The Nightmare Charade

June 15, 2015
For Destiny "Dusty" Everhart, a dream-feeding Nightmare, junior year at Arkwell Academy means magical visions, forbidden romance, and a final battle with the malevolent Marrow. After a summer apart, Dusty is thrilled to see her dream-seer partner and romantic interest Eli Booker. But because of a curse foreseen by Lady Elaine, chief adviser to the Magi Senate, a network of school officials and gruff security personnel is deployed to keep their relationship strictly business. Adding to the frustration and confusion, Dusty's mother-usually haughty and self-centered-is desperate and on the run after being accused of a murder Dusty is certain she didn't commit. Meanwhile, the clandestine Dept. of Intelligence for Magikind Secrecy recruits Dusty and Eli to recover a stolen magical artifact called the Death's Heart under a magically binding nondisclosure agreement with uncomfortable, though harmless, tongue-tying effects. Like its two predecessors, this volume hits all the notes of a magical boarding school adventure: secret identities, classroom mishaps, betrayals, after-hours high jinks, and mortal peril at the hands of a spell-wielding megalomaniac. Some storylines come with a few too many twists and turns, but the climactic scene delivers tension, romance, and a resolution that satisfies. A rollicking series conclusion. (Fantasy. 12-18)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 7-10-In the final installment, 16-year-old half-Nightmare Dusty Everhart and her dream partner Eli Booker have realized that they have romantic feelings for each other, but the Academy's administrators have decided that they are a dangerous combination and must be kept apart. At the same time, the Magi Senate and the Department of Intelligence for Magickind Secrecy (DIMS) conscript them to help obtain a magical object called the Death's Heart. Both are magically bound to secrecy: if they attempt to speak of their mission to outsiders, they will be speechless for several minutes. The mission is dangerous and life-threatening, but DIMS's decision to choose to two teens to carry it out doesn't seem to bother the authorities at all. Once readers have accepted this, the remainder of the tale is quite believable. References to past events and characters are explained and integrated seamlessly, and even newbies will be drawn into the exciting, twist-laden plot. VERDICT Though it's not necessary to have read the earlier volumes, this book will be requested by series fans and will intrigue new readers enough to check out the others.-Marlyn Beebe, Long Beach Public Library, Los Alamitos, CA

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