(4) YA Anouk desires more than serving the witch who transformed her from animal to human. When the witch is murdered, Anouk and her fellow beasties have three days to find the killer and the spell to keep them human. Fans of Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse should enjoy this complex if somewhat confusing world where goblins rule the underbelly of Paris and magic comes at a cost.

Reviewer: Janet Daniels

(3) YA Cora (The Cage; The Hunt) and friends have escaped the Kindred station and have landed at a rumored human haven on a moon called Armstrong; there they plan to prepare for the Gauntlet, a competition to free humanity from the aliens for good. Instead, Armstrong is merely another prison Cora must escape. Shepherd's gorgeous writing style makes it easier to accept some of the absurdities of this sci-fi universe.

Reviewer: Jenn Matters

(4) YA After their failed escape attempt (The Cage), Cora, Lucky, and Mali must work in The Hunt, a safari-themed environment run by their Kindred (alien) captors. Cora hopes to save humanity by running The Gauntlet; Cassian, a Kindred who may be ally or betrayer, offers to train her. While the plot occasionally drags, Shepherd's characters, premise, and prose remain engaging.

Reviewer: Jenn Matters

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Dan Burgess. While hospitalized with tuberculosis during World War II, Emmaline gets caught up in a quest involving winged horses that she believes only she can see. Letters from a mysterious Horse Lord guide her as her illness worsens. Accompanied by occasional full-page black-and-white silhouette illustrations, this atmospheric tale leaves readers to decide for themselves: does Emmaline die or does she live?

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker

(3) YA Six teenagers wake up in an alien world of impossibly mixed environments--and discover they now live in a human zoo. Cora breaks their captors' rules, trying to get home to Earth. Opposing viewpoints on how to live cause the teens to battle for leadership, and many secrets are revealed. Shepherd's beautiful writing will hook readers (who aren't bothered by a discomfiting premise).

Reviewer: Jenn Matters

(3) YA Shepherd's trilogy following the female descendants of mad scientists ripped from nineteenth-century horror novels (The Island of Dr. Moreau and Frankenstein) concludes elegantly as Juliet and Montgomery take refuge in a Scottish manor and struggle to untangle questions of moral and biological heritage that have shaped their lives. Full measures of suspense, action, and romance are employed to tie up every loose end.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac

(3) YA While Juliet Moreau (The Madman's Daughter)--back in London after escaping her father's island--struggles to find a cure for herself and the other victims of her father's work, she discovers a shocking conspiracy amongst London's most powerful men. Shepherd hybridizes famous horror stories by H. G. Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson to create her own romance-tinged tale of monsters and murder.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac

(3) YA Juliet Moreau leaves Victorian London to reunite with her estranged father on an island, where she's drawn to Montgomery, her father's assistant, and Edward, a mysterious castaway. As the dangers of the bestial creatures her father creates grow more threatening, Juliet confronts horrifying truths. Shepherd sticks fairly close to Wells's Island of Dr. Moreau but furthers her story's appeal with sweeping romance.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac