NIKI FLORICA

"Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron. Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers

Born a house slave on Whitehaven Plantation, Pheobe knows how to watch and listen and hide secrets away where no one will find them—secrets like the words she collects, though slaves aren't permitted to read or write. Secrets like an impossible hope of freedom from slavery. When a bird doctor comes to Whitehaven and wants Pheobe, a mute, as his guide, Pheobe can sense danger on the wind, sure as any chickadee. This white man from the north has brought secrets with him—dangero

Last night, somewhere around midnight, I finished a YA fantasy duology that proved disappointing. Despite engaging writing, a unique concept, and really solid characters, I was unbalanced by the overarching message of moral relativity that seemed to come out of left field. Essentially, at the end of the first book, the reader is told that life and its choices are not black and white, but a spectrum of all the shades of grey in between. And while it's true that every choice ca

Parvin Blackwater's Clock gives her little more than eighteen years to live, and at the last year mark, she knows she's wasted them. Desperate to do something meaningful before her Clock zeroes out, she dedicates herself to exposing the government's terrible treatment of Clockless citizens known as Radicals. But when Parvin herself is denounced as a Radical and given a death sentence—exile —her last six months are suddenly inflamed with purpose. Survive. Save lives. Make her

One of the most significant objects featured in The Heir of Ariad is a simple pendant once worn by the legendary messenger, Camuel. In writing The Heir, I included the necklace as a means of creating friction between characters. Camuel's role in the story was initially as more of a figurehead than a person—a famous warrior and beloved grandfather whose death meant more to the plot than his life. As is often the case, though, Camuel refused to remain so two-dimensional. He had

The world has shifted on its axis. Technology and machinery have been destroyed and thrust into Ancient history, replaced by a world where history seems to be repeating itself. In the Parisian Sunken City, a radical ruler is imprisoning the wealthy and sending them to the Razor in droves—at least, those of them who don't vanish mysteriously from their prison cells, a red-dipped rook feather left in their place. Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth across the Channel, Sophia Bellam