Copyright Date:
2024
Edition Date:
2024
Release Date:
03/19/24
Pages:
403 pages
ISBN:
1-665-93441-7
ISBN 13:
978-1-665-93441-1
Dewey:
Fic
LCCN:
2023017181
Dimensions:
24 cm.
Language:
English
Reviews:
Publishers Weekly
(Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Fuston (Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things) adds a historical fantasy spin to a Hunger Games–style tournament in this urgent action-adventure. Teen Bly and her family, including her younger sister Elise, struggle to survive while living in the Gap, a locale between Vagaris and Havenwhile, both powerful cities ruled by vampires and witches, respectively, each of whom needed Gap residents “hungry enough to sell their blood.” Bly wants to escape the Gap, certain she could cultivate a life free from hunger rather than skipping meals to pay for necessities. More than that, she wants her best friend Emerson to share in her adventures. But when her plans for escape bring tragedy, she resorts to selling blood and planning for the Revenant Games, the one time of year when humans compete for the rare opportunity to toy with mortality as Vagaris and Havenwhile have done for centuries. With no magic of her own, however, Bly must do everything she can to win—even if it means aligning with the enemy. Via inviting and introspective prose, Fuston fashions a ruthless world filled with desperation and gilded cages, where revolution simmers beneath the surface and chaos awaits around every corner. Bly and her family read as white and Emerson has dark brown skin. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rebecca Podos, Rees Agency. (Mar.)
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Publishers Weekly
(Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
All of Us Villains meets Kingdom of the Wicked in this “urgent action-adventure” (Publishers Weekly) following a teen determined to win the competition held by warring vampire and witch kingdoms, only to develop complicated feelings for the vampire she’s supposed to hand over.
Blood is survival for seventeen-year-old Bly, who lives in the poverty-stricken human villages caught between enemy vampire and witch kingdoms. Most of the time, vampires and witches live in uneasy truce, buying human blood for their food and spells. But for two weeks a year, the ceasefire dissolves, and they hold the Revenant Games.
Any human can play in the games for either the witches or the vampires. Alongside life-changing riches, the witches will raise one person from the dead for whoever captures the highest-ranking vampire. In turn, the vampires offer immortality to whoever captures the most powerful witch. For most humans, the games are a ticket out of poverty. For Bly, it’s a chance to get back her dead sister, Elise, and save the life of her dying best friend, Emerson.
Together, she and Emerson forge a dangerous plan to play both sides and win both prizes: resurrection for Elise and immortality for Emerson. But when the vampire they capture stirs a passion in Bly that she hasn’t felt in a long time, she’ll have to make a choice: her sister or the boy who’s shown her there’s more to life than just survival.