The Princess and The Captain by Anne-Laure Bondoux

Title: The Princess and The Captain
Author: Anne-Laure Bondoux
Published Date: 5 June 2006
Genre: Adventure, teen, romance
Personal Rating: 5/5
Money's Worth: Worth it. Very hard to put down.

Princess Malva of Galnicia is about to be married of. She rebels against her frigid parents and escapes with her handmaid. They board a ship aided by the Archont, Malva's tutor. Unknown to them that the Archont has plotted to murder her so he can sieze power from her parents the Coronador and Coronada. Malva believes that her disappearance will have no effect on her parents as they have only been detached towards her. However as soon as their daughter is missing the Coronador and his wife are disraught and the Archont seizes power. That is until one day that a letter reaches the monarch telling him of the Archont's treachery. The Archont's flees the Citadel.

Meanwhile, Malva and her handmaid were on the ship, but the captain who was in league with the Archont wrecked the ship saving himself. They wash up on the shores of Elgolia and from the sea, Malva has susatined a terrible bite to her calf. A medicine woman there heals her as best as she can and Philomena and Malva set off again. They are then confronted by the inhabitants of the Steppes. Then once again, Malva is abducted by Amoyeds and sold to the Emperor of Cispazia while her handmaid was saved that fate. Taken into his harem, Malva befriends Lei, a girl who has an amazing way with medicating herbs. She completely heals Malva's leg. But her trials are not over as the Archont has found her again.

Then there is Orpheus McBott. A full grown man, he still hid in his father's shadow. Thouh the McBott line were proud seafaring men, Orpheus had never been to sea. On his deathbed, Hannibal, Orpheus' father reveals his own treachery. Then the Princess goes missing. Along the way, Orpheus befriended a young messenger boy named Hob. Oppressed by the gloomy environment because of his father's death, Orpheus wishes to leave the Citadel. But because of the edicts issued by the Archont, all ships were grounded. Then the Archont fled and the Coronador summoned for a brave crew to retrieve his daughter from the Emperor's harem. By credit of his name, Orpheus is taken on as the Quartermaster of the Estafador.

The crew does retrieve the princess from a fate worse than death. But then they are thrown into a gale and most of the crew perishes except for Orpheus; who assumes the post of Captain, Malva, Lei, Finopico; the cook, Balilas; a giant of a man, Zeph; Orpheus' St. Bernard and the twins Hob and Peppe. They find that they have been pushed beyond the border of the known world and to escape they have to face their worst fears and their deepest desires and conquer them. The catch is that they must do it within 16 days or suffer a dark fate as most other sailors. Danger doesn't stop there as the Archont is there as well. Following an encounter with him, Orpheys takes a sword to the stomach and nearly perishes. Along the way, Malva and Orpheus develop feelings for each other.

When they emerge from the accursed place, three companions are lost and Malva and Orpheus are hesitant to do anything about their feelings. They return to Galnicia to find that while only 5 months have passed for them, 10 years have flew by for the rest of the world. Malva's mother died and her father realized his mistakes and became much softer towards his daughter. Many Galnicians return after hearing their beloved Princess has returned.

Finally when we think that all will be well for Malva and her beloved, the Archont reappears. Orpheus is not around to protect Malva who runs through the palace trying to hide. When he does go to help, he has his musket trained on the traitor but because of sneezing fits, the bullet deflects and the Archont takes this oppotunity to drive his sword through Orpheus' heart- irreversible damage. Malva kills him, but Orpheus dies in her arms. In the end, Mlava is reunited with her friends and tells them what has happened.

The story ends with Malva- who has always loved to write stories, who decides to write the story of 'The Princess and Captain'.

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Title:The Silver Kiss
Author: Annette Curtis Klause
Published Date: 1 August 1992
Genre: Adventure, romance, sci-fi, light humor, teen
Personal Rating: 4/5
Money's Worth: Quite worth it, except that you get a better bargain for a second-hand book.

Zoe is a 16 year old girl whose mother is dying from cancer. In addition to that her father seems to be distancing her from her mother and himself as though he wants his wife to himself exclusively. Bereft of any familial company, Zoe relies on her best friend. But she too moves away for a time and doesn't appear again in the book after the first few chapters.

Then one day, Zoe meets the enigmatic Simon who seems to understand her feelings perfectly. Drawn to him, she is soon horrified to find out that he is a vampire, and at first flees from him. Come Halloween a few days later however, Simon appears at Zoe's house to explain. He tells her that, he didn't become a vampire by choice, and that the real person that had forced the change had also killed his mother. He then dedicated his life to hunting his mother's killer and destroying him.

Zoe does take Simon once when she goes to see her mother. She asks him if he could turn her mother, but he says that it would be worse than torture. The cancer in her mother's body would destroy cells as fast as the vampire blood would heal her.

Finally, Zoe convinces Simon to let her help him find and destroy his mother's killer who has been terrorizing the streets of her home town. After completed his mission, Simon decides that he has had enough of his second life and tells Zoe that he plans to end his life and he wants Zoe to help him. When he does face the sun, instead of his leaving being painful, he goes without pain and calmly turns into a sunbeam. The sunbeam reference is connected to a poem that Zoe wrote earlier in the story.

It starts off as extremely sad, but grows to be and extremely meaningful story about a girl dealing with death. Zoe is the the girl and Simon represents death. Sometimes death can be your friend. It also represents temptation to get rid of all her troubles, Zoe takes comfort in the supernatural, namely Simon.

Dragon's Bait by Vivian Vande Velde

Title: Dragon's Bait
Author: Vivian Vande Velde
Published Date: 1 April 2003
Genre: Fantasy, adventure, hint-of-romance
Personal Rating: 5/5
Money's Worth: I got it at a second hand book sale, but otherwise, I would say it's only worth half of what you pay

Summary: Alys lives with her father the owner of a tin shop in the village of St.-Toby's-Over-The-Mountain. One day the wheelwright who wants her father's shop, accuses Alys of being a witch. Alys' father who is already seriously ill is unable to take the strain and dies.

Instead of a normal burning at the stake, the Inquisitioner tells the villagers that they could kill 2 birds with one stone by suggesting that they sacrifice Alys to the dragon that has been disturbing the village. Apparently a virgin sacrifice appeases dragons. The do that, and end up staking Alys out on a hillside. After watching the death of her father, Alys has no more fight in her and she basically gives up, allowing them to ti her up without resistance.

After they leave though, Alys hears wolves. She has 2 options; fast death by dragon, or slow death by wolves. As she has nothing more to live for, when she sees the shadow of the dragon in the sky, she gets it's attention. However the dragon seems to have no interest in her as food, rather, it just stares at her. Alys who was previously facing everything with a stoic comportment, can't stand the prolonged waiting to die and breaks down.

Then instead of claws, hands pull her hands away from her face. Where there used to be a dragon is now a young man that looks to be 17. He has long gold hair and purple eyes and strangely enough, he's buck naked. Alys recognizes the eyes as those of the dragon. But yet again, the dragon shows no interest in eating her. Oddly, he is intrigued by her story and says he will help her get revenge.

Along the way, Selendrile, the dragon irritates Alys to no end, but somehow seems to help her even though he is cursed. Alys on the other hand learns a lot about wanting revenge and how somethings like friendships and love are worth sacrificing everything for.

Opinions: It was really great. Vande Velde can really capture her reader's interest. Her other books are the same intensity. The ending especially is touching and wracked with emotion. Though at first the ending seemed hanging for me, I later understood her reason for doing this. She is actually giving her writers to make the story their own. I find that even now 3 years later, I still lie in bed at nights making up my own ending for the story. Though I say it seems hanging, it is oddly completed, but still leaves room for imagination.

Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly

Around 4500 years ago, the capstone upon the summit of the Great Pyramid of Giza absorbed the energy released by the Tartarus Rotation, and saved the earth from major flooding and catastrophic weather. This capstone was later divided up by Alexander the Great with one piece in a booby-trapped hidden location within each of the seven wonders of the world, in other than the Pyramid. If and when they are reunited and replaced on the capstone during another solar event, they can bring 1000 years of peace or power for the nation which possesses them.

In 2006, seven days before this sunspot is again due, the pieces are still divided and 3 teams are trying to reunite them, 2 for their own gain - one from Europe and the other the CIEF, the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force. A third team is an alliance of a group of 'small nations' trying to reunite the capstone for nobler reasons, led by Captain Jack West, Jr., an Australian SAS man, and Professor Max Epper. This team and the European team each also possess a child of the oracle of Siwa, who is the only person who can read the "Word of Thoth", a special hieroglyphics system used in the booby-traps. Lily was saved from a booby trap within a Ugandan volcano by West and Epper at her birth by an emergency Caesarian, with Alexander being taken by the Europeans without noticing his twin Lily - in this episode, detailed in flashback, West lost his arm trying to stem the flow of lava that was creeping around them when they try, and fail, to foil del Piero's evil plan to take the child of the Oracle, but was later built a new stronger, artificial one by Maximilian Epper.

Also note: Before any of the events in this plotline, Jack West was injured at an exercise at Naval Base Coronado, during his recovering the Americans implanted him with a tracking device without West's knowledge.

West's team lose a capstone, the head the Colossus of Rhodes to the CIEF but manage to escape and then reach the hiding place of two more pieces at Hamilcar's Refuge on the coast of Tunisia. There they again lose their gains to the CIEF, and again escape.

They then spring Mustahpa Zaeed, the world's foremost authority on the Capstone and a known terrorist, from Guantanamo Bay, who leads them to two more pieces in the Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre and an altar in St. Peter's Basilica. Part of the team goes with West to Paris, where they successfully retrieve the piece and gaining vital information from the Place de la Concorde obelisk, but Epper's group is captured by del Piero at the Vatican, as is West's group on landing back at base in Kenya with the piece. Judah executes Doris Epper, the Professor's wife, for warning Lily of the impending trap, and takes the Paris piece. The survivors escape to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Iraq, but are there apprehended by an Israeli strike team, led by Avenger who managed to track down Archer (renamed Stretch) without him knowing, and trying to get just one piece as a bargaining chip against the European and American teams. West is forced to lead the Israelis to the piece, but the Americans arrive, execute the Israelis, capture the piece and trap West and his team. As the chip flickers off, Judah assumes West is dead, but in fact he has escaped in the Halicarnassus, found the chip and destroyed it.

Francisco del Piero escorts his hostages to Cairo with his lone Piece - taken from St. Peter's Basilica - and, in attempting to capture the CIEF's five pieces, lose the St Peter's piece and Epper and Lily to them. Judah then goes to Hatshepsut's Mortuary, and - with the aid of the measurements from the Paris Obelisk - finds the last piece in the tomb of Alexander the Great. Taking the whole Capstone to the Giza pyramid on the day of the rotation, placing Alexander in the chamber beneath it to ensure the ritual works.

However, Jack West and his team's plane return to stop them. Judah tries to carry out the ritual, but Alexander crawls out to save himself from death, unwittingly ensuring its failure and del Piero's death, then Lily crawls in willingly and Zaeed carries it out successfully. West, however, has switched the soil necessary for the ritual to Australian soil, ensuring 1000 years of Australian world dominion instead. West then kills Zaeed, Cal Kallis (Judah's Deputy), and Judah himself (notably, Judah attempts to shoot West, but his gun explodes because West is Australian and is protected by Tartarus's power), and finds that Lily has survived by (unlike Alexander) going into the chamber willingly.

The epilogue takes place three weeks later, with Wizard and Zoe accompanying Lily across Central Australia. Following a riddle left by West, the three set out to find him beyond the remote town of Death Valley. Upon arrival, they find West intends to bury the Capstone in the abandoned mines and will make future expeditions to recover the pieces of the Mausoleum, Lighthouse and Colossus from their hiding places. They also agree to lie about the events at Giza, describing how they had successfully managed to perform an alternative ritual that would save the world from Tartarus without making any single country invincible.


Okay, seriously, I would have put up a much shorter explanation, but as this is not mine,(I got it from Wiki) it's quite long. But hey, all for the sake of getting more people to read! It was a great book, I honestly couldn't put it down! I can't even say thet for Pride and Prejudice and I am a huge fan! However, like all nice books, the 1st one is nice, but come the second one... Well it didn't quite ensnare my mind. It's a great book and all those who love adventure novels would love this. Or even just puzzle books and riddles.