Captivate

Jones, Carrie. Captivate
Bloomsbury see St. Martins 2010 276p 16.99
978-1-59990-342-2 ms/hs Fantasy VG
A young soon-to-be pixie king persuades Zara to become his bride in order to save Nick, Zara’s true love, from certain death at the hands of a Valkyrie. Suspense builds then ebbs as the plot shifts from Nick’s peril to Zara’s turning pixie. Grades 7 and up. Fans of Need, the first in this series, will definitely want to read the second in the series to see what happens to Zara, Nick and friends. A young soon-to-be pixie king, Astley, arrives and claims to be a good pixie. He shows acts of kindness to Zara and friends just before the evil pixie king, Zara’s father, manages to escape the prison Zara and friends created. The bad pixie king goes on a feeding rampage. To make matters worse, a Valkyrie wants Nick for her own to become a warrior for Odin, the Norse god. As Nick is captured by the Valkyrie, Zara realizes an alliance with Astley is the only hope to save Nick. The action shifts from the peril the community faces with an evil pixie on the loose and the peril Nick faces at the hands of the Valkyrie to Zara’s conversion into a pixie. As much as Zara fought against pixies, she willingly becomes one. She is able to convince her friends, many of them “were” people, that she is still Zara and will not hurt them and that they all need to band together to find Nick. Possibly too many types of fantastical creatures for one story? Zara’s shift to a pixie causes the plot tension over Nick’s plight to take second place in this middle book of the series. Readers will eagerly await the third book in the series to see if Nick and Zara can be reunited. For diehard Need fans. Grades 7-12.
Recommended where Need, the first in the series, was popular. The first half of Captivate is filled with tension which disintegrates and focuses on the turning of Zara into a Pixie. Still, fans will read this book and eagerly await the sequel. Grades 7-12. McNicol(3),Lois
Pixies - Fiction

Jones, Carrie Need

Jones, Carrie Need
Bloomsbury see St. Martins 2009 306p 16.99 978-1-59990-338-5 ms/hs

Move over vampires, pixies are the greatest fear. Zara goes to live with her grandma, a weretiger. They confront the King Pixie who is lusting after Zara’s mother. Who to trust becomes a puzzle for Zara to figure out. Fast paced, suspenseful fantasy. Grades 7-12. Move over vampires, pixies are the greatest fear. Zara has been in a state of depression ever since she witnessed her step-father’s death in the kitchen. Her mother decides the best thing for Zara is to send her to her grandmother’s house in Maine. Zara starts to come out of her funk and makes friends at school. Zara’s sense of peace is quickly disturbed when a man whom she saw on the day of her step-father’s death shows up in Maine. Is he stalking her? Who is he? Turns out he is the king pixie who tried to turn Zara’s mother into a pixie. As Zara learns about pixies she comes to realize that students around her may be pixies and others may be “were”. Who should she trust? Is she part pixie? Filled with fast-paced action and suspense dripping from every page, this book will make readers look over their shoulder searching to see if any pixie dust appears around them as they read this book. Zara eventually outsmarts the pixie king thus saving a fellow student, her mother and the community from the pixie’s blood lust. Without extreme sensuality or gore, this book will keep the fantasy reader reading late into the night with an iron flashlight handy. Two typographical errors appear: one on page 79 where the “fi” in benefit and unspecified do not appear. The other is on page 149, second line where worrying is spelled worring. Gripping fantasy for grades 8-12. LMN