More new fantasy fiction!

Are you sensing a trend here?  Yeah, a little fantasy fiction is a good way to pass the time during a hurricane watch!  A hurricane watch where we had both power and internet access.  It was a LITTLE scary to pull up the weather radar and see a Category 5 hurricane sitting 90 miles from us (sorry Bahamas), so reading scary stories was a good thing for me to do!

The first one feels like a folk tale.  It's called Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack.  It's about Anya who is an only child.  She lives with grandmother and her mother.  Her dad has been conscripted by the army and they aren't sure where he is.  The town magistrate is threatening her mother-either pay their taxes right away or move out of their house and out of the town.  Anya really wants to help but she's been seeing weird things as she's out and about doing her chores.  She makes a new friend, Ivan,  who has come to town with his dad and the rest of his family.  His dad is trying to catch a dragon for the czar.  He asks for Anya's help and offers a LOT of money, Anya agrees.  Anya's family has a some magic, but Anya doesn't really believe that she has any magic.  So she's a little surprised when she starts seeing magical creatures, including the dragon, who can talk.  This is a really fun adventure kind of a story with evil villains, exciting chase scenes, dramatic rescues and magical creatures.  The only thing that might make it a little unavailable to readers is some of the mythical Russian creatures that are mentioned (there are a lot of them) and then the name changes that apparently are a natural part of the Russian language (where the same character has several different names).  I liked the story and I liked all the characters in this one.  I really hope it's the beginning of a series because it had a lot of potential to go in different directions.

The second book is the second in a series by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs.  I really liked the first one, The Darkdeep, and this one is terrific too.  It's called The Beast.  It's about the same 5 kids from the first book-Emma, Tyler, Opal, Logan, and Nico.  They battled the Beast from the Darkdeep and are totally ready to move on with their normal middle school lives and hopefully not get into too much trouble from their last go round, when several things happen at once.  The kids notice that there is a sudden incidence of red tide (not something they usually deal with the in the Pacific Northwest), a powerful sulfur smell, a reoccurrence of the figments that had plagued them, and voices in their heads.  As they each start researching different pieces, it's clear that they aren't really finished with the Beast.  This one has a lot of funny parts to it.  Some of the figments that appear are hilarious cultural connections and there is a piece about a reality TV show that will ring very true to readers.  The story is very fast paced and hard to put down.  The characters are easily recognizable as people you would know and want to hang out with.  The dialogue is very entertaining.  I thought this was an excellent addition to this series and the ending of book leads me to believe there are more coming, YAY!!!