War rages everywhere and Morgan is caught in the middle in the haunting conclusion of The Internment Chronicles, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Chemical Garden trilogy. The city is falling out of the sky… Morgan always thought it was just a saying. A metaphor. The words of the dying. But as they look up at the floating island that was their home, Pen and Morgan make a horrible discovery—Internment is sinking. And it’s all Morgan’s fault. Corrupted from the inside by one terrible king and assailed from the outside for precious resources by another, Internment could be destroyed because Morgan couldn’t keep a secret. As two wars become one, Morgan must find a way to bring her two worlds together to stop the kings that wage them… Or face the furthest fall yet. Gr 7 Up—DeStefano's wonderful conclusion to her "Internment Chronicles" trilogy (S. & S.) combines dystopia with a love more complex than simple romance. After the previous volume in the series, King Ingram of Havalais and his soldiers have flown to Internment, the city in the sky, to force King Fulcrum and his people to deliver phosane, the mineral that Ingram believes can be refined to fuel his jets for his war on the neighboring kingdom of Dastor. Ingram holds Fulcrum's daughter, Celeste, hostage in Internment while her beloved, Nim, can only wait below and hope for news. The brilliant Pen has been distant, studying science texts and observing the floating city when she finally comes to her best friend, Morgan, to reveal that Internment is slowly descending. Not long after, Ingram returns and wants Morgan and her betrothed, Basil, to return with him to Internment to convince the people there that cooperation is for the best. Morgan takes Pen's information with her, as well as a packet of letters for Celeste, hoping that she and Basil can somehow keep their city in the air and save everyone they love from the two despots. The primary characters here are in a situation made desperate by tyrants, war, dysfunctional traditions, and simple physics, but their love for each other and their countries allows them to prevail. VERDICT While violence is ultimately part of the resolution here, it is the characters' steadfastness, cleverness, hope, and love that is celebrated. A triumphant, uplifting dystopia.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI "a satisfying conclusion for series fans" -- Kirkus Reviews ― December 15, 2015 "A triumphant, uplifting dystopia" -- School Library Journal ― February 2016 "a page-turner as it gallops through to a stunning but ultimately happy conclusion" -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books ― March 2016 "DeStefano knows how to set a stage and write strong voices -- especially her female characters...Those who've read the first two books will certainly want to read this one" -- Booklist ― May 2016 Lauren DeStefano is the author of The Internment Chronicles and the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden trilogy, which includes Wither , Fever , and Sever . She earned her BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut. Visit her at LaurenDeStefano.com. Broken Crowns 1 “The city is falling out of the sky,” Professor Leander said. They were his last words. The medicine of the ground was not enough to cure an old man of the sun disease. He refused most of the efforts anyway. He told me that he’d already accomplished what no one else had been able to do. He’d gotten us to the ground. He was quite curious, he said, to know if his spirit would be taken to the tributary, or if he’d go to whatever afterlife the ground believed in, or if there was nothing at all. Amy was with him when he died, and she called it a peaceful death. A fitting death. Down a labyrinthine set of hallways in the same hospital, Gertrude Piper opened her eyes after a month of sleep. It was as though the two gods had made an even trade—the life of a man from the sky in exchange for the life of a girl on the ground. Before that, we all thought that Birdie Piper would die. After I landed in Havalais at the dawn of winter, she was the most vibrant thing in her strange world. She offered her friendship to Pen and me without question; she snuck us through our bedroom window and showed us the wonders of Havalais. The mermaids in the sea. The glittering lights cast upon the water at night. The spinning metal rides in her family’s amusement park. And then the cold war between Havalais and its neighboring kingdom of Dastor advanced on us all at once, in the middle of the spring festival. I watched as an explosion swallowed Birdie. I saw her body, broken and bleeding and burnt, being kept alive by some coppery machine. Even worse than my brother had been when he’d come too close to the edge. But nothing is certain, not even death when it’s hovering over a girl. Not in my world, and not in this one. Birdie came back slowly. It took a mont