Momo Arashima Breaks the Mirror of the Sun

In the next book in the thrilling fantasy series filled with gods and monsters of Shinto mythology, a twelve-year-old girl must steal an ancient relic, work with new friends and learn to control her own dangerous power to defeat a new threat.

After vanquishing a demon king, saving her mom, and reconnecting with her friend Danny, Momo ought to be living the life she's always wanted. But lately, Danny has been ditching her to hang out with mean-girl Ryleigh and groups of kids have begun vanishing without a trace. Then a whole backyard full of cool kids at Ryleigh's exclusive birthday party becomes the latest to disappear, leaving Momo, Ryleigh, Danny, boy band superstar Jin, and Momo's old friend Niko the fox to fight a dangerous new enemy from Shinto legend.

This time they are up against Tamamo-no-mae beautiful, bloodthirsty, and manipulative, she's the ultimate mean girl of the Kami-verse. To defeat her, Momo must travel to the Sky Kingdom and steal the legendary Mirror of the Sun. But if she's going to survive monster ambushes, escape giant snakes, and pull off the heist of the millennium, Momo will have to find a way to work with her team (even Ryleigh), and grapple with the growing power that connects her with her storm god grandfather, Susano'o', and her greatest foe Izanami the Destroyer.

Autorentext

Misa Sugiura

Leseprobe
A Creeping Phobia of Giant Inflatable Snow Wizards

What am I doing here?

No, that wasn t me waking up from a coma, or pondering the meaning of life. It was me regretting my life choices. Specifically, my choice to show up unannounced to this party, at this house.

Let s start with the house, which was more of a mansion than a house, with its rich brown iron-­studded wooden door, its crisscrossed wooden beams set in white plaster walls, and its sharply peaked roof and gabled third-­floor windows. It was probably supposed to look like it had been transported directly from Merrye Olde Englande ­if houses in Merrye Olde En­glande had ye olde swymming pooles in the backyard, a giant two-­story blow-­up of an old white guy on the front lawn, and a herd of SUVs and minivans in the driveway. I wondered who the guy was supposed to be: the spirit of winter? Father Time? Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings?

Friends call me Snow Miser ­whatever I touch . . . turns to snow in my clutch! I m too much! the wizard sang from somewhere near his left armpit, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

But the forbidding oak-­and-­iron door and the giant singing snow wizard weren t the only reasons I was hesitating on the front step. The other reason ­the real reason ­was much smaller. And scarier.

The real reason was the host of the party: Ryleigh Guo, the evil power behind the throne of her BFF, Kiki Weldon. I know it doesn t make sense: I was a half-­kami who d escaped an army of ghost crab samurai, fought a seven-­foot-­tall scorpion to the death, and defeated Shuten-­d ji, the most powerful demon in the world. Why would I be afraid of a couple of seventh-­grade girls?

But anyone asking that question would be severely under­estimating the power of seventh-­grade girls to make you feel like garbage.

According to a now-­famous list that Kiki had made back in September, she and Ryleigh were the two most popular seventh-­grade girls at Oak Valley Middle School; according to the same list, I was the least popular. And while Kiki was the one who d written the list, rumor had it that it was actually Ryleigh s idea. Not only that, but after my friend Danny and I got back from defeating Shuten-­d ji on the Island of Mysteries in October, Danny had confessed to me that Ryleigh was the mastermind of a prank that had ended up with me getting fruit punch thrown in my face at the back-­to-­school dance.

And here I was, about to crash her party.

Ryleigh had been bragging for weeks about how cool it was going to be: the cookie-­decorating table, the wrapping-­paper Project Runway contest, and (drumroll, please!) a very special guest appearance by Ryleigh s mom s cousin s best friend s husband s nephew, Jin Takayama ­hands down the cutest member of the hottest boy band of the year, Straight 2 Tha Topp. Or SttTop, if you were a true SttToppie.

Wait, what s that ­can you hear it? Oh, yes. It s the combined voices of a million fangirls, boys, and everything-­in-­between-­and-­beyond shrieking, OMG, JIN TAKAYAMA? AHHHH!!!

Was I one of them? No.

Okay, maybe.

Okay, fine, yes. But I wasn t here for Jin Takayama.

I was here for Danny.

Danny and I had been best friends who d drifted apart over the years, and after our defeat of Shuten-­d ji, I d thought I finally had my old friend back. And I did, for a while. But then he d started eating lunch with his bro-­bot buddies every now and then ­and I was not going to eat with those monsters. And