• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2020 February #2
  When she meets Sid, Narrim has been living a quiet yet dangerous life in the Ward, never questioning her limited opportunities, but never quite settling into them either. Sid is exotic, mysterious, capable in every situation, and yet, somehow, she's intrigued by Nirrim, a girl from the worst part of town. As the two pursue mutual interests involving magic and espionage, Nirrim begins to trust the abilities that make her unlike most Ward folk and to fall in love with the other young woman. It is difficult to find teen fantasy novels where LGBTQ+ romance isn't tangential, but in this adventure set in the same world as Rutkoski's Winner's series, girl-girl love and attraction drive the plot as much as Sid's secret mission and Nirrim's need to understand her uncommon talents, and each narrative thread complements the others. Read it for the romance, for the adventure, for the underlying commentary on divided societies—nothing disappoints. This is a treat for LGBTQ+ readers and the ending, happily, seems to indicate more to come.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Rutkoski's Winner's trilogy was both critically acclaimed and a best-seller. It's likely that this will be the same! Grades 8-12. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Marie Rutkoski is the author of The Shadow Society, the Kronos Chronicles, and the New York Times-bestselling Winner's Trilogy, which has garnered starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and was included in lists for Best Books of the Year by Amazon, YALSA, and Kirkus, among others. She is a professor at Brooklyn College and lives in New York City.