The Children of the Lost - David Whitley

David Whitley's Agora Trilogy is two thirds finished.  I finished The Children of the Lost this morning around 2 am.  It was an emergency read - as in I-Could-Not-Put-This-Book-Down emergency.  Believe me, I tried, twice.  I put the bookmark in place, closed the book, took off my glasses and turned off the light - twice.  And both times, I sat back up, turned on the light, put my glasses back on and picked up the book.

Sigh.  Will it be another year until the third book comes out?  (Grit teeth in frustration.) How will I stand it?  I need to know what Lily finds when she steps into the darkness.  I need to know how the people in the Almshouse react to Mark's appearance.  I need to know NOOOOOWWWWW!!

OK, so in Book One The Midnight Charter, the readers are introduced to life in the walled city of Agora - and two seemingly normal teens.  In Agora everything has a price and every transaction, business or personal must be written up in a contract.  Children are property until they achieve adulthood at the age of twelve and if they cannot pay for food and lodging, adults become property of the people who loan them food.  There is no money, just contracts.

Mark and Lily become acquaintance in the Astrologer's Tower.  Mark has been bought by Doctor Theophilus in the doctor's attempt to cure him of his illness and learn how to fight the plague.  Lily works for the Great Astrologer, Count Stelli, Theo's grandfather.  When Count Stelli throws his grandson out of the Tower, Lily contracts with Mark to change places with him and she follows the doctor into the slums of the city to fight disease with no expectation of payment.  No one trusts anyone else, except family members.  Every thing a person says is weighted with "value".  This place is seriously freaky and hard to stomach at times.  Everyone is out to get something out of every interaction - except for Lily and Theo.  Read the book to see how Lily and Mark end up outside the walls of the city and in the Forest.

In the second book, the one I had to keep reading, The Children of the Lost, Lily and Mark are lost in the forest and then they are saved by a village of eternally altruistic, happy, hard-working farmers who follow the teachings of a silent Father Wolfram and a Speaker who interprets what the Father wants from the village.  For awhile, the place seems like a paradise to Lily.  Mark always has his doubts.  His experiences in Agora were much more eye-opening to the baseness of human nature.  And then, the village is consumed by a Nightmare.  It's pretty awful.  The worst part of this book was the ending.  Mark is back in the city.  How did he get there?  Lily is entering a dark tunnel without a torch.  Why?  And where? And who?  And How?  Oh my.

These books are written for teens.  Mature readers ages 11 and up will find these books absolutely riveting.  Fantasy for grades 6 and up.  Oh yeah.