And Then What Happened?

Favorite characters from lands near and far return in a multitude of fall sequels. Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War arrives as the follow-up to Clive Barker's Abarat. PW said of the first book, "[Barker] cooks up a surreal stew of character portraits." Here, Candy, the human heroine of the first book, and Malingo the geshrat avoid Otto Houlihan (aka the "Criss-Cross Man") and Christopher Carrion, the Prince of Midnight, as they travel across the strange landscape. Candy discovers new abilities and insights into the battle between the Night-world and Day-world. Once again, Barker's paintings of the creatures help draw readers into this fantastical realm. (HarperCollins/Cotler, $24.99 512p all ages ISBN 0-06-029170-2; Oct.) Charlie Ashanti and his lions on the lam return in LionBoy: The Chase by Zizou Corder, illus. by Fred Van Deelen, the sequel to LionBoy. Here Charlie travels to Venice, where he mistakenly thinks his parents (kidnapped in book one) are being held. Charlie learns further details about "Allergenie" cats and their relationship to the human allergy plague as his parents mount an escape from the Corporacy. (Dial, $15.99 272p ages 8-up ISBN 0-8037-2984-7; Sept.)

Fans of the duo's Edge Chronicles may embrace the launch of the paper-over-board series A Knight's Story: Lake of Skulls by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. A nameless medieval knight who works "freelance," unattached to any particular lord, gets into a bar brawl, and meets a man who hires him to retrieve a crown from the titular lake. "Craggy, misty, stuck in the middle of a lake in the mountains. The Lake of Skulls.... There, I'd find a huge pile of skulls. (The clue was in the name.)"(S&S/Atheneum, $9.95 144p ages 7-11 ISBN 0-689-87239-9; Sept.)

No Time Like Show Time: A Hermux Tantamoq Adventure by Michael Hoeye heralds the return of the watchmaking mouse from Time Stops for No Mouse and The Sands of Time. Hermux must contend with the villainous Tucka Mertslin as she forms a partnership with jewel thief Corpius Crounce, conspiring to ruin the Varmint Variety Theater. In a starred review of Sands, PW wrote, "the galloping plot, evocative descriptions and exuberantly sophisticated wit keep the pages turning." (Putnam, $14.99 288p ages 12-up ISBN 0-399-23880-8; Sept.)

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes follows up Hawksong with Snakecharm, continuing the story of the avian and serpiente clans. In this sequel, Danica is carrying Zane's child and they struggle with the resultant tensions regarding their child's mixed bloodline. (Delacorte, $14.95 224p ages 12-up ISBN 0-385-73072-1; Sept.)

Aly and her fellow rebels return in Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce, the sequel to Trickster's Choice, which PW called "densely political, rife with cultural background and sprawling character trees." Aly insinuates herself into the graces of the Rittevon rulers as she accompanies the Balitang family, disguised as a servant, and assists them in their attempt to reclaim the throne. (Random, $17.95 480p ages 10-13 ISBN 0-375-81467-1; Sept.)

The Redwall series marches on with Rakkety Tam by Brian Jacques. Gulo the Savage—a cannibalistic wolverine with an army of foxes and ermines—invades, searching for the "Walking Stone" his brother Askor stole. King Araltum and Igda Drayqueen turn to the surly, squirrelly warriors Rakkety Tam MacBurl and Wild Doogy Plumm to find Gulo and repossess their kingdom's banner, as Gulo advances on Redwall. (Philomel, $23.99 432p ages 10-up ISBN 0-399-23725-9; Sept.)

The Grand Tour or the Purloined Coronation Regalia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer continues the tale begun with Sorcery and Cecelia. In a series of diary entries and depositions,

Cecilia and Kate recount their experiences with their new husbands and wedding travels (on conjugal duties, Kate notes, "I've spent my whole life being clumsy, and this seems to offer more scope for embarrassing myself than anything I've done yet"). Mysterious events follow the quartet across Europe. (Harcourt, $17 480p ages 12-up ISBN 0-15-204616-X; Sept.)

The Hatford brothers' and Malloy sisters' gender feud continues in Girls Rule!, the 10th title in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's series. Here the boys and girls vie for odd jobs, trying to raise money for a hospital and to earn a place in the Strawberry Festival Parade. (Delacorte, $17.99 160p ages 9-12 ISBN 0-385-73139-6; Sept.)

Janette Rallison's Life, Love and the Pursuit of Free Throws opens with a humorous, fictitious Q&A session between the author and a reporter "played by someone who looks like Katie Couric." From here, Rallison (All's Fair in Love, War, and High School) alternates between the points of view of two friends, the sometimes klutzy Josie and fastidious Cami, who envies her friend's basketball skills. The girls struggle with science projects, a shared crush on the athletic Ethan and a competition to get to play against basketball star Rebecca Lobo. (Walker, $16.95 176p ages 12-up ISBN 0-8027-8927-7; Sept.)

Hot drama and haute lifestyles abound in Blonde Ambition: An A-List Novel by Zoey Dean, third in the series. Anna Percy rides high: she has the boy of her dreams, her sister returns to rehab and she has a high-paced internship at a top teen soap opera. Meanwhile Anna's rival, the scheming debutante Cammie, contends with "Beverly Hills ennui" and a new stepsister. (Little, Brown, $9.99 paper 224p ages 15-up ISBN 0-316-73474-8; Sept.)

Short one life, the increasingly feline heroine returns in the paperback original The Nine Lives of Chloe King: The Stolen by Celia Thomson. In this sequel, Chloe learns about her non-human ancestry as a member of the ancient Mai people. Her friends Paul and Amy (first met in The Fallen) attempt to help and protect Chloe (now living with others of her kind) from evil agents of the Tenth Blade who try to hunt her down. (Simon Pulse, $6.99 paper 288p ages 14-up ISBN 0-689-86659-3; Sept.)

Lynne Ewing launches a male companion series of sorts to her Daughters of the Moon series, with Sons of the Dark: Barbarian. She introduces three Los Angeles teens, ancient warriors living in the present day. Obie is a shape-shifting Visigoth with the ability to use runes, who must return to the shadow world of Nefandus in order to rescue Berto, a Toltec warrior. (Hyperion/Volo, $9.99 paper 266p ages 12-up ISBN 0-7868-1811-5; Sept.)

Adam Pelko returns in A Boy No More by Harry Mazer, a follow-up to A Boy at War. PW called the first book "a vivid account of the [Pearl Harbor] attack and subtle suggestions of the complexities of Japanese-American relations." Adam, his mother and his sister move to California, and Adam receives a letter from a friend, asking Adam to deliver a letter to an internment camp in nearby Fresno, where the friend's father has been taken. He agrees to help, despite a tide of anti-Japanese sentiment. (S&S, $15.95 144p ages 10-14 ISBN 0-689-85533-8; Sept.)

Pat Hughes (Guerilla Season) returns with another historical novel, The Breaker Boys, set in Hazleton, Penn., in 1897. Expelled from boarding school, 12-year-old Nate Tanner, son of a mine-owner, returns home and befriends Johnny, a mineworker's son. Nate conceals his identity in order to maintain Johnny's friendship and winds up in the middle of a dispute between the miners and his own family. (FSG, $18 256p ages 8-12 ISBN 0-374-30956-6; Sept.)

Operation Clean Sweep by Darleen Bailey Beard is the latest historically-based tale by the author of The Babbs Switch Story (about which PW wrote, "colorful, period-flavored dialogue keeps this tale moving at a fast clip"). In 1916 Oregon, Cornelius "Corn" Sanwick is incredulous when he discovers that the women in town plan to vote a woman into office, replacing his father as mayor. Corn gets a lesson in democracy from the town's suffragists—led by his mother, who aims to be mayor. (FSG, $16 160p ages 8-12 ISBN 0-374-38034-1; Sept.)