No other genre works quite as hard at connecting with its target audience as young adult fiction. The Fallen Prince , for example, includes all the necessary plot points for drawing in mid- to late- teens: the pitfalls of new love, parent troubles, feeling misunderstood and a wizard-zombie waging war on an entire world just to get back at you. Ok, maybe not that last one.The second novel in Shea Berkley’s “Keepers of Life” series is action-packed, imaginative and well written. Prince picks up just weeks after the end of the first novel, The Marked Son , and focuses on protagonist Dylan’s newfound and out-of-control ability to self-combust.The story takes place in a small, unnamed town and in Teag, a magical realm that exists alongside our world. Teag is filled with magical creatures, many of which are entirely new concepts. My favorite of these are the dreamweavers, humanoid monsters that sing people to sleep and then wrap them in a cocoon so that they slowly suffocate while happily dreaming. Brilliant.It’s a fast-paced book, steeped in mysteries, but what’s most impressive about this novel is its language. The three teen protagonists overuse words like “seriously” and make constant pop-culture references, all of which are peppered with phrases like “instantaneous interment” and “extenuating circumstances,” but it sounds perfectly natural. These are the kind of kids I would’ve hung around when I was that age. Now that I’m an adult, though, Dylan has a way of annoying me by being too much like a real teenager. More than once, the character speaks about having people who love him and wondering how long it will last. He refers to himself as a freak more than once, and is pretty emotional throughout the 379 pages. However, my younger self was just like Dylan and would have appreciated the character for “getting it.”As a bonus, The Fallen Prince author Shea Berkley will be at Alamosa Books (8810 Holly NE, Ste. D) on Thursday, June 13 at 6:30 p.m. along with young adult authors Darynda Jones and Jane Lindskold.
Book Review: The Fallen Prince
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