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His Dark Materials Book II - The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman (March 20, 2008)
The continuing story of Lyra, but this time she is joined by Will Parry, a boy from our world, trying to find his father. New characters are introduced, but they all manage to stay distinct from each other. This book, like the first one, moves at a cracking pace and never slows down or becomes boring. That's unusual for middle novels, they often bog down under the weight of their characters....this one doesn't. Towards the end of the novel there's a death of a character that actually made me exclaim out loud when I read it. Very unusual for me. Definitely worth reading if you enjoyed the first in the series. On to the third book!