Under the Surface by Diana Urban

 

“Ruby is terrified to cave to her feelings for Sean and risk him crushing her heart.

Sean is pumped to spend a week with Ruby in Paris on their senior class trip, and he’ll wait however long until she’s ready to take things further.

But when Ruby’s best friend sneaks out the first night to meet a mysterious French boy, Ruby goes after her with two classmates, but caves to another temptation: attending mystery boy’s exclusive party in the Paris catacombs, the intricate web of tunnels beneath the city, home to six million long-dead Parisians. Only they never reach the party.

Underground, as something sinister chases them, they get lost in the endless maze of bones, uncovering dark secrets about the catacombs… and each other. And if they can’t find a way out, they’ll die in the dark beneath the City of Light.

Aboveground, Sean races to find the girl he loves as a media frenzy over the four missing teens begins.” - taken from Goodreads.

On a school strip to Paris, Ruby is excited for two things. One is to get some incredible footage for her YouTube channel and the second is to possibly make a leap of faith on her feelings for her classmate Sean. When Ruby's friend Val sneaks out to meet a boy she just met, she and two other girls leave the hotel to bring Val back. But upon finding her with Julien on their way to a secret party in the catacombs below Paris, the girls decide to join. Soon an injury leads to the group becoming lost amid the maze of bones as they soon discover that they are not alone. Can Sean figure out what happened to the girls before something sinister happens?

Inspired by a news article about a couple of teenagers lost beneath the City of Paris in the catacombs, join the race to see if Ruby and her friends make it back to the surface. 

Visit Diana Urban’s website.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi (Gilded Wolves book 1)

“Paris, 1889: The world is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier, Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful society, the Order of Babel, seeks him out for help, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.

To find the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin will need help from a band of experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian who can't yet go home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in all but blood, who might care too much.

Together, they'll have to use their wits and knowledge to hunt the artifact through the dark and glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the world, but only if they can stay alive.” - taken from Goodreads.com

At the beginning of this book, I was heavily reminded of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology and the sextuplet of main characters that everyone roots for. I kept comparing Severin to Kaz. The further you get into the story, these six characters begin to grow on you. Mythology, history, and math are woven throughout the story. Readers will soon be flipping through the pages to uncover the secrets everyone is hiding.

Needless to say, things don’t go exactly as our characters wish. WIth the ending chapters setting up the next book, readers will be ready to see where Severin and the gang go next.

Book two in the trilogy, The Silvered Serpents, is due out on February 2, 2020.

Visit Roshani Chokshi’s website.

Rook by Sharon Cameron

"What will be has already been..."

When the Great Death struck the Earth, many believed that it was caused by the Ancients’ reliance on technology. A few think that the downfall of the Time Before came from the shifts in the Earth itself that allowed for the radiation to come in. Paris, the former City of Light, is now known as the Sunken City. Parts dropped into the catacombs beneath the city and society is now divided between the Upper and Lower. Premier Allemande condones the use of technology. To keep the people of the Sunken City in line, history once again repeats itself. The guillotine is used to remove the heads of the wealthy who secretly fund outlawed technology. Allemande believes that society will fail once more if people become too dependent on machines again. Several countries, including Spain and China, have broken the Anti-Technology PAct and now refuse to trade with the Commonwealth, crippling its economy.

Sophia Bellamy is about to enter into a marriage contract with the handsome and wealthy René Hasard to save her family from financial ruin. The Parliament of the Commonwealth revoked the last license for private printing from the family because their book, Wesson’s Guide to Paintings of the Time Before, clouded people’s minds and is now an illegal item. With twenty-six days left to pay his debts, Mr. Bellamy will lose the family’s estate since his son Tom doesn’t have the money or assets to inherit it. It is now up to Sophia to wed the son of a wealthy Parisian businesswoman to secure the funds to pay off her father’s debt and to fund Tom’s inheritance of the estate. Having met René just before their engagement party, she believes that he will be an agreeable match and she can continue her life as she pleases. Sophia spends her spare time rescuing her friends before Allemande’s Ministre of Security, Albert LeBlanc, can separate them from their heads. Her world is turned upside down when LeBlanc makes an appearance at her engagement party hours after her latest rescue of an entire family from the Sunken City before their scheduled executions. It turns out that LeBlanc is a distant cousin to Hasard but it isn’t long before she discovers that he has traced the Red Rook to the doors of Bellamy House, across the Channel Sea. A mystery or legend, the Red Rook leaves behind a red-tipped rook feather in place of Allemende’s prisoners. LeBlanc will keep the Hasard fortune and her family’s salvation in tact if she can supply him with information about the Red Rook. LeBlanc gives her one week.

Snooping though LeBlanc’s room one night, Sophia is unnerved when she discovers an unfinished letter that he is writing to René. In it he tells René that the capture of the Red Rook is of the utmost importance. He should glean any information he can from his current situation but shouldn’t attempt to rush into a sacrificial marriage to Sophia. Angry, she realizes that LeBlanc has suspected Tom for awhile. She also ponders if René suspects the truth about her. Leaving LeBlanc’s room through a window, she hears a sword being unsheathed . Turning in time to keep from being hit in the spine, she gets cut in her side. Dropping quickly, the sword cuts her rope in half and she crashes to the ground where she blacks out.

Sophia awakes only what seems like minutes later to find the sword-bearing man dead with a knife in his chest. Hearing the foxes, she takes the knife, grabs her bleeding side and makes her way back to Bellamy House. She enters through a secret door and descends into an underground room that Tom has dubbed his sanctuary. She collapses on a cot. Sophia later awakes to find herself covered by a thick blanket, something tight around her middle and a man with his back to her. When he speaks to her over his shoulder, Sophia is startled to learn that it is René. He seems so unlike the man she met at their engagement party. She is sure that René has discovered the truth about her. Sophia is having problems trying to figure out this very different René Hasard from the one she first met. This René seems to be very dangerous but offers to keep her secrets if she will keep his once they are married. René sutures her wound. He leans down and Sophia thinks and kind of hopes that he will kiss her. Before anything can happen, René passes out from the knockout powder that Sophia placed in his drink. She leaves him behind and wonders how she will deal with LeBlanc later that night at dinner.

Is Sophia Bellamy the Red Rook? Who is René Hasard? Can Sophia trust him or is he really conspiring with the enemy? Does Sophia save her father from debtor’s prison and find a way for Tom to inherit Bellamy House? Can the guillotine be stopped once again? Will technology make a revival in the world? What happens when Sophia discovers that she isn’t the only one harboring a secret?

Based on The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy, readers will be entranced by Sophia’s story.

Visit Sharon Cameron’s website.

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (Ann and the French Kiss book 3)

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door, Stop! I don’t want to ruin the story for you. Anna, St. Clair, Lola and Cricket all make brief appearances for fans of the series.

“Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last?”

While on break before the start of their Senior year at the School of America in Paris (SOAP), Isla Martin runs into her long time crush, Joshua Wasserstein, at midnight in a cafe. High on Vicodin from having her wisdom teeth removed, Isla strikes up a conversation and is surprised that Josh actually knows some things about her. The son a of U.S. Senator, he remarks that it is strange that they have never run into each other before in the city. They rarely speak to one another in school and never outside of it. Isla is painfully shy, while Josh is reserved. Josh has also recently broken up with his long time girlfriend when she graduated. Isla strikes up a conversation over his sketchbook and before long he offers to draw her. Waking her up when the cafe closes, Josh offers to walk her home. It’s raining out. She thanks him on her doorstep and Josh tells her to have sweet dreams.

The next morning, Isla is embarrassed yet giddy over the night before. She and her best friend, Kurt, make plans to go back to the cafe that night to see if Josh is there. He’s not. At all of the various times she went by the cafe, Josh isn’t there the following two weeks or the rest of summer break. Isla’s happiness quickly fades. After attempting to find him online but chickening out at making contact, Isla discovers that Senator Wasserstein and his family returned to Washington, D.C. two days after the meeting in the cafe.

Three months later, Isla is back at school and her confidence at talking to Josh has completely faded. Miraculously, she finds that she has been assigned to the dorm room at Josh occupied last school year. The dorm door refuses to stay shut, even though they are suppose to automatically lock when closed. Isla is talking with Kurt when her younger sister, Hattie, bursts through the unlocked door. Both sets of parents are waiting to take everyone to dinner. Hattie goes on ahead. Kurt remarks that she needs to talk with the resident director, Nate, about fixing the door. In the lobby, Kurt says, “There he is.” Isla immediately assumes that she is talking about Nate and looks up. She spies Josh, who looks and truly is alone. He is pushed into the elevator with a crowd of people and briefly looks annoyed. just as the doors close, he looks up and sees Isla.

Isla and Josh pretty much have the same class schedule and she is unable to work up the nerve to speak to him. In the afternoon, Isla hears from a teacher that Hattie fell ill that morning and was sent to the nurse. She suspects that her breakfast made her sick; she has a nut allergy. Walking into the administration wing, Isla is shocked to discover Josh sitting on the couch. The receptionist tells Isla to have a seat, she will go check with the nurse. Isla goes to have a seat and sees that Josh has sat up. Knowing that she must say something, Isla thanks him for paying her bill that night at the cafe and walking her home. He says it was no problem and asks about her teeth. The receptionist comes back to get Isla. She heads back to her sister and the nurse comes in. Hattie explodes when Isla asks about her and if their parents now. She tells Isla to quit acting like her mother. As Isla goes to leave the office, Josh makes a nasty comment about Hattie. Isla turns around and he quickly apologizes. Isla tells him not to and agrees. The headmistress come out to get Josh. His expression returns to blankness. The headmistress sees Isla and inquires about her sister. She then turns her attention back to Josh and looks at him like he is trouble.

Isla is completely thrilled to realize that Josh has noticed her. The only class where they sit next to one another is government. The teacher catches them not paying attention and calls them out on it in front of the class. Josh has been studying Isla’s compass necklace. He chastises Josh and tells Isla that she could do better than the riffraff. Josh says that he knows he can, that she is a terrible influence. Everyone then laughs. Paying attention the rest of the period, Isla is surprised when Josh hands her a sketch of her necklace as she goes to leave. He has written underneath it, “why does she wear it every day?’’  Isla is flustered to her very core. Josh smiles flirtatiously and follows Isla and Kurt to the cafeteria. Kurt is a creature of habit and it shows on his face that he doesn’t want Josh to join them. He doesn’t and Isla is afraid that Josh will treat Kurt badly;  Kurt has high-functioning autism. The situation goes south when she thanks him for the sketch and Kurt wants to know if it is the portrait from over the summer. No something else, she says.. Kurt wants to see the portrait and asks if Josh has it. He says that he left that sketchbook back in the States and hurries off. Isla knows that it is a lie. Kurt comments that the situation turned weird. She agrees but deep down knows that Josh wanted to get away from Kurt. Isla is hurt.

Isla tries to ignore Josh but it isn’t easy when he is around. He flirts with her and recalls past conversations that they had. It is the days at a time that he is missing that bothers her. One day, there is a knock on her door and Isla is shocked that it is Josh and not Kurt. He comes in and asks if she wants to go out with him, to the comic book store. Disappointed at first, she agrees to go. While out, they learn more about each other, including the fact that they have both liked each other for awhile. Josh thought that she and Kurt dated. Soon, romance is in the air and Josh and Isla are inseparable. But can love last when life takes you in different directions?

Why is Josh a loner? Is he a troublemaker? How come Josh lies about his sketchbook? What does he plan on doing after graduating from high school? What are Isla’s plans? How does Kurt feel now that he isn’t the only boy in Isla’s life? Will Josh be a good or bad influence in her life? What happens after a bad decision affects Isla’s life? Can their love survive? Could Isla do better than Josh likes everyone thinks?

Visit Stephanie Perkins’ website.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

“Why do I care so much about him, and why do I wish I didn’t? How can one person make me so confused all of the time?”

Anna Oliphant was looking forward to her senior year of high school in Atlanta, Georgia. Bridgette is her loyal best friend; she has a dream job at the movie theater and a major crush that is beginning to go somewhere. Now all of sudden her best-selling author father has decided to enroll Anna in a French boarding school, the School of America in Paris (SOAP). This isn’t exactly how she wanted to spend her last year of high school, until she meets the beautiful, charming and smart Etienne St. Clair.

Unfortunately Etienne has a serious girlfriend and is the object of most everyone’s crush. Gorgeous with great looking hair, Etienne is on the short side but everyone’s friend. His mother is American, father is French and Etienne was raised in London before attending school at SOAP. Anna and Etienne hit it off right away but Anna tries to distance herself and deny her increasing attraction.

As the school year on, readers will pick up on the undeniable attraction between the two and will be left breathless wondering if and when Anna will receive her French kiss.

A companion novel, Lola and the Boy Next Door is due out September 29, 2011.

Visit Stephanie Perkins' website.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Ever since her younger brother's death, Andi and her parents have been swallowed by grief. Her father, a Nobel winning DNA scientist, is as consumed with his work as ever and has moved on with a new girlfriend. Her mother, an artist, paints portriats of Turman all day and night, commenting that she can never get the color of his eyes right. Andi is a senior at a prestigious Brooklyn prep school. She is gifted both academically and as a guitartist, but is failing out of school over her guilt in Truman's death. When her father finds out from the school that Andi hasn't started her senior thesis, he encounters a house filled with grief. He checks her mother into a mental hospital for treatment and takes Andi with him to Paris where he is going to be working on a project and she can begin her thesis outline.

Andi and her father go to stay with his college roommate, G, who is a world famous expert on the French Rvolution. G is looking for the financial backing to start a museum on the Revolution and has brought in Andi's famous father to help him on a gentic experiment. G wishes to do DNA testing on what is believed to be the heart of Louis-Charles, the son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette. When Andi sees pictures of the heart encased in its glass urn and a portriat of the ten year old heir, she immediately thinks of Truman. The resembalance is uncanny. G allows her to play an expensive antique guitar that he illegally purchased from someone who found it in the catacombs beneath Paris. Andi is thrilled to be playing such a fine guitar. In looking at it's case, she realizes that the lock is broken and begins to work on opening it. In a last ditch effort to free the lock, the key Andi keeps around her neck falls from her shirt. The key belonged to Truman and Andi has worn it since his death. She tries it in the lock and it works. When the bottom opens, Andi thinks she has broken the case but soon realizes that it has a false bottom. In it she finds a miniature portriat of Louis-Charles and a diary written during the Revolution.

Soon Andi is drawn into the diary of a young girl named Alex who was the companion for Louis-Charles. The diary is her way to get his story to the public but was lost for the past 200 years. Between working on her thesis outline and reading the diary, Andi meets a handsome young taxi driver who is an aspiring musician. She soon finds herself falling in love with Virgil but is terrified by becoming close to someone after walling herself and her emotions off from the rest of the world.

Will Andi be able to pick up the pieces of her life and resolve her feelings of guilt over Truman's death? Can she repair her broken relationship with her father and manage to write her thesis? Is Andi capable of revealing herself not only to Virgil but herself? And what will happen to Alex in the diary and the mysterious Louis-Charle? Does the story end well for either girl?

Visit Jennifer Donnelly's website.