title: Blue Fire: The Healing Wars, 1st Edition, Book 2
author:  Janice Hardy 
description: Gr 6-8Mysterious relationships and unacknowledged royal heirs emerge in Hardy's neo-futuristic sequel to The Shifter (HarperCollins, 2009). Because of her ability to shift pain, 15-year-old Nya is highly valuable to the evil dictator ruling her kingdom. She is even more coveted than the other healers, yet she and her underground revolutionary friends risk their freedom to fight the Duke's wrongful power. While selling goods at the markets, she tries to help a desperate street urchin and gets captured by rogue kidnappers. She is taken to the capital city, where her captors intend to collect the bounty on her head from the Duke. After escaping, Nya is determined to save her imprisoned friends and sister. A series of high-stakes adventures ensues, with the teen using her unique ability to harness pain as her greatest weapon. Nya is a strong and capable heroine who struggles with moral dilemmas throughout this fantasy, yet the story falls flat. More questions are raised than answered, and readers may be confused by the complex rules and unexplained entities. Action sequences and the progression through time are awkward. All in all, this book is disappointing.<I>Tara Kehoe, Plainsboro Public Library, NJ</I><BR>&copy; Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
zlib_text: Blue Fire
  Angela Castle
  Published by Rogue Phoenix Press
  Copyright © 2010
  
  ISBN: 978-1-936403-06-6
  Electronic rights reserved by Rogue Phoenix Press, all other rights reserved
  by the
  author. The reproduction or other use of any part of this publication without
  the prior
  written consent of the rights holder is an infringement of the copyright law.
  This is a
  work of fiction. People and locations, even those with real names, have been
  fictionalized for the purposes of this story.
  
  Prologue
  Crystal City
  Land of the Kell
  C laws dug into Drystan's arm. He swung his blade round his head, twisting
  his large body. Drystan, the commander of the Kell army, kicked high into
  the lizard-like man's
  underbelly then shoved the body away. The Drac Scoull left bloody scratch
  marks as
  it was hurtled onto its back. Drystan did not hesitate, his blade sunk all the
  way into
  the exposed side of the Scoull's armour. The enemy gave a high pitched
  squeal, its
  body convulsing in its death throes. He yanked the bl