Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Review and Giveaway: True North (True Born Trilogy #2) by L.E. Sterling

Book info:
Title:  True North 
Author:    L.E. Sterling
SeriesTrue Born Trilogy #2  
Genre:  YA Fantasy/Science Fiction
Published:  April 4th, 2017
Source:  E-galley from publisher for honest review
My rating:  4 stars

If you haven't read the first book, you might want to go read my review of it, True Born, first, as there is no way I can keep from spoilers for it with my review of this second one in the series.   

Let me say that for some reason I had in my head that this was going to be the final book, even though everything obviously says "trilogy".  I am so glad it is not, though, because there are still so many unanswered questions, and I really need the romance between Lucy and Jared to finish the course that it is on, a bumpy, nail-biting slow course, but one I'm rooting for nonetheless.  

This book starts out with Lucy trying to help Nolan Storm, the leader of the True Borns, in exchange for his help in finding her twin sister Margot, who disappeared along with their parents, after they were attacked at a party at their house.  Still in the Dominion, Lucy is working with scientists to try to figure out what the huge tree that has shown up means.  Along with trying to stay safe from the preacher and other gangs on the street that will kill Lucy or even trade her into slavery if they get her hands on it.  She also has to go to parties with Storm and use her connection to the elite because of her family to help him get his agenda across.  She's lost her connection with Margot, and it seems that Storm keeps finding one reason after another for why he can't help her just yet.  

Finally Lucy decides to take matters into her own hands, and she sneaks out on her own to find Margot, to find her way to Russia with the help of a street vagrant named Alistair, who helped her out of a bind one day.    She has to slip past Jared, her personal bodyguard, and also who she can't seem to stop thinking about.  And while he seems to have the same feelings for her, he continues to push her away, insisting he can't, it's not right.  His continued refusal makes Lucy doubt how much of his behavior is real, and how much is a show to help Storm keep her in line and working for him.  

They will go on a trip, will run into so many other dangers, and learn that things are maybe worse than they'd thought, that the danger has spread further than anyone had guessed.  Now I am eager for book 3, to find out just how everything will wrap up, like I said, especially with Jared!

Synopsis:
Abandoned by her family in Plague-ridden Dominion City, eighteen-year-old Lucy Fox has no choice but to rely upon the kindness of the True Borns, a renegade group of genetically enhanced humans, to save her twin sister, Margot. But Nolan Storm, their mysterious leader, has his own agenda. When Storm backtracks on his promise to rescue Margot, Lucy takes her fate into her own hands and sets off for Russia with her True Born bodyguard and maybe-something-more, the lethal yet beautiful Jared Price. In Russia, there’s been whispered rumors of Plague Cure.

While Lucy fights her magnetic attraction to Jared, anxious that his loyalty to Storm will hurt her chances of finding her sister, they quickly discover that not all is as it appears…and discovering the secrets contained in the Fox sisters’ blood before they wind up dead is just the beginning.

As they say in Dominion, sometimes it’s not you…it’s your DNA.





About book #1:Title:  True Born 
Series:  True Born Trilogy #1
Author:  L.E. Sterling
Published: May 3rd, 2016
Published by: Entangled Teen
Genre: YA Fantasy/Science Fiction



Welcome to Dominion City.
After the great Plague descended, the world population was decimated…and their genetics damaged beyond repair.
The Lasters wait hopelessly for their genes to self-destruct. The Splicers pay for expensive treatments that might prolong their life. The plague-resistant True Borns are as mysterious as they are feared…
And then there’s Lucy Fox and her identical twin sister, Margot. After endless tests, no one wants to reveal what they are.
When Margot disappears, a desperate Lucy has no choice but to put her faith in the True Borns, led by the charismatic Nolan Storm and the beautiful but deadly Jared Price. As Lucy and the True Borns set out to rescue her sister, they stumble upon a vast conspiracy stretching from Dominion’s street preachers to shady Russian tycoons. But why target the Fox sisters?
As they say in Dominion, it’s in the blood.

About the Author:
I was a voracious devotee of sci-fi and fantasy novels all through my childhood, so I suppose it doesn’t come as much of a shock that I’ve returned to the genre with a vengeance.

For a while I turned my back on the genre in favour of ‘high-brow’ literary texts. Ironically, it was my doctoral degree that saw me circling back. There’s something about the way postmodern literature plays with the arcane that had me utterly fascinated, and it wasn’t long until I fell headlong back into my old ways and haven’t looked back since.

My first novel, which isn’t in the Urban Fantasy or Fantasy genres, isn’t high literature, mind you, even if it tangles with some serious statements about politics and the way our western world runs. My editor described it as something between Charles Dickens and The Catcher in the Rye: Serious Fun, in other words.

My second novel, Pluto’s Gate, is where I’ve come home to myself: it’s a contemporary retelling of the Demeter-Persephone-Pluto story from Greek mythology. Folded into the mix is a Shaman-in-training, a magical book, Underworld Gods, a world covered in ice, a three-headed dog, and one lousy ex-boyfriend.

But I’ll tell you this much: I believe in the power of words and stories to transform our inner worlds. Whether the characters be vampires or vagabonds, a good narrative sucker punches so-called reality anyhow.



Twitter: https://twitter.com/le_sterling
 
Giveaway:
  • $20 Amazon Gift Card

Go HERE to enter.