Hunted by Meagan Spooner

Hunted by Meagan Spooner. March 14, 2017. HarperTeen, 374 p. ISBN: 9780062422286.  Int Lvl: YA; Rdg Lvl: YA; Lexile: 1000.

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Potentially Sensitive Areas: Violence, Mild sexual themes

 

About the Author

Reviews

Booklist (January 1, 2017 (Vol. 113, No. 9))
Grades 7-12. The story of Beauty and the Beast is intriguingly reimagined in this offering from the author of the Skylark trilogy. Yeva, known as Beauty to her beloved family, enjoys the pleasures of her aristocratic life, but is not satisfied by it. Her father loses his fortune in a failed business venture, forcing Yeva and her sisters to move to his remote lodge in the forest. When her father goes missing in the woods, Beauty, an accomplished hunter, goes after him. She soon finds herself the prisoner of a cursed beast who needs Beauty’s skills for his own purposes. Interestingly, there is no real villain; Yeva’s sisters love her, and her fiance is not a cad. The story does not rest so much on Beauty finding the man beneath the beastly exterior as it does recognizing the shared longing that imprisons them both, and how she is eventually able to save him. Alternately delicate and brutal, this is an evocative retelling that grounds itself within the universal magic of storytelling.

Kirkus Reviews starred (December 1, 2016)
A rich, Russian-influenced retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.”Bored by her comfortable life in town, Yeva (Beauty) longs for the woods. But when her merchant father loses their fortune and retreats to the wilderness with Yeva and her older sisters, Lena (Light) and Asenka (Grace), Yeva must remember her woodcraft in order to protect her family. Preferring solitude to her persistent suitor, Solmir, and a brewing love triangle—Asenka is drawn to Solmir—Yeva hunts, first for game, then for the Beast. Blaming the Beast for her father’s absence, Yeva becomes his captive, then his would-be assassin—trained to kill for him but also hoping to kill him—yet struggles to reconcile his violence and humanity. Building upon a familiar tale, Spooner creates a detailed world populated by complex characters, with medieval household mundanities and retellings of Russian folk tales anchoring the later fantastic elements. No Disney heroine, white, red-haired Yeva is also—appreciably—not an instantly lethal, superpowered heroine, although she is single-mindedly bent first on survival, then on revenge. Love blooms slowly, but this is an old-fashioned romance reminiscent of Robin McKinley’s and Patricia McKillip’s novels, concerned with the power of stories. An elegant, classic, and vivid fairy tale. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day, while dreaming about life as an archaeologist, a marine biologist, an astronaut. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting, and has spent several years since then living in Australia. She’s traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there’s a bit of every trip in every story she writes.

She currently lives and writes in Asheville, North Carolina, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there’s no telling how long she’ll stay there. She’s the author of the award-winning Starbound trilogy (These Broken Stars, This Shattered World, Their Fractured Light) and the Skylark Trilogy (Skylark, Shadowlark, Lark Ascending) as well as the Beauty and the Beast retelling Hunted.

In her spare time she plays guitar, plays video games, plays with her cat, and reads.

Her website is www.meaganspooner.com

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Frogkisser! by Garth Nix

Frogkisser! by Garth Nix. February 28, 2017. Scholastic Press, 384 p. ISBN: 9781338052084.  Int Lvl: YA; Rdg Lvl: YA; Lexile: 840.

The Last Thing She Needs Is a Prince.

The First Thing She Needs Is Some Magic.

Poor Princess Anya. Forced to live with her evil stepmother’s new husband, her evil stepstepfather. Plagued with an unfortunate ability to break curses with a magic-assisted kiss. And forced to go on the run when her stepstepfather decides to make the kingdom entirely his own.

Aided by a loyal talking dog, a boy thief trapped in the body of a newt, and some extraordinarily mischievous wizards, Anya sets off on a Quest that, if she plays it right, will ultimately free her land-and teach her a thing or two about the use of power, the effectiveness of a well-placed pucker, and the finding of friends in places both high and low.

Potentially Sensitive Areas: Violence

 

Book Trailer

Sneak Peek

Reviews

Booklist (December 1, 2016 (Vol. 113, No. 7))
Grades 6-10. Princess Anya is in a bind. Her stepstepfather Duke Rikard (who happens to be an evil sorcerer) is plotting to steal the crown, her older sister’s suitor has been transformed into a frog, and Anya has promised to help turn him back into a prince—but she’s fresh out of the transmogrification-reversal lip balm she needs for the job. There’s nothing for it but to embark on a quest to gather the hard-to-come-by lip balm ingredients and hopefully devise a way to stop the duke while she’s at it. Anya is accompanied by Ardent, an eager (talking) royal dog, and it isn’t long before their journey takes on a more significant purpose. Playing on fairy tale tropes and conventions, Nix (Newt’s Emerald, 2015) delivers a delightful adventure stuffed with absurdity, magic, and a spirited young heroine. Beneath these entertaining trappings lies a heartfelt message of justice and fair treatment for all. As for Anya, there’s always room for leading ladies like her: “I don’t expect to need rescuing. I’m not that kind of princess.”

Kirkus Reviews starred (November 15, 2016)
Princess Anya goes questing to fulfill a promise to her sister.When Princess Anya’s stepstepfather, evil Duke Rikard, transforms her older sister’s latest love into a frog, the self-possessed white royal promises to transform him back. Alas, the Transmorgification Reversal Lip Balm is depleted in kissing the wrong frog, and Anya is forced on a dual quest to escape death by Duke Rikard and gather supplies for more balm. The third-person narration chronicles the high jinks that ensue as Anya sets off with her faithful talking canine companion, Ardent, and the transformed prince. Anya and company fall in with various intriguing characters: Bert (short for Roberta), the strong, capable, dark-skinned leader of the Association of Responsible Robbers (think Robin Hood), who challenges Anya to examine her princess privilege; the powerful and also dark-skinned and female Good Wizard; and the Wizard’s teacher, who’s both Merlin and Snow White (just one way Nix cleverly and hilariously turns fairy-tale tropes upside-down); as well as the Seven Dwarves. The characters are so enjoyable readers are sure to miss them when the quest (and book) ends. Refreshingly, there’s no romance plot here, and just as refreshingly, the two dark-skinned women are both beautiful and benevolent. Nix takes inspiration from classics and improves on them: he doesn’t fall into negative tropes and masterfully infuses the weight of first recognizing one’s privilege with humor. Great fun with heart. (Fantasy. 10 & up)

About the Author

Garth Nix was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia, to the sound of the Salvation Army band outside playing ‘Hail the Conquering Hero Comes’ or possibly ‘Roll Out the Barrel’. Garth left Melbourne at an early age for Canberra (the federal capital) and stayed there till he was nineteen, when he left to drive around the UK in a beat-up Austin with a boot full of books and a Silver-Reed typewriter.

Despite a wheel literally falling off the Austin, Garth survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. After finishing his degree in 1986 he worked in a bookshop, then as a book publicist, a publisher’s sales representative, and editor. Along the way he was also a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve, serving in an Assault Pioneer platoon for four years. Garth left publishing to work as a public relations and marketing consultant from 1994-1997, till he became a full-time writer in 1998. He did that for a year before joining Curtis Brown Australia as a part-time literary agent in 1999. In January 2002 Garth went back to dedicated writer again, despite his belief that full-time writing explains the strange behaviour of many authors.

He now lives in Sydney with his wife, two sons and lots of books.  His website is www.garthnix.com.

Around the Web

Frogkisser! on Amazon

Frogkisser! on Goodreads

Frogkisser! on JLG

Frogkisser! Publisher Page