Thursday, April 23, 2015

Palace of Lies by Margaret Haddix - ESSENTIAL

Haddix, Margaret Peterson Palace of Lies, 355 pages.  Simon & Schuster, 2015.  $18.  Violence:  PG (lots of danger, no blood); Mature Content: G; Language: G.  

The Thirteen princesses of Suala are ready to celebrate their happily ever after - the treaty with Fridesia and Jeb and Ella are about to be married.  Then, someone sets the palace on fire the night of a grand ball.  Desmia, the princess who grew up in the palace manages to save one other princess, but loses sight of all the others in the conflagration and passes out.  When she awakes, she finds herself the patient (or prisoner) of Madame Bisset, whom she remembers as one of Ella’s adversaries.  Desmia will need to escape, find help, and make her way across her country to Fridesia in order to solve this mystery and save her kingdom.  Even though Madame Bisset tells her the other princesses are all dead, she won’t give up hope.

Shows you how sometimes details escape me.  I had no clue that Just Ella was the first in a  series; I thought that it and Palace of Mirrors were unrelated.  Sorry.  I was happy to watch Desmia grow from a suspicious tool of Lord Throckmorton’s into a kind person who now knows how to find faith and good in others without being blinded to their faults.  I now want to hear more about each of the other princesses - both their original stories and how they made their way to Fridesia!  Get on it Ms. Haddix!. One grumble, however – I do not like these new covers; the students I have talked to find them as boring as I do.

EL, MS - ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS.

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