Skybreaker
By Kenneth Oppel project by Sky Barg
Summary
16 year old Matt Cruse has always worked aboard the luxury Airship liner the Aurora in order to send wages back to his family, since after his father died. In the first book the Aurora crashed on an uncharted island and Matt formed a friendship with one of the passengers his age named Kate De Vries. They find a pirate hideout on the island and when the ship is repeared they turn in the pirates to the Sky Guard
With reward money from the discovery of the pirates Matt is able to pay for tuition to the prestigious Air Academy to increase his knowledge of airships. While he is on a training vessel they happen upon a ship called the Hyperion which was said to be lost 40 years ago, it was also said to contain a vast fortune but because the ship is too high up they cannot go to it. Matt happens to see the coordinates before the paper they were on is destroyed. Word gets out that Matt knows the coordinates and soon a gypsy girl who claims to have they key to the safe on the ship comes to find him. She convinces him to go on an expedition to claim the fortune. They go to hire a ship called a Skybreaker which can go as high as 20,000 feet to claim the ship. When they get there it seems as if Kate De Vries has the same intent, not to claim money but to claim the large taxidermy collection said to be on board. They depart with high spirits but pirates and strange creatures they find soon prove to test their will and threaten their lives.
Quote
“None of us gets to choose how we're born, it's what we make of ourselves afterwards.”
Opinion
I enjoyed this book and it was not a disappointing sequel. It had entertaining action scenes as well. The one thing that is bad is that the romance in the book is so different from the rest of it that it doesn't fit in