Russalka is undergoing civil war and Katya and Sergei are stuggling to make ends meet. But everything is going well, until Havilland Kane has her kidnapped. He's pretty much the last person she wants to see, especially since she told him in no uncertain terms to stay far out of her life. Havilland thinks Katya is the only person who can help stop this war but she refuses to help him and betray her people.

Then Kane takes her to see something. Something he won't talk about, something he says she needs to know. Something he wishes no one had to know. And once Katya sees it she knows what she has to do. She has to betray her people and go against everything she's ever believed.

Katya goes through a lot in this book. She struggles with the horrible things she learns and she faces everything with courage and determination. She's a marvelous hero.

This world is rich. The history of Terra and Russalka is fascinating, and the way Russalkins and Terrans interact is also. I'm also struck by the Russalkin life under water and how that has shaped them.

(Provided by publisher) ( )

Book Review & Giveaway: We’re participating in the No Strings Attached Giveaway Hop, one of the easiest hops to enter all year! For this hop, we’ve chosen Katya’s War, Book #2 in the Russalka Chronicles series by Jonathan L. Howard as our giveaway. We previously reviewed Book #1 in this series, Katya’s World, which you can link to at the end of this review.

This is a YA sci-fi series that takes place on a largely water-covered world that believes it was abandoned by Earth long ago. Reading my review of Book #1 will help set the stage for you if you decide to read Katya’s War as a stand-alone novel. If you like action-packed nail-biting sci-fi then ignore the YA label and go for it because this series goes far beyond what you may believe about YA novels. And be sure to enter our giveaway so, hopefully, you can win a copy at http://popcornreads.com/?p=7001. ( )