Yelena is in prison and about to be executed for murder when she is offered the chance to become the Commander of Ixia’s food taster. She says “Yes” and then comes the bad news. Not only will she be in danger of dying from poisoning, if she doesn’t see the Chief of Security every day for her antidote , she’ll die horribly from  the “Butterfly Dust” poison she was deliberately given in the course of her training. Yelana has to learn to deal quickly with the politics of court and country, while trying to keep herself alive and keep the Commander from being assassinated as well. What is it about Yelena in particular that she has so many enemies?  This is not a good time to fall in love, especially with the man who holds her life (and medicine) in his hands. And did she really commit murder, or was it an act of heroism? This is a fast-paced, suspenseful read with a smart, crafty heroine in an unusual situation.

Lockowitz-Period 3

Hawksong, by Amelia Artwater-Rhodes is about a girl named Danica Shardae and a man named Zane Cobriana, whose sides don’t get along very well.. Between the Avian’s and the Serpiente’s, nobody wants to stop fighting. Zane and Danica want to stop the fighting as soon as possible because all they want is to keep peace between both sides. Later Zane and Danica find the way to stop the fighting, and are now not seeing any fighting going on. But this does not last for long after people see what is going on.

If you like to read about magical fantasy, you would really like to read this book. Personally, this book didn’t really capture my best interests. Only parts of the story caught my attention. One of these parts include when Dani and Zane made both sides peaceful. I found this interesting because when reading the beginning of the book, you would not think that there would be anyway that these two sides could actually become a truce. I actually think that this book can become a potentially good movie even though the book is a little confusing.