Romeo Redeemed

Gr 9 Up—In this sequel to Juliet Immortal (Delacorte, 2011), the evil Mercenaries have trapped Romeo in his rotting original body as punishment for attempting to save Juliet. When one of the Ambassadors offers him a chance at redemption, he enters an alternate reality in the body of handsome bad boy Dylan Stroud and has a chance to save Ariel Dragland, Juliet's former host, from a terrible future if he can make her fall in love with him. Romeo gradually wins over the wary Ariel, but, predictably, he finds himself also falling in love with her. He tries to protect her from the Ambassadors and the Mercenaries, but a Mercenary successfully manipulates her into distrusting him, endangering not only their future as a couple, but the future of the whole world as well. Told in alternating narration by Romeo and Ariel, this is an enjoyable reboot in which Romeo becomes a sympathetic hero rather than the contemptible villain of the first book. Readers definitely have to have read Juliet in order to understand what's going on, and it also helps to be familiar with Shakespeare's play. However, the Ambassadors/Mercenaries mythos is still as murky as in the previous book. Purchase where the first novel is popular.—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ