Steel Maiden

A young woman discovers long-hidden special abilities when the tyrannical priesthood that has conquered her people forces her to act as its champion in a once-every-century contest. Nineteen-year-old Elena is set up to steal a valuable item from the most secure vault in the land; betrayed and imprisoned, she agrees to participate in the Great Race, a winner-takes-all, no-rules quest to reclaim a powerful artifact. Even with Elena’s her newfound power to heal from almost any wound, she can barely hold her own against the trained warriors and royalty of numerous lands. Caught in a love triangle between the noble Landon and the lowborn Mad Jack, she can’t decide who to trust. While the premise is intriguing and Elena a capable heroine, the story rests on predictable tropes (including the familiar good boy/bad boy love triangle), transparent parallels to European regionalism, and a disturbing undercurrent of misogyny and sexual abuse in repeated threats of rape and torture employed by the priests. Instead of tension and atmosphere, this adventure, first in Richardson’s Divided Realms series, barrels ahead without subtlety or nuance. Ages 12–up. (BookLife)