“More romantic and even more mystical than its predecessor” — Booklist Online
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “A bloody and bold tale for those who want some Romero with their Romeo” — Kirkus Reviews
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “An atmospheric tale that pits loyalty to kin against loyalty to self and loyalty to loved ones.” — School Library Journal
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “High stakes, desperate love, and a healthy dose of gore keep this update fresh and intriguing.” — Booklist
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “Hodge tackles a well-known tale…with a tougher heroine and a dark twist.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “This novel will captivate readers. Outstanding.” — School Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “An intoxicatingly dark story of love, lust, murder, and redemption.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “The unusual, intricately woven story and themes make for a worthwhile read.” — Kirkus Reviews
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “Plot twists and romance keep the pages turning in this grim and intricate take on the classic tale.” — Booklist
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A completely engrossing tale.” — Alex Flinn, New York Times bestselling author of Beastly and Towering
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A dazzling and clever retelling, Cruel Beauty is delightfully dark, lushly romantic, and utterly spellbinding. I adored it, and can’t wait to read Hodge’s next novel!” — Sarah J. Maas, author of the best-selling Throne of Glass series
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “What a stunning debut. This is a book you will want to read as fast as you can for the intricate plot and as slowly as you can to savor the gorgeous world-building and the ravishing love story.” — Sherry Thomas, author of The Burning Sky
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “An intricate and arresting tale.” — Kirkus Reviews
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “The push and pull romance between Nyx and Ignifex is pure fairy tale, but the characters themselves are complex and genuinely human as they struggle with their own culpability in a situation that forces them to choose between selfishness and selflessness.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “An entertaining read for teens who enjoy romantic fantasy.” — School Library Journal
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “Hodge has created a rich, complete world in this twist on ‘Beauty and the Beast.’” — Publishers Weekly
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “Will have readers clutching the book and flying through the pages.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “[A] fast-paced romantic fantasy.” — Booklist
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “An intoxicatingly dark story of love, lust, murder, and redemption.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “High stakes, desperate love, and a healthy dose of gore keep this update fresh and intriguing.
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “High stakes, desperate love, and a healthy dose of gore keep this update fresh and intriguing.
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A completely engrossing tale.
Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “Hodge tackles a well-known tale…with a tougher heroine and a dark twist.
Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
More romantic and even more mystical than its predecessor
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “The push and pull romance between Nyx and Ignifex is pure fairy tale, but the characters themselves are complex and genuinely human as they struggle with their own culpability in a situation that forces them to choose between selfishness and selflessness.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A dazzling and clever retelling, Cruel Beauty is delightfully dark, lushly romantic, and utterly spellbinding. I adored it, and can’t wait to read Hodge’s next novel!
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “What a stunning debut. This is a book you will want to read as fast as you can for the intricate plot and as slowly as you can to savor the gorgeous world-building and the ravishing love story.
Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “The push and pull romance between Nyx and Ignifex is pure fairy tale, but the characters themselves are complex and genuinely human as they struggle with their own culpability in a situation that forces them to choose between selfishness and selflessness.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “An intoxicatingly dark story of love, lust, murder, and redemption.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)
04/01/2018 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
2018-03-20 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 Vai—likely Twelfth Night's Viola and one of the few main characters of color—continues 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)