostbuster.  Rather, he kills spirits that have come back to wreak havoc on mortals.  Cas has been one of the world's only ghost hunters since his father's death, traveling around and slaying spirits.  When he hears about a ghost in  Canada known as Anna Dressed in Blood, who savagely kills runaway kids and homeless people who are unlucky enough to seek refuge in her house, Cas smells a challenge.  With the help of a teenage mind-reading witch and a prom queen, he tracks down Anna and prepares to send her back six feet under.  There's just one thing wrong: Anna knows what she's done, unlike countless other ghosts Cas has killed.  She has a conscious, and seems more human. For some reason, she can't bring herself to kill him.

This is a dark novel, that has just enough romance to accent the magic and mystery without overpowering it.  Anna and the other ghosts Cas encounters are not the friendly Casper variety, and will be sure to keep the reader up at night.  The style of writing hooks the reader in from the first page.  Prepare for a wild ride into Blake's brilliantly crafted supernatural world right to the shocking end

5 stars

The second book in the series, Girl of Nightmares, is due out August 7th, 2012.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfield

Set on an alternative Earth at the brink of World War One, Leviathan introduces two young characters: Deryn, a headstrong girl determined to join the British Air Service and escape her smothering family, and  Alek, whose royal parents were just killed in an act that will set off the Great War.  The two meet when the ship Deryn is on, the Leviathan, crashes near Alek's safehouse.  The two encounter German warships and other dangers, and must cooperate to survive, even if they are on opposing sides.

Leviathan is a great read.  Westerfield weaves a brilliant tale that mixes past customs with future technology.  This book introduces the rest of the trilogy in a way that will leave the reader itching for the next installment.

5 stars

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series By Rick Riordan

This series is a must read for kids ages ten and up. It follows our young hero Percy Jackson and his friends, Annabeth and Grover through a perilous journey to save the world on several different occasions. In the final book Percy endures a shocking showdown with the king of the evil Titans, Kronos. This series is amazing. Look for other books by this author.




Reviewed by Jacob Kowalski