Endless Water, Starless Sky

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.