Active Voice

By Catherine Fisher [LibraryThing]

Incarceron is a prisoner unlike any other: it is alive, and holds thousands of prisoners inside it, in a bleak, ever-changing, deadly landscape. Finn awoke inside with no memories, but is sure he came from somewhere else — even though most other prisoners don’t believe the Outside even exists, or that Escape is possible.

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron’s warden, soon to be married to a prince. Caught up in a web of intrigue and not sure who to trust, she searches for her father’s key — and through it finds Finn. Desperate, she’s sure Finn is the only one who can help her, and she’s certainly the only one who can help him.

But they have only hours to get him out, before her wedding takes place, and all hope to free not just the prisoners, but the entire trapped world is gone…
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Hello! Happy New Year!

By Frank Beddor [LibraryThing]

The day Princess Alyss Heart turns seven, exiled Queen Redd attacks and takes over Wonderland. Forced to flee for her life, Alyss falls through the Pool of Tears and lands in England in the 1850s. Abandoned and alone, she loses her magic. Meanwhile, Redd rules Wonderland with an iron fist, and only a small band of rebels resists her. Their only hope is that somehow, Alyss can be brought home to take back the country that is rightfully hers.

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By Scott Westerfeld [LibraryThing]

It’s 1914, and the world powers are on the brink of war: the German and Austria-Hungarian powers (Clankers) with their enormous machines, and the British, French, and Russian (Darwinist) powers with their engineered beasts. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is the spark needed to light the powder keg, and war spreads quickly, throwing millions of lives into turmoil.

In Serbia, Alek Ferdinand, son of the assassinated archduke, must go into hiding when he learns that his allies were behind his parents’ murders, and his own people might be even more dangerous to him than the enemy. Meanwhile, in England, commoner Deryn Sharp has disguised herself as a boy and joined the British Air Services, where she serves aboard the whale airship Leviathan. But when the Leviathan is called on for a strange mission, things go badly very quickly, and not even neutral territory can protect Alek and Deryn when they meet…
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Book Ten
Starting Time: 1:30 pm
Ending Time: 3:22 pm

Title: The Pharaoh’s Secret
Author: Marissa Moss
Genre: Contemporary/urban / fairy tale/mythic / historical fantasy
Pages: 307
Summary: Talibah finds herself trying to unravel ancient Egyptian intrigue in order to put the souls that are haunting her to rest.
Thoughts: I liked the entirely non-white cast, the pluckiness of the little brother, and the solid grounding in history and Egyptology, but otherwise this book wasn’t very good. The prose was weak, and the resolution of the mystery – the explanation of how the modern characters were connected to the historical ones – was incoherent.

Two and a half cupcakes

By Libba Bray [Bray at LibraryThing - Bray at Amazon]

Gemma Doyle has lived her whole life in India, but when her mother is killed, her family returns to England, where Gemma is sent off to Spence Academy for Young Ladies. But Gemma can’t escape her grief, or the prophetic visions she’s suddenly privy to. With her friends Pippa, Felicity, and Ann, she discovers the realms, a magical world where they can be all the things their rigid Victorian society won’t allow them to be. But everyone wants power over the magic Gemma holds – the creatures of the realms, secret societies in the ordinary world, and her mother’s killer – and no one can be trusted.

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By Jonathan Stroud [LibraryThing - Amazon]

When Nathaniel, a young magician-in-training, summons the djinni Bartimaeus to get revenge for a minor humiliation, he has no idea that he’s embroiling the two of them in a massive conspiracy. As the years pass and Nathaniel rises in influence in the government, various coups fall, each one merely an offshoot of the one that threatens not just England, but the world. In the end, it’s up to Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Resistance fighter Kitty Jones to save the day – if they can stop squabbling long enough to do it.

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By Philip Reeve [Librarything - Amazon]

Floating out in space like a miniature planetoid, Art’s hodgepodge house Larklight has always been rather isolated and boring, much to his social-climbing sister Myrtle’s dismay. But when giant spiders attack Larklight in search of a mysterious “key,” Art and Myrtle are quickly forced to adjust to a far less boring way of life – one that includes man-eating moths, sentient storms, a motley crew of aliens, the British Secret Service, and the dashing space pirate Captain Jack Havock. Now the siblings must figure out how to save the entire solar system – and, more importantly, the Queen – and the answers may just lie in Larklight itself.

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By G. P. Taylor [Librarything - Amazon]

Blind 12-year-old Tersias can see the future, thanks to the possession of the demonic Wretchkin, making him a useful tool for the various powers in London, particularly the potentially regicidal Lord Malpas and the cult leader/religious charlatan Solomon. Along with a young thief named Jonas Ketch and the bumbling street magician Magnus Malachi, Malpas and Solomon fight for the possession of Tersias, the beautiful Tara, a very deadly knife, and a box that just may be a portal to another world.

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By Alan Snow [Librarything - Amazon]

Arthur has lived underground with his grandfather his whole life, until one night, while foraging for food, he witnesses a sinister group of men on a cheese hunt – even though hunting wild cheeses has been outlawed for years. Soon Arthur finds himself wrapped up with the cheese hunters and their mysterious plan to destroy the city of Ratbridge. With the help of his fellow underground denizens, the clever boxtrolls and the shy cabbageheads, plus a ragtag crew of piratical humans, rats, and crows, Arthur must stop Snatcher and his fellow Cheese Guild members before they eliminate Ratbridge – and the peaceful creatures living beneath it – forever.

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By J. V. Hart [Librarything - Amazon]

James is not your average boy. With his lanky build, long black curls like candles, and sinister, aloof demeanor, he would be set apart from his peers at Eton even without the shame of being born a bastard hanging over his head – not to mention the fact that he bleeds yellow. He is also clever and fearless, however, and soon wins the admiration of his house (the Oppidans), the friendship of the loyal “Jolly” Roger Davies, and the love (he hopes) of the beautiful Ottoman Sultana Ananova. But ill fate dogs James, and before long he is exiled to sea, the first step in a chain of events that will turn him into the dreaded Captain Hook.

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