City of Halves

July 20, 2015
Lily is 16, headstrong, and a brilliant hacker, who routinely helps her lawyer father solve cases, both online and on the street. While investigating one case, she is mauled by a two-headed dog and saved by a beautiful, heavily tattooed boy who conveniently happens to have the equipment to give her a transfusion of his own blood. Because Lily has an extremely rare blood type, it’s especially miraculous that his blood doesn’t kill her. But the boy, Regan, turns out to be half-fairy, as well as the Guardian of the Gates, charged with protecting the city. Regan tells Lily that a war is brewing between Order and Chaos, and both sides need her blood to win. Lily and Regan are appealing protagonists, and British author Inglis creates some equally engaging secondary characters in her first book for teens. Lily’s father’s laissez faire relationship with his daughter pushes believability, and the action can be over-the-top (the climactic showdown could be a scene from a Marvel film), but it’s still a tense and well-written supernatural adventure. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kirsty McLachlan, David Godwin Associates.

August 1, 2015
A tech whiz is prophesied to save modern London from the combined forces of corrupt government and magical Chaos. Sixteen-year-old Lily is Veronica Mars meets Shadowhunters' Clary Fray, a hacker dragged into the magical underworld. Lily's attacked by a two-headed dog while seeking a man she believes is a mundane forger and is rescued from the brink of death by heavily tattooed and "eerily beautiful" Regan Lupescar. As Regan alternately pushes Lily away and drags her further into his Eldritche secrets, he reveals his hard-core fighting abilities: ripping a banshee's heart out of her chest, punching through a van, and beheading an attacker with a single blow. What Regan completely lacks, however, is any understanding of technology, and that's where Lily comes in. Her technobabble-inspiring skills ("They said it was impossible that a sixteen-year-old girl was using hexadecimal characters like that") reveal the sinister conspiracy of governmental forces and big pharma at the heart of the building apocalypse. Luckily Regan and Lily are destined to save the world through Lily's incredibly rare Type H blood, though Lily suspects something darker about the prophecy, something making Regan even more attractively standoffish. The refreshing interaction of programmer girl meets magical boy is marred by constant, appalling racial stereotypes of secondary characters. A turbaned Sikh has a hooked nose; a West Indian street cleaner speaks in embarrassing dialect; a Japanese spirit longs for geishas. A clumsy combo, with exciting premise weighed down by passive destiny, stale stereotypes, and ugly tropes. (Fantasy. 12-15)

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October 1, 2015

Gr 7-10-Girls from Middle Temple are disappearing, and Lily might be next. She is attacked by a bandogge-a two-headed dog-but is saved from death by a stranger, Regan, through their shared rare blood type, H. The incident leaves Lily's understanding of the world chaotically ripped open. She learns that Regan is the Guardian of the Gates and that there is an old and new city of London. Dark beings known as the Chaos are "upsetting the balance" between old and new, and supernatural monsters are flooding London, attacking a small number of girls, and causing harm. To restore the balance, Lily helps Regan as layers of his world continue to unfold. Along the way, Lily discovers connections between her and Regan's world while developing a romantic relationship with him. Inglis blends light romance and urban fantasy with a touch of science-fiction. This action-packed work lacks thorough development of the fantasy world and an emotional connection to Lily. The plot is somewhat clunky and murky, and the characters don't feel fully formed. Still, the action and twists are enough to keep some readers engaged. The book ends wide open to the possibility of a sequel, which could potentially level out the story in future installments. VERDICT An additional purchase for those needing fast-moving plots and blended genres.-Adrienne L. Strock, Teen Library Manager, Nashville Public Library

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2015
Grades 8-11 When 16-year-old Lily is attacked by a two-headed dogjust one of the many signs of destabilization in modern-day Londonshe is saved by Regan Lupescar, a half-human, half-Eldritche heartthrob. He reveals the existence of the Eldritche world to Lily after he realizes that she is the key to restoring balance in the city. Contributing to the chaos is a government group called the Agency, which is pushing secret (and unethical) medical research to further its goals, whatever the cost. This is familiar and popular farean unawakened/unaware human destined to save everyone from otherworldly threatsbut Lily and Regan are engaging characters, and their love story is sweet. First-time author Inglis utilizes third-person omniscient narration in a straightforward style that seems to put distance between the reader and the narrative, but hopefully this will change as she gains confidence in herself and her audience. Not quite as effective as these, but try this with readers of Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver trilogy or Shannon Delany's 13 to Life series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)