 Voices of Dragons — (2010) Young adult. Publisher: On one side of the border lies the modern world: the internet, homecoming dances, cell phones. On the other side dwell the ancient monsters who spark humanity's deepest fears: dragons. Seventeen-year-old Kay Wyatt knows she's breaking the law by rock climbing near the border, but she'd rather have an adventure than follow the rules. When the dragon Artegal unexpectedly saves her life, the rules are abruptly shattered, and a secret friendship grows between them. But suspicion and terror are the legacy of human and dragon interactions, and the fragile truce that has maintained peace between the species is unraveling. As tensions mount and battles begin, Kay and Artegal are caught in the middle. Can their friendship change the course of a war? In her young-adult debut, New York Times bestselling author Carrie Vaughn presents a distinctly twenty-first-century tale of myths and machines, and an alliance that crosses a seemingly unbridgeable divide.
Discord's Apple — (2010) Publisher: When Evie Walker goes home to spend time with
her dying father, she discovers
that his creaky old house in
Hope’s Fort, Colorado, is not
the only legacy she stands to
inherit. Hidden behind the old
basement door is a secret and
magical storeroom, a place
where wondrous treasures from
myth and legend are kept safe
until they are needed again.
The magic of the storeroom
prevents access to any who
are not intended to use the
items. But just because it has
never been done does not
mean it cannot be done.
And there are certainly
those who will give anything
to find a way in.
Evie must guard the storeroom
against ancient and malicious
forces, protecting the past
and the future even as the
present unravels around
them. Old heroes and
notorious villains alike will
rise to fight on her side or to
undermine her most desperate
gambits. At stake is the
fate of the world, and the prevention of  nothing less than the apocalypse.
 Discord's Apple
Evie Walker is a comic book writer who is to inherit a magical storeroom from her terminally ill father. Unbeknownst to her, it has been the duty of her family for thousands of years to keep this storeroom safe. The storeroom contains artifacts from myth and legend, such as the Golden Fleece, Cinderella’s slippers, and of course Discord’s apple. Not only is Evie about to inherit these objects of legend, but she is also about to inherit the attention of powerful beings that would love to obtain them.
Discord’s Apple is a straightforward tale featuring the classic themes of love, friendship and sacrifice, played out by classic characters drawn from sources ranging from the Greek mythos to Arthurian legend. When I first read the back cover I was expecting to find worn-out clichés within. I figured there would be timeless true love, sacrificing heroics, and predictability of the kind one might expect of a story that contains several legendary heroes. I was sort of right — I did indeed get everything I expected — but the classic tropes were employed in a refreshing and unexpected way.
Carrie Vaughn breaks up the narrative into multiple storylines. In addition to Evie’s plot arc, there is a plotline following Tracker, a comic book character created by Evie. Tracker is everything Evie never could be, and Evie lives vicariously through her adventures. A third strand focuses on Sinon of Ithaca, or Sinon the Liar, the man who convinced King Priam to bring the Trojan horse within the walls of Troy. Sinon is a legendary character who has not had much face time in modern fiction, and it’s fun to see Carrie Vaughn’s portrayal of him.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by Discord’s Apple. Carrie Vaughn is a talented writer and she did very well in her first adult foray outside of the KITTY NORVILLE series. I must emphasize that Discord’s Apple is very much an adult novel. There is nothing overly graphic in the novel, but the sexual themes might prove unsuitable for younger readers.
I listened to this on audio CD produced by Brilliance Audio. The story is read to us by Angela Dawe and Luke Daniels. The majority of the story is told from Evie’s perspective, and Dawe’s smooth youthful voice is perfect for her. Daniels, who voices Sinon, is also excellent. I enjoyed listening to this a great deal, and highly recommend the audio version. —Justin Blazier
After the Golden Age — (2010) Publisher: Can an accountant defeat a supervillain? Celia West, only daughter of the heroic leaders of the superpowered Olympiad, has spent the past few years estranged from her parents and their high-powered lifestyle. She’s had enough of masks and heroics, and wants only to live her own quiet life out from under the shadow of West Plaza and her rich and famous parents.
Then she is called into her boss’ office and told that as the city’s top forensic accountant, Celia is the best chance the prosecution has to catch notorious supervillain the Destructor for tax fraud. In the course of the trial, Celia’s troubled past comes to light and family secrets are revealed as the rift between Celia and her parents grows deeper. Cut off from friends and family, Celia must come to terms with the fact that she  might just be Commerce City’s only hope.
This all-new and moving story of love, family, and sacrifice is an homage to Golden Age comics that no fan will want to miss.
 After The Golden Age
I’m not a big fan of superheroes or comic-book-type storylines. It’s not that they aren’t good. Some of them are great, I’m sure. I just tend to find them a bit too campy for my taste. With superheroes, specifically, I find the pure lines that tend to be drawn between good and evil characters completely unbelievable. Thus, when I began reading Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age, I knew I was in for a challenge, but I embraced it. I was in the mood to move outside of my comfort zone. That attitude probably saved the book for me.
After the Golden Age takes place in Commerce City, an appropriately named fictional city, which is filled with masked and caped crusaders who remind me of a mixture between typical comic-book vigilantes and the X-Men. The book opens with a slam-dunk chapter wherein the protagonist gets kidnapped and is being used to manipulate her parents, Spark and Captain Olympus. Vaughn uses this chapter to set the stage for important character development; namely, how important sarcasm will be to the protagonist and the plot as a whole. The sarcasm throughout this book saves it over and over again from being a dull tale with some interesting caped crusaders thrown in here and there.
There is a problem, however, which arises after the first impressive chapter, which I briefly touched on in the previous paragraph. The book does turn a bit dull, almost relying on Celia’s sarcasm to redeem it. I would expect a book filled with such campy characters and a comic-book-type plot to be filled with excitement and action from one page to the next, but it just isn’t.
The mysteries are fairly easy to unravel, and while there are some plot twists that keep things moving, there is a fairly dull gray sense about the book as a whole. Coupled with this is the fact that some characters remained underdeveloped throughout the book, and thereby detached from the reader. One example of this is Celia’s father, Captain Olympus, who suffers from some developmental deficiencies.
At the bottom of it all, though, the plot of After the Golden Age is about a girl finding her identity in a world where she’s different from anything anyone expected. Celia’s search for herself is emotionally compelling and engrossing, which allows all the other aspects and details of the plot to become simply a lacy fringe that accents the root of the book. Slowly Vaughn reveals aspects of Celia’s life, growth and development for the reader. Thus, readers aren’t hit over the head with the facts of her life, but can enjoy the mystery as Vaughn slowly reveals it.
Interpersonal relationships play a pivotal role in After the Golden Age. Vaughn spends quite a bit of time highlighting the rocky relationship between Celia and her parents, specifically her father. In fact, some of the points raised about Celia’s relationship with her father began to seem redundant. While I realize that Vaughn was striving to add depth to the story, it seemed to bog down the book more than lift it up. In a fun, campy story like this, it seemed out of place.
Another relationship that needs to be highlighted is the romance, which is poorly done. There are two romantic interests throughout the book. The first one is easy to pick out from the point he enters the plot. The second romance is abrupt and somewhat uncomfortable. There really is no lead-in to the moment when she ends up with one of them; there is a sudden declaration of love and that’s that. On the whole, it seems half-thought-out and too sudden.
The biggest problem I had, however, is a more personal issue than anything else. The line between “good” and “evil” characters is incredibly bold. The villain is amazingly easy to spot. The motivations behind the “evil” characters are ridiculous, as they are all hell-bent on the complete destruction of everything (insert evil laughter here). While that type of characterization is fitting with the overall feel of the book, the motivations and desires of the “evil” characters were completely unbelievable to me.
It should be fairly obvious that this book didn’t “wow” me by any stretch of the imagination. However, After the Golden Age is fun, though it is bogged down by heavy-handed writing, deeper themes that didn’t really fit in with the overall plot, and amazingly awkward relationships. Despite these problems, fans of superheroes and comic books will probably get quite a kick out of this book. It’s a short, quick read. The world is well done, the plot is nicely paced, Celia is a great protagonist, and superheroes can be quite fun. After the Golden Age is a book you will want to read if you are in the mood for a light distraction. —Sarah Chorn
FanLit thanks Sarah Chorn from Bookworm Blues for contributing this guest review.
 Steel — (2011) Young adult. Publisher: It was a slender length of rusted steel, tapered to a point at one end and jagged at the other, as if it had broken. A thousand people would step over it and think it trash, but not her. This was the tip of a rapier. Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure. The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home — one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain. Time travel, swordplay, and romance combine in an original high-seas adventure from New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.
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