Four girls at a southwestern boarding school discover they have amazing feline powers and must unite to stop an ancient evil in the second riveting adventure of the Hunters of Chaos series. Ana’s life changed dramatically when she accepted a position at an exclusive boarding school in New Mexico. She found three great new friends—Shani, Doli, and Lin—and together, they discovered that they each had the power to turn into a wildcat. Their new friendship and powers were put to the test in a battle against the god Anubis and his newly resurrected Brotherhood of Chaos. After defeating the Brotherhood, Ana learns that her aunt and uncle have gone missing. Her friends are ready to help her find them, but then Shani is accused of vandalizing school property and expelled. While Ana and the others head to Mexico to search for her family, Shani travels to Mumbai to stay with her father. But strange things are happening in the Indian city. Has she stumbled upon another sinister plot? Meanwhile, Ana, Doli, and Lin have gone to Mexico to try and track down Ana’s family, and in the heart of Chichen Itxa, they find new dangers—and more proof of the Brotherhood’s growing power. With the four wildcats separated by thousands of miles, is this Anubis’s chance to rise again? Gr 4–7—Ana, Shani, Doli & Lin are four friends at Temple Academy who find out they are direct descendants of the Wildcats, a group of ancient shape-shifting warriors. After narrowly escaping the Brotherhood of Chaos and their leader, Anubis in Hunters of Chaos, they have to face continued threats to their safety. When the Wildcats are attacked in the school gym, Shani uses hacked information to save them and gets expelled from Temple Academy. Concurrently, Ana's aunt and uncle go missing sending the rest of the Wildcats to Mexico to find them and ultimately get more information on the Brotherhood. Each chapter alternates between Ana and Shani's first person narratives giving the diverse cast of characters their own voice. The mythology of the world is quickly summarized within the first few pages making it easy for new readers to jump on board. This series will appeal to those interested in mythology and readers of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. Crystal Velasquez is the author of the Hunters of Chaos series; the Your Life, but… series: Your Life, but Better ; Your Life, but Cooler ; and Your Life, but Sweeter ; and four books in the Maya & Miguel series, based on the television show— My Twin Brother/My Twin Sister ; Neighborhood Friends ; The Valentine Machine ; and Paint the Town . She holds a BA in creative writing from Penn State University and is a graduate of NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Currently an editor at Working Partners Ltd. and a freelance proofreader, she lives in Flushing, Queens, in New York City. Visit her website at CrystalVelasquez.com, her blog at YourLifebutBetter.Blogspot.com, or find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/CrystalVelasquezAuthor. Circle of Lies chapter 1 Ana WE FILED OUT OF THE dorms and made our way to the auditorium for school assembly at eight thirty that morning, grumbling about having to get up so early. The sky was its usual shade of cloudless blue. All around us I could see the distant red mountains overlooking Temple Academy like stone guardians. Nothing had changed—except that the day before, my whole world had fallen apart. Thankfully, I had three friends who were doing their best to help me put it back together: Doli Hoskie, Lin Yang, and Shani Massri. When I’d first arrived at this school, I hadn’t been sure I’d ever fit in. Then I met them, and everything changed. We’re all so different from one another, but thanks to Ms. Benitez, we found out that we have one huge thing in common: We are the direct descendants of ancient shape-shifting warriors—Wildcats—who were destined to fight the forces of evil. I know, that sounds crazy. If I hadn’t seen Doli turn into a puma, Lin become a tiger, and Shani transform into a lion—and if I hadn’t turned into a jaguar myself—I might not believe it. But after we battled the ancient Egyptian god Anubis and the Chaos Spirits he released, there was no denying the truth. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Last night I’d gotten a superweird call from Aunt Teppy. I was starting to suspect that something terrible had happened to her and Uncle Mec, and all I wanted was my family back. “Tell me one more time what your aunt said,” Doli whispered now, pulling us to the side of the entrance to the auditorium. She was looking at me with wide, serious brown eyes, and I realized that I must have looked totally shaken. I took a deep breath. “She said that they had taken care of me for a decade and they were entitled to some alone time. That I should grow up and look after myself.” My voice broke. The words were so upsetting, so unlike my loving aunt, it was still hard to repeat them without crying. “Harsh,” Shani said sympathetically, touching my should