Gone Rogue by Marissa Meyer (Wires and Nerves book 2)

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first books in the Lunar Chronicles, Stop! This graphic novel series takes place after the events in Winter and is the second volume in Iko’s adventures.

“Iko – an audacious android and best friend to the Lunar Queen Cinder – has been tasked with hunting down Alpha Lysander Steele, the leader of a rogue band of bioengineered wolf-soldiers who threaten to undo the tenuous peace agreement between Earth and Luna. Unless Cinder can reverse the mutations that were forced on them years before, Steele and his soldiers plan to satisfy their monstrous appetites with a massacre of the innocent people of Earth.

And to show he’s serious, Steele is taking hostages.

Cinder and Kai, Scarlet and Wolf, Cress and Thorne, and Winter and Jacin all feature in this epic new battle. But it is Iko who must face her deepest fears when she uncovers the truth about her own unusual programming.” - taken from Goodreads.com

This concluding volume of the graphic novel wrap-up of The Lunar Chronicles was satisfying for fans of the series. Charged with stopping Alpha Steele’s wolf - soldiers from their rampage on Earth, Iko and Kinney are forced to work together. Every beloved major and minor character from the books has their “happily ever after”. I would love to see in the future a possible novella detailing a certain wedding just as a check in on what everyone is up to. Hate to see these characters go.

Visit Marissa Meyer’s website.

Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller (Daughter of the Pirate King book 2)

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first book in the series, Daughter of the Pirate King, Stop! I don’t want to ruin the story for you.

Check out Book Series Recaps for a refresher of the first book.

"Alosa's mission is finally complete. Not only has she recovered all three pieces of the map to a legendary hidden treasure, but the pirates who originally took her captive are now prisoners on her ship. Still unfairly attractive and unexpectedly loyal, first mate Riden is a constant distraction, but now he's under her orders. And she takes great comfort in knowing that the villainous Vordan will soon be facing her father's justice.

When Vordan exposes a secret her father has kept for years, Alosa and her crew find themselves in a deadly race with the feared Pirate King. Despite the danger, Alosa knows they will recover the treasure first . . . after all, she is the daughter of the Siren Queen." - taken from Goodreads.com

I loved the Pirate King. It was a quick, witty, slow burn romance about a strong-willed female pirate. When I finally got my hands on the second book, I literally dived right in. Picking up immediately, this book was action packed and the steaks were higher as Alosa raced against her father to find the treasure of the sirens first. Levenseller delivered a heart-breaking but satisfying ending for fans.

Visit Tricia Levenseller’s website.

Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare (Ink, Iron, and Glass book 1)

“Can she write a world gone wrong?

A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation by her mother—a noted scriptologist.

But when her home is attacked and her mother abducted, Elsa must cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative 19th-century Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of pazzerellones—young people with a gift for mechanics, alchemy or scriptology—and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and a tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep.” - taken from Goodreads.com

Ink, Iron, and Glass is a unique steampunk story with an alternative history twist. Elsa lives in the “scripted” world of Veldana with her mother Jumi. Both mother and daughter are scriptologists, but they and the world they live in are scripted by a man named Montaigne. When Jumi is kidnapped, Elsa is forced to go to the real world to find her. There she finds that Montaigne is dead, his house is on fire, and the worldbook that contains Veldana is missing.

Elsa discovers a group of young adults who are gifted like herself, scriptologists machinists, or Alchemists, who helped her begin to search for her mother. With a rich world building plot, a slow-burning romance, and shocking reveals, fans will be initially heartbroken but clamoring for the next book in the series.

Book two, Mist, Metal, and Ash, is due out February 19, 2019.

Visit Gwendolyn Clare’s website.