Slayers: Friends and Traitors

Gr 7 Up—Tori Hampton and her dragon-Slayer friends return in this sequel to Slayers (Feiwel & Friends, 2011). The teens have been training and learning about their supernatural powers, including flight and healing, while their families think they're at camp. After the summer is over, they are supposed to avoid contact with each other so they won't be noticed by Overdrake, the mysterious dragon lord. When they are attacked on Halloween, Tori discovers the identity of the traitor within the group and she has to fight to defeat Overdrake and protect the other Slayers from dragon attacks. Tori's conflicted feelings for Jesse, her former boyfriend, and Dirk, one of the Slayers, add to the plot, as do Tori's conflicts between her Slayer ability and her newly discovered ability to hear dragons. Hill has created a variety of action and fighting sequences, including one with Tori flying around the Washington Mall. The mix of fantasy, dragons, superpowers, and romantic drama will have wide appeal to many readers in spite of being somewhat formulaic.—Beth L. Meister, Milwaukee Jewish Day School, WI