In just two weeks, the second book in Barnes’ extremely interesting and fun YA series that began with Raised By Wolves will hit the market. This is a series that concentrates on a world where hellhounds are actually normal and people are striving to get them placed on the endangered species list. Creatures such as zombies, vamps, and everything you thought was mythological, are actually quite real and live side-by-side with the humans.
Kali D’Angelo is one of those supposedly normal humans - except for every other day. You see, every twenty-four hours Kali goes from a bored sixteen-year-old junior in high school to a true Buffy-‘esque’ heroine who can never be harmed, can not be killed, runs like the wind, and basically spends her time getting rid of the monsters and creepy things that are in her town. Her blood is toxic. Therefore, if any hellhound or dangerous creature bites her, they simply die.
She has learned to like it when she’s invincible and can’t really stand it when she has to play the normal teenager role. Her mother is gone and her father is so into his scientific research that he barely even speaks to her anymore. One day, she’s sitting up in the stands at some school event bored out of her mind and scared to death that she will fail her finals because she was up all night facing demons and didn’t have any time to study. Along comes a girl by the name of Skylar Hayden (the school’s ‘fallen woman’ who never actually slept with anyone) and sits down beside her. You see, Skylar is adorable and funny and has the power of being a little bit psychic, so she knows that she and Kali were destined to form a relationship.
What Kali doesn’t expect is to see the ‘mark’ of a chupacabra on one of the girls at school. Her name is Bethany Davis and her father works with Kali’s at Chimera Biomedical - a company that seems to be doing all types of experiments that the town is unaware of. Even though Kali doesn’t much like Bethany, she does not want the girl to be eaten from the inside out by this terrible creature, so she actually coaxes the being out and into her own skin where it immediately begins to harm her. But all Kali has to do is survive a few more hours before she turns back into the ‘being’ she is and her blood becomes toxic once again, killing the chupacabra inside of her.
Readers will have a ball as they realize why this idea may, or may not work out. On top of that, they get to meet up with ice dragons, demons, and uncover secrets about the supposed psychic, as well as the family that surrounds the girl that Kali has supposedly saved. On top of all that, Kali must avoid the people who are ‘after’ her who look very much like the FBI in their shades.
This author has done a truly fantastic sequel (which is really difficult to do) and made sure that her fans will follow her through the entire series as they watch Kali figure out who and what she actually is.
Quill Says: A good YA that covers all different creatures and doesn’t just rely on the ‘fanged ones’ to have a good time!
