Endless Water, Starless Sky
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

When Juliet Catresou, the sword of her people, fell in love with Mahyanai Romeo, son of a rival clan, their forbidden love hastened the end of a dying world. Now, Viyara, a city surrounded by the undead, dies faster still, and though Romeo lives, Juliet doesn't know it; bound to his people, she is forced to sacrifice her own people to keep the revenants at bay. Romeo finally knows Juliet is alive, just as he knows she may be duty-bound to kill him for the destruction he's brought to her clan. As the mouth of death yawns wider, the truth about the revenants and the cause of the Ruining that made them becomes clearer, and there will be a reckoning that will change the course of the world. The Romeo and Juliet-inspired duology begun with Bright Smoke, Cold Fire (2016) comes to its gore-spattered end. More romantic and even more mystical than its predecessor, this digs deep into the world and underworld of Viyara as it rockets toward an ending few readers will see coming.--Reagan, Maggie Copyright 2018 Booklist

Gr 9 Up-Continuing where Bright Smoke, Cold Fire ended, young lovers, loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet continue to search for some way they can happily be united, despite the fact that Romeo is dead and Juliet ("the sword of the Catresou") is bound to forever make war on Romeo's clan, the Mahyanai. Further complicating the plot, all people are threatened by the Ruining, a fog-shrouded event that will render the land lifeless. Hodge continues building the world of Viyara and the Lower City, and the concept of zoura: living rightly, and being protected in the afterlife. Paris and Tybalt put in appearances, along with Runajo, the gender-fluid Vai, a Master Necromancer, revenants, and the living dead. While violent passages are a small proportion of the book, squeamish readers should note that there are beheadings, descriptions of cutting (self and others), and rivers filled with boiling blood. The uplifting ending points toward a third book. VERDICT Fans of the previous volume will enjoy this continuation; new readers will be a bit lost. A strong choice where the first book is popular.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity -Valley School, Fort Worth, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Their last misadventures brought them close to death, but the star-crossed lovers roar back to life in this sequel.Grief- and guilt-stricken, the survivors now (again) serve opposing families. Always dramatic, Mahyanai Romeo becomes a vigilante to protect his fugitive (and ungrateful) Catresou in-laws. Meanwhile, Juliet, mistakenly bonded to Mahyanai Runajo, seeks loopholes in her new in-laws'/captors' commands even as they wield her like a weapon against her Catresou kin. Even Paris reappears, albeit as one of the living dead enslaved by the Master Necromancer, whose magical malevolence has hastened the Ruining, eroding the blood-sacrifice-fueled walls around Viyara and rapidly reanimating the dead as ravenous revenants. Gender-bending Vailikely Twelfth Night's Viola and one of the few main characters of colorcontinues to defend the Lower City. Reunion and romance are repeatedly postponed, and the apparent finale pauses for a strange detour into the land of Death, where the four protagonists slog through a Dantesque nightscape of tormented souls, allegorical semimedieval monsters, and Greek-myth-level trials. With a multitude of points of view, chaotic fight scenes, and the feverish medieval-world-besieged-by-zombies plot, readers may not even care about Hodge's (Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, 2016, etc.) departure from Shakespeare or the absence of the Bard's levity.Teens seeking melodrama, tense tragedy, and poignantly self-sacrificing protagonists will be amply rewarded. (Fantasy. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

When Juliet Catresou, the sword of her people, fell in love with Mahyanai Romeo, son of a rival clan, their forbidden love hastened the end of a dying world. Now, Viyara, a city surrounded by the undead, dies faster still, and though Romeo lives, Juliet doesn't know it; bound to his people, she is forced to sacrifice her own people to keep the revenants at bay. Romeo finally knows Juliet is alive, just as he knows she may be duty-bound to kill him for the destruction he's brought to her clan. As the mouth of death yawns wider, the truth about the revenants and the cause of the Ruining that made them becomes clearer, and there will be a reckoning that will change the course of the world. The Romeo and Juliet–inspired duology begun with Bright Smoke, Cold Fire (2016) comes to its gore-spattered end. More romantic and even more mystical than its predecessor, this digs deep into the world—and underworld—of Viyara as it rockets toward an ending few readers will see coming. Grades 9-12. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

Gr 9 Up—Continuing where Bright Smoke, Cold Fire ended, young lovers, loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet continue to search for some way they can happily be united, despite the fact that Romeo is dead and Juliet ("the sword of the Catresou") is bound to forever make war on Romeo's clan, the Mahyanai. Further complicating the plot, all people are threatened by the Ruining, a fog-shrouded event that will render the land lifeless. Hodge continues building the world of Viyara and the Lower City, and the concept of zoura: living rightly, and being protected in the afterlife. Paris and Tybalt put in appearances, along with Runajo, the gender-fluid Vai, a Master Necromancer, revenants, and the living dead. While violent passages are a small proportion of the book, squeamish readers should note that there are beheadings, descriptions of cutting (self and others), and rivers filled with boiling blood. The uplifting ending points toward a third book. VERDICT Fans of the previous volume will enjoy this continuation; new readers will be a bit lost. A strong choice where the first book is popular.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX