The Legend

Marie Lu has written a YA novel set in a dystopian future where the United States no longer exists but instead consists of two warring countries, The Republic (west) and The Colonies (east). The 15-year old protagonists are pitted against each other as representatives of the elite military controllers of The Republic (June) and of the controlled and abused masses (Day). June has ostensibly achieved the only perfect score ever seen on The Trial, administered to all 10-year old children in The Republic and is a  bit of a rebel as well as a prodigy. When her older brother Metias is killed, supposedly by Day, she is pulled out of training and put on his trail. While her grief and anger drive her to capture Day--an ultimate death sentence--she discovers that she and most of the population have been manipulated through fear, deception and manufactured plagues. Told alternately from June's and Day's perspective, the ending is ripe for a sequel as we leave June and Day on the run. This book received consistently stellar reviews from even the most critical of sources (e.g., Kirkus) so I felt compelled to read it in my own time. But although it was well executed, it never really grabbed me.

Real Murders

This is the first in the "Aurora Teagarden" series by Charlaine Harris (also writes the Sookie Stackhouse, Lily Bard, and Harper Connelly series). Of particular appeal since Aurora is a librarian in a very small-town-feeling suburb of Atlanta. Real Murders is the name of the club to which Aurora belongs that discusses famous old murder cases. On this particular meeting night, however, she arrives to find one of the members has been murdered in the fashion of the case the group had planned to discuss. And that's just the beginning. The bodies continue to pile up--always group members or those close to them and always copying the details of a famous old murder case. Lily and her new neighbor, a famous mystery writer, can't help but go nosing around and consequently put themselves in the direct path of the killers. But I already told you it was a series, right? BTW, I really like the Lily Bard mysteries--set in the town of Shakespeare, Arkansas. I've been listening to them mostly on CD and haven't written about them yet, but they are very good. Lily has survived a traumatic kidnapping and torture/rape in her youth and now lives and works in a small town where no one knows her past--at least initially. Start with Shakespeare's Landlord.