Some kisses come at a price. War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn’t forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people—and certainly more than she did for him. At least, that’s what he thinks. In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they’ve done to her. But no one gets what they want just by wishing. As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

Book two of the dazzling Winner's Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love. The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement... if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret. As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

Winning what you want may cost you everything you love...  As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined. Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

After stealing her father’s eyes back from Prince Rodolfo, Petra Kronos lives in constant danger. She and her tin spider, Astrophil, end up hiding out in London, where she learns more about her magical abilities. London has its charms (like Petra’s attractive fencing master), but Petra needs to get back to Bohemia and her father. Meanwhile, Prince Rodolfo is trying to locate a powerful object called the Celestial Globe. Petra’s friends, Tomik and Neel, are searching for her and traveling with a band of Gypsies searching for the globe. The race is on to see who will find the globe first, and who will make it out of this deadly chase alive.

Darcy Jones doesn't remember anything before the day she was abandoned as a child outside a Chicago firehouse. She has never really belonged anywhere—but she couldn't have guessed that she comes from an alternate world where the Great Chicago Fire didn't happen and deadly creatures called Shades terrorize the human population. Memories begin to haunt Darcy when a new boy arrives at her high school, and he makes her feel both desire and desired in a way she hadn't thought possible. But Conn's interest in her is confusing. It doesn't line up with the way he first looked at her. As if she were his enemy. When Conn betrays Darcy, she realizes that she can't rely on anything—not herself, not the laws of nature, and certainly not him. Darcy decides to infiltrate the Shadow Society and uncover the Shades' latest terrorist plot. What she finds out will change her world forever . . . In this smart, compulsively readable novel, master storyteller Marie Rutkoski has crafted an utterly original world, characters you won't soon forget, and a tale full of intrigue and suspense.

Upon arriving in the Romany homeland to deliver the Mercator Globes, Petra Kronos, Tomik, and Neel formulate a plan to save Petra’s father, who has been transformed into a Gray Man. But when a long-held secret is revealed, Neel finds himself bound to his country. The friends are quickly swept up in an epic battle for power. Thrones are at stake. Spies are afoot. Murder is common. Worst of all, Prince Rodolfo is close to becoming emperor, and ruling half of Europe. How much is Petra willing to sacrifice to defend the people she loves? Her search for answers will take her to castles and cities, through mountains, and even underwater as she tests her strength and gambles her life.

Petra Kronos has a simple, happy life. But it’s never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world’s finest astronomical clock. Petra’s life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home—blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn’t know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father’s eyes back. Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father’s clock has powers capable of destroying their world.

Bringing to mind Gillian Flynn and Tana French but completely unique, Marie Rutkoski's Real Easy is a compulsive, tenacious, and unexpectedly hopeful thriller.It's 1999 and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She's not used to mixing work and friendship—after all, between her jealous boyfriend and his young daughter, she has enough on her plate. But the newest dancer is so clueless that Samantha feels compelled to help her learn the hustle and drama of the club: how to sweet-talk the boss, fit in with the other women, and make good money. One night, when the new girl needs a ride home, Samantha agrees to drive: a simple decision that turns deadly. Georgia, another dancer drawn into the ensuing murder and missing person investigation, gathers information for Holly, a grieving detective determined to solve the case. Georgia just wants to help, but her involvement makes her a target. As Holly and Georgia round up their suspects,...

Intrigue, romance, and magic abound in the heart-stopping conclusion to Marie Rutkoski's Forgotten Gods duology. At the end of The Midnight Lie, Nirrim offered up her heart to the God of Thieves in order to restore her people's memories of their city's history. The Half Kith who once lived imprisoned behind the city's wall now realize that many among them are powerful. Meanwhile, the person Nirrim once loved most, Sid, has returned to her home country of Herran, where she must navigate the politics of being a rogue princess who has finally agreed to do her duty.In the Herrani court, rumors begin to grow of a new threat rising across the sea, of magic unleashed on the world, and of a cruel, black-haired queen who can push false memories into your mind, so that you believe your dearest friends to be your enemies.Sid doesn't know that this queen is Nirrim, who seeks her revenge against a world that has wronged her. Can Sid save Nirrim from herself?...

Few know that the Great Chicago Fire was started deliberately, as a genocide of deadly creatures called Shades. Fewer still know that they didn't die, not quite...but one human will confront the truth when an ominous beauty makes him gamble for his life.

Set in the world of the New York Times–bestselling Winner's Trilogy, Marie Rutkoski's The Midnight Lie is an epic LGBTQ romantic fantasy about learning to free ourselves from the lies others tell us—and the lies we tell ourselves.Where Nirrim lives, crime abounds, a harsh tribunal rules, and society's pleasures are reserved for the High Kith. Life in the Ward is grim and punishing. People of her low status are forbidden from sampling sweets or wearing colors. You either follow the rules, or pay a tithe and suffer the consequences.Nirrim keeps her head down, and a dangerous secret close to her chest. But then she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away, who whispers rumors that the High Kith possess magic. Sid tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself. But to do that, Nirrim must surrender her old life. She must place her trust in this sly stranger who asks, above all, not to be trusted.

From Publishers WeeklyAdd this heady mix of history and enchantment to the season's list of astonishingly accomplished first novels: in Rutkoski's multilayered version of late�16th-century Bohemia, magicians coexist with peasants and courtiers, a tribe of gypsies use specially endowed �ghost� fingers, and the fate of Europe hangs on the schemes of an evil prince. As the novel opens, a metalworker with extraordinary gifts has returned from Prince Rodolfo's palace in Prague, having finished his commission to build a magical clock�but the prince has gouged out his eyes, so that he can never duplicate the clock or, worse, better it. Even more disturbingly, the prince wears the eyes himself. Vowing to recover her father's eyes, 12-year-old Petra sneaks off to Prague, with little more than the company of Astrophil, an erudite tin spider who can communicate with her. Proving herself a worthy relative of, say, Philip Pullman's quick-thinking, fearless heroines, Petra navigates her way past sorceress countesses, English spy magicians, dangerous gypsies and through bewitched palace halls until Rodolfo, wearing the ill-gotten eyes, catches sight of her. Infusions of folklore (and Rutkoski's embellishments of them) don't slow the fast plot but more deeply entrance readers. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library JournalGrade 5–8—Set in an altered European Renaissance, this book succeeds in creating an interesting new fantasy world. Twelve-year-old Petra Kronos is shocked when her father is returned to their village without his eyes. The young Prince of Bohemia had commissioned Mikhail Kronos, who has a magical gift with metal and machines, to create a magnificent clock. Before its completion, however, the prince had the artisan's eyes removed, hoping to use their magical qualities, along with the clock, to gain control of the Hapsburg Empire and possibly the world. Petra, along with her well-read tin spider, Astrophil, sneaks off to Prague in order to get the eyes back. With help from a Roma boy, Neel, and his sister, Petra gets a job at the castle and is one step closer to retrieving her father's eyes and preventing the prince from misusing the clock's power. Her adventures also lead her to discover more of her own abilities, magical and otherwise. The novel is well paced and contains a number of intriguing characters. This is a solid fantasy that finishes its story but leaves the door open for further episodes. An author's note explains the historical basis for certain aspects of the book, including the Roma, the prince's cabinet of wonders, and John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth. For those who like their fantasy with a splash of history, or their history with a twist of magic, this book is ideal.—_Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL_ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library JournalGrade 5–8—This historical fantasy, a follow-up to The Cabinet of Wonders (Farrar, 2008), brings magic and mystery to life. When British spy John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth, spirits young Petra Kronos away from Prince Rodolfo's monsters in Bohemia, Petra's only concern is returning home to London and rescuing her father. Instead, Dee keeps her captive and trains her as both a magician and a spy. On the other side of the world, Petra's friends Neel and Tomik unwillingly join forces to find not only Petra but also the Celestial Globe. Evil Prince Rodolfo also seeks the Globe, half of a set that reveals mysterious pathways through the world. Petra and the other characters have matured, and romance begins to play a role, but friendship and adventure remain at the forefront. While the multiple narratives dilute the action somewhat, the fantastical journey of Tomik and Neel, and Petra's struggles with her captor, her education, and her love interest will engage fans of the first book and bring new readers to the series. An author's note (cunningly penned by Astrophil, Petra's clockwork spider) explains which characters and events are rooted in historical fact.—_Karen E. Brooks-Reese, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA_ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. FromIn this spirited sequel to The Cabinet of Wonders (2008), Petra Kronos escapes Prince Rodolfo's monstrous assassins with the help of British spy John Dee. Dee, an intriguingly amoral benefactor for stubborn, challenging Petra, refuses to return her to Bohemia, instead keeping her busy with lessons in swordplay and magic. As Petra struggles to outmaneuver him, Neel and Tomik search for two globes that enable travel through mysterious Loopholes, but they are not the only ones after this power. With a little romance, a murder mystery, and political intrigue in spades, this historical fantasy crackles with energy. Series fans will be pleased. Grades 5-8. --Krista Hutley