YOUNG ADULT FICTION
Brothers and Sisters
(Fearsome Destiny #1)
Joseph Amiel | Lambent
304 pages, e-book, 99¢, ISBN 978-1-5136-
5346-4
Amiel’s creative Fearsome
Destiny young adult series launch
is a grab bag of history, dimen-
sional travel, teen drama, and
suspense. Gallin and Alexine, two
modern-day 17-year-olds, are
stalked and trapped by an assassin.
Then a device given to Gallin by his guardian (previously slain
by the same assassin) whisks them to 1776 London on the
planet Eratha, a 1984 -style dystopia where members of the
Noblic class secretly fly in stealth aircraft and manipulate the
populace through television while medievalesque peasants
farm with oxen. Gallin and Alexine discover they are the iden-
tical twins of Prince Ro-Gall and his fiancée, Ra-Alex, and were
sent to Earth as newborns because of a law requiring Noblic
younger twins to be killed. The clever teens, recalling what
they learned about medieval law, claim to be the older twins
and demand a trial by combat to prove that they are in the
right. They manipulate the evil King Groghor into holding the
event in Eratha’s Philadelphia, where revolution is brewing
and the Noblics hold little sway.
Science fiction combines with a juiced-up history lesson in
this peculiar but charming novel. Students of history will enjoy
rummaging through the pile of cultural references and spot-
ting differences between Earth and Eratha: on the latter, the
Venus de Milo’s arms remain intact, and, instead of the mad
king George, the even more tyrannical Groghor rules an
England threatened by global warming and wealth inequality.
It’s fun to cheer on Gallin
and Alexine as they snipe at
their obnoxious siblings (“You
may be marrying the prince
someday,” Alexine says to
Ra-Alex, “but I’m willing to
bet you’re about as popular
around here as head lice”) and
embark on intensive combat
training while discovering
psychic powers, though char-
acterization is limited to what
will drive the plot. The book’s
clunky elements are balanced
by combat in anti-gravity
belts, the wacky machinations
of the king and his enablers,
and the leads’ interactions
with Ben Franklin, Thomas
Jefferson, and John Adams.
Production grades
Cover: C
Design & typography: B
Illustrations: –
Editing: A
Marketing copy: B
A spoonful of sus-
penseful science
fiction makes this
YA American
Revolution history
lesson go down
smoothly.
Great for fans of
Jasper Fforde, Gail
Carriger.
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