Year of the Reaper

Themes of loss, sorrow, and moral conflict, balanced by a delicate and emotionally mature romance, suffuse Lucier’s (the Tower of Winds series) novel set in a time of plague. Three years before the book’s start, Oliveran nobleman Lord Cassia was kidnapped by enemy forces from Brisa and kept as an indentured laborer until a virulent pestilence presented an opportunity for escape. Now 18 and possessed of the ability to see ghosts, Cas has returned home to Palmerin, only to be greeted by the news that the plague has driven the Oliveran royal family—its Brisan queen and Oliveran King, whose union ended 50 years of war—to Cas’s keep. Though many welcome the lord they long thought dead, whose first act is to rescue the young prince’s life, Cas soon learns that not everyone is thrilled at his return, and that the royal family’s lives are in danger from a lurking assassin. Assisted by a historian-in-training named Lena, the king’s sister, Cas digs into the killer’s identity and works to navigate whirling court intrigue that threatens to plunge his kingdom into war. The gripping narrative glides along via Lucier’s spare, deftly employed prose style, while Cas’s fiercely affectionate relationship with his brother Ventillas lends the plot particular warmth, deepening its moving and thought-provoking depictions of variously traumatized characters, many with “bronze” and “golden” skin. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)