Carnival of Secrets - Softcover

Melissa Marr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007476302 ISBN 13: 9780007476305

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2012

Synopsis

Warriors Kaleb and Aya will stop at nothing to destroy their competition. But when Kaleb finds his fate entwined with that of Mallory, a seventeen-year-old human girl, he can't seem to separate the vicious Carnival contest he's entered from his sudden devotion to her. He and Aya may be prizefighters from the otherworldly Untamed City, but his strange, obsessive connection makes staying away from the witch-ruled human world, and Mallory, harder every day.

All Mallory knows of the Untamed City is what her elders have told her—that it's full of debauchery and daimons looking to destroy her. But she knows she's being pulled toward Kaleb with an emotion so fierce that it's utterly foreign.

The two are forced apart by Mallory's overprotective witch father, stranded by necessity between warring populations that can't coexist. But when The City's ruler raises the stakes of the Carnival's prize, there's nothing Mallory, Kaleb, or Aya can do to stop the two worlds colliding. Mallory's about to discover her true identity—and stumble into a fate she'd die to avoid.

Fans of The Hunger Games will devour this tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny from the bestselling author of Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr.

(Formerly published as Carnival of Souls)

About this title

About the Author:

Melissa Marr is the author of the bestselling Wicked Lovely series as well as the adult fantasy novels Graveminder and The Arrivals. When not writing, editing, or traveling, Melissa is buried under a plethora of books, dogs, and children in Virginia.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 9 Up-Marr's new series introduces readers to a world very different from that of her previous novels. The Carnival of Souls is the epicenter of The City, inhabited by daimons. There has been enmity between daimons and witches for centuries, and most of the witches have been banished to the human world, where they live undetected. The City has a rigid caste system in which one's fate is determined by birth. Once every generation, Marchosias, the leader of the daimon ruling caste, holds a competition open to all of the castes, in which contestants fight to the death, with the final winner allowed entry to the ruling caste. Aya has rebelled against social norms by being the first ruling-caste girl to enter the competition, instead of marrying and breeding as is expected of her. In contrast, Kaleb, born into the lowest rung of the daimon social ladder, fights to escape the constraints imposed upon his caste. Mallory, the daughter of Marchosias, was taken from The City as an infant and raised among witches in the human world. She believes herself to be human and has been taught to hate daimons. The destinies of Mallory, Kaleb, and Aya are intertwined, and each one will play pivotal roles in the power struggle between daimons and witches. Marr's world-building is complex and masterful, and through skillful plotting, she builds intrigue and suspense, with plenty of romance as well. Her fans, as well as readers of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Little, Brown, 2011), will devour this, and will eagerly await the next installment.-Francesca Burgess, Brooklyn Public Library, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0007476302
• ISBN 13: 9780007476305
• Binding: Paperback