The Last Fallen Realm

Graci Kim's The Last Fallen Realm is a Korean-myth fantasy for 9 year olds that ends a trilogy with the sun switching off over Las Vegas.

What happens

Riley Oh is thirteen, and everybody wants her to lead. The witches of the gifted clans are training for war against five vengeful goddesses. They're all expecting Riley and Dahl, the boy who's her soul twin, to take charge. There's even a fan club in matching tops.

Riley would rather hide. Honestly, she'd rather do anything else. Dahl gives the rousing speeches (and adds M&M's World to his Vegas bucket list). Riley sneaks out of the hall halfway through.

Then, in the middle of the day, the sun goes out.

Winged horses fly over the Strip. A giant fire dog circles a burning pyramid. The Statue of Liberty flickers into a stone butterfly, and Panda Express suddenly has a phoenix on its sign. Something has torn a hole between the human world and the gods' own world, and Riley has an awful feeling it might be her fault.

Their only clue comes from her sister Hattie's strange dream about a crowned dragon rising from a fountain. So off they go to the fountain outside Caesars Palace. And then there's a very odd wedding flyer for two winged horses, with Elvis doing the honours. Of course there is!

Riley tells it all herself, and she's great company. She's nervous and funny and completely honest about it. She hiccups when she panics. She feeds willow leaves to the caterpillar living on her shoulder. And she's suddenly all fluttery around her best friend Emmett, which she'd very much like nobody to notice (she doesn't always manage it).

The Korean myth is woven through everything, from dragon kings to Korean phoenixes, and so is the food. If you've got a reader who loves a big magical quest with plenty of jokes along the way, it's a series well worth getting stuck into.

What to read next

This is the third and last book, so it isn't the place to begin. Riley's story starts in The Last Fallen Star, where she's the only one in her family of healing witches with no magic at all, and her sister's big initiation ceremony is two days away.