History, Romance, and the Paranormal

Reviewed by Abby DeVuyst (3 out of 5 stars)

If you are looking for something to do this summer, why not slip into a new world, created by Libba Bray. Her trilogy, starting with A Great and Terrible Beauty, is a surprising delight set in Victorian England, in the late 1800s. A headstrong and suppressed girl, named Gemma Doyle, is shocked to find that she has powers that allow her to enter a magical land, known as the realms. After being shipped off to boarding school, Gemma finds herself thrown into an unlikely friendship with three of her fellow classmates. The four girls find themselves thrust into the strange beauty of the realms, a land that holds as much danger as it does delight.

Deciding who to trust, the Rakshana (a mysterious brotherhood sworn to protect the natural world from the realms), or the Order (the group of woman who ruled the realms and its magic in the past), may be the least of her worries. With a chill coming from the forbidden winter lands and the looming of an unknown enemy Gemma must hurry to control her new powers. Before something terrible happens…