10/02/2023
Marion’s second in the Lucy and Dee series (after The Silk Road) follows Lucy, Dee, and their friends as they travel from Sericea to Rephar to free the White Tiger of the West from imprisonment. As Lucy and Dee continue to learn about the new world they’re in, they travel with friends, Mai and Yidi; Yidi is also the young new emperor about to take the throne, and running from his stepmother, a powerful sorceress. With the sorceress on the hunt, they stay hidden by traveling with a caravan, making new friends.Yidi learns important lessons about terrible things the people of Sericea faced while he lived comfortably behind the palace gates—and now a revolution is rising.
As kids still growing and learning, each of the friends has their own interests they want to learn more about. For Lucy, it’s how to use her new magic abilities; Dee’s fascinated by science (called natural philosophy in this new world); Mai wants to learn more about self-defense and fighting for Sericea, and Yidi’s learning about his kingdom and to be a better emperor when he takes the throne. Traveling with the caravan, they make new friends with the same interests. As they delve into rich new areas of knowledge, such as natural remedies, alchemy, and the experiences of the revolutionaries, young readers will learn along with them.
Marion does well to keep the interests of young readers while mixing fantasy with reality, and writing the story through young eyes, how adolescents would deal with each situation they came across, versus an adult point of view. They disagree, argue, and make decisions—good or bad—like their age group would, and they’re reasonably fearful but show great strength in abnormally stressful situations. Although some young readers may find the story at times slow, momentum continually builds in the second half toward an ending that will leave fantasy fans eager to read the next book to find out how the friends face their next, likely bigger battle.
Takeaway: Adventurous middle-grade fantasy of friends, learning, and stopping a sorceress.
Comparable Titles: Namina Forna’s The Gilded Ones, Amélie Wen Zhao’s Song of Silver, Flame Like Night..
Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A-
"A deftly crafted and thoroughly fun read ... especially and unreservedly recommended for elementary school, middle school, and community library Fantasy Fiction collections."
"Four friends navigate a vibrant, magic-filled world and decide where their priorities lie"
2023-06-21
Conflicting priorities and pursuing imperial soldiers ramp up the tension for two young fugitives and the emperor they’ve promised to protect.
Transported to an Asian-inspired fantasy realm in The Silk Road (2022) and charged with keeping sheltered teen emperor Yidi safe from malign witch Xixi, white friends Dee and Lucy seek strong allies. They head for a distant community of fighting monks where the White Tiger of the West, a demigod of war with access to a legendary Jade Army, is said to be imprisoned. Picking up a small but smug dragon and other allies on the way, the growing company fends off repeated attacks. As Lucy focuses on developing her own witchy powers in the face of Dee’s accusations that she’s more interested in that than in helping him find his missing parents (not to mention his stubborn insistence, despite much evidence to the contrary, that magic is really just science), rifts develop between them. Meanwhile, encounters with rebellious common folk and widespread injustices, like a sudden imperial order to round up the ethnic minority Moon people, provide Yidi, who is at least trying to travel incognito, with food for thought about right behavior. Characters develop somewhat more than the plot or setting do, but if all the inner searching slows the tale down, Marion does insert occasional comic relief to lighten the load and leaves her young cast poised for a counterattack.
Quests both public and personal proceed in a deliberate but steady way. (Fantasy. 9-12)
