River Secrets/Shannon Hale

River Secrets (Bayern, book 3), by Shannon Hale; young adult, fantasy; 304 pages (about 7 1/2 hours on audio CD)

Of all the characters introduced in Hale's Bayern series, I think Razo is my favorite. So I was pretty excited to find out he gets his own book. In this volume, Razo is one of the guards sent on a peace mission to the neighboring country of Tira. Once there, he learns that someone is trying to sabotage the peace efforts between the two countries, and he must figure out who. Of course, someone (I won't say who) also winds up learning to control an element--in this case, water. The story was fast-paced, and didn't suffer from the lag in the middle that turned me off to the last book. There's a lot of slinking and skulking and spying, and a little romance thrown in. Overall, it's a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next book.