Twin daggers

Gr 6--10--By day, twins Aissa and Zandria seem like any other Technocrat teens waiting to see what their work assignment will be when they finish school. By night, they are spies for the Magi looking for ways to take down the Technocrats. Decades ago, the Technocrats and the Magi were at war. The Technocrats won, destroying almost all of the Magi in the process, but the Magi bestowed a curse on their rivals. Aissa, assigned to work as a mechanic, is hoping to use her position to infiltrate the palace and gain knowledge to aid their mission. Everything falls apart and long-held secrets get revealed when Zandria is discovered and taken prisoner in the palace. Aissa finds an unusual ally in her quest to not only free her sister but to discover the truth about their two cultures. Marketed as a fantasy spin on Romeo and Juliet, this is somewhat true in that there are two factions that hate each other and love grows between two would-be enemies. Rebecca Gibel's narration of Aissa's internal struggles as she plays both as Technocrat mechanic and Magi spy make it easy for the listener to get immersed in the battles she faces as she works to free her sister. VERDICT This first book in a duology sets the perfect stage for the sequel, giving readers just enough history of the societies paired with Aissa's personal experiences to make the world come alive and leave the reader excited to know what happens next.--Courtney Pentland, Omaha, NE

By day, Aissa and Zandria are hardworking citizens of the Technocrat city of Palinor; by night, they are Magi spies and assassins-in-training. The twins scour the city for any remnants of their people's former power. Their mission: to find and kill the Technocrat heir, a hidden child who is one of the Heartless--people born without a heart. Aro, an attractive young Technocrat researcher, tasks Aissa with helping find a cure for the Heartless, but not everything is as it seems: Old friends cannot be trusted, new emotions cannot be ignored. When Zandria is captured by the Technocrats, Aissa must weigh loyalty to her mission against her sister's life and her own burgeoning love in the ultimate moral quandary. Each side views the other as unequivocally evil. Connolly, however, undermines these perceptions, depicting both underhanded Magi ploys and Technocrat compassion: a subtle take on the current expectation of moral ambiguity in fantasy. The book's strengths lie in its well-crafted prose, worldbuilding, and richly drawn supporting characters; the leads, however, feel a bit more inaccessible. Emotionally repressed Aissa's confidence in her intelligence and abilities approaches arrogance; the better-humored Zandria plays a much smaller role, and her absence in the latter half of the book goes almost unnoticed. The stakes, too, sometimes feel too low to drive the depth of the twins' hatred. Main characters default to White; there is some diversity of skin tone in secondary characters. A taut, emotionally arresting fantasy. (Fantasy. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.