Venom and Song

Book Details:
Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 384
Publication Date: August 17, 2010
Why I read it: received for review
Grade: B

Cover thoughts:
I don't like this cover quite as well as the first book. It's the same style (hardcover with picture right on the cover) that I really like, but there's just something about it that I don't love. It could possibly be the red writing.

About the author:
Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper are joint authors of this one. Check out their websites!

The plot:
The seven elf lords have returned to their home world of Allyra. Here they begin training for the inevitable war with the spider king. As more prophecies are revealed, they realize that their training is not enough, so they set off in search of a mystical item from the prophecy. Not quite as good as the first one, for me, but still very enjoyable.

Characters:
There are still a lot of characters. The focus is still on the seven elf lords, and to be honest, even in this second book I had a hard time keeping track of who was who (especially with the secondary, non elf-lord characters), what their special powers were, etc. We do get to know and care about the characters more in this book, and I still think younger teens and tweens will really connect with these characters.

Setting:
We're in Allyra in this one, which is a made up world that isn't too different from Earth in some ways, but when you look deeper there are some scary differences. The world building in Venom and Song is great, and I'd love to read more set in this world, but I'm not sure if there will be more books in this series or not.

Notable quotes:
They would never meet her, and she would never meet them. But somehow, they would connect over the ages of time and share life together: one looking forward to hope, the other looking backward to love.

Read this if you're in the mood for: a fairly light young adult fantasy that is not focused on young love (although there is a few crushes here and there, they are very mild and in the background). This one is more heavy on the religion, I think, than the first one.

Continue or part ways? I'll keep reading more by these authors, and if there's more in the series I'll continue on.