Deadlands (Melki-Wegner)

Wings of Fire meets the ferocious dinosaurs of Jurassic Park in this action-adventure middle grade debut series about five outcasts - and former enemies - who are the only hope to save their warring kingdoms from impending doom. Fifty years ago, the Fallen Star brought death and despair, ash and toxic rain. Thousands of dinosaurs died as forests withered and seas broiled. But some survived. And were changed. Their minds grew alert. They learned to speak. To dream. To wage war. As the two surviving dinosaur kingdoms battle for the lands of Cretacea, Eleri, a young oryctodromeus and disgraced son of a prince, is exiled from the Mountain Kingdom for saving an enemy soldier from attack. Banished to the merciless Deadlands, a scorched desert full of tar pits, poisonous gas, and carnivores, he will have to join together with a group of questionable allies, including the enemy soldier he saved, to avoid becoming prey. When Eleri and his new friends discover a predatory plot to destroy both herbivore kingdoms, the unlikely heroes must do all they can to try to thwart a deadly invasion plan before their families are ravaged.

“Wings of Fire” meets “Jurassic Park” in “The Deadlands: Trapped”, the second book of this action-adventure series by Skye Melki-Wegner about five outcasts, and former enemies, who are the only hope to save their warring kingdoms from impending doom. As bloody battle rages on between the two surviving dinosaur kingdoms, Eleri and his fellow outcasts, newly exiled from their herds, are searching for evidence to prove a mass conspiracy, a conniving cabal of carnivores have manipulated the herbivore kingdoms into war, so they can feast on the slain. But after their temporary home is discovered by a vengeful pack of raptors, the exiles must flee and soon find themselves trapped inside the Fire Peak: the volcanic heart of the dreaded Carrion Kingdom. Before they have a chance to escape, they discover a cavern of imprisoned herbivores, who are being picked apart, literally, one by one. Can the outcasts stage an elaborate heist to free the prisoners and gather proof of the Carrion Kingdom's vicious plans in one fell swoop?