Book 9: Abandon
Abandon, by Meg Cabot
Summary:
17-year-old Pierce just wants to start the new school year
at her mom’s alma mater in Florida as easily as possible. She doesn’t want to
ruin her mom’s life any more difficult that it already is, but that’s hard when
nothing has been the same since Pierce died. Two years prior, Pierce died in a
freak swimming pool accident in February. It led to the end of her parents’
marriage – and to being claimed as the consort for a minor death deity, John.
Pierce escaped from John’s castle in his underworld and returned to the land of
the living. But from that moment on, bad things kept happening around her
because the Furies are after her, and John shows up in the nick of time to
rescue her from them.
Back in Florida, Pierce deals with trying to get off on the
right foot. Unfortunately, the Furies and John are still right there with her.
She navigates her new high school with Alex, her cousin who has lived with
their grandmother since his father went to prison. But the popular kids try to
befriend her so that they can use her gated community for an illegal school
tradition, and when she goes along with it she alienates Alex. In the midst of
this normal-high-school behavior, the cemetery sexton finally explains to her
who John is. She makes the connection between their situation and that of Hades
and Persephone, and learns that the Furies want to kill her to pain John
because they hate him. Shortly after learning the truth, Pierce realizes that
she loves John.
But knowing doesn’t help Pierce. The Furies kill a school
official because she was in the cemetery when and where Pierce usually was, and
Alex’s father is blamed. Then, Pierce’s grandmother shows up at the school to
take Pierce home. She knows something is wrong, though, and discovers that her
grandmother had been an embodiment of the Furies for a few years. Just in time
to save her, John appears, and whisks them down into the Underworld. This time,
though, Pierce can’t escape, but she desperately wants to.
