Lifeblood

Gr 10 Up—In this sequel to Firstlife, Tenley "Ten" Lockwood has chosen her allegiance to the otherworld realm Troika, much to the dismay of the Myriad realm. When the book opens, Ten is training to be a Conduit for Troika, an important position responsible for the light that powers the souls in the kingdom. Ten's ultimate goal, however, is to end the war between Troika and Myriad—a complicated task, considering that her love, Killian, is aligned with Myriad, and neither side wants to concede. When a plot goes awry and uncovers a mole in Troika, Ten stops at nothing to rescue her friends from the Myriad clutches and convince both sides to cease their fire. Her heart says Killian is loyal to her and not to Myriad, but her head says differently. Interspersed between the chapters are emails between various officials of the realms, again hinting at possible betrayals and setups. At the end, readers are left with a semblance of hope and an extensive list of work to be done, setting up the third book in this trilogy nicely. The otherworld realms contain numerous intricate politics and rules; a new rule or policy is introduced in almost every chapter. Still, this is a fast-paced fantasy, and familiarity with Firstlife isn't necessary to get caught up with all the happenings in each of the various worlds. Told in Ten's stream-of-consciousness voice, the narrative includes quite a few graphic descriptions of violent deaths and some hot-and-heavy scenes between Killian and Ten.