The Forbidden Trilogy(286)

5. Sam is ready to give up on Drake. He betrayed her too deeply and she didn't know if she could trust him again. Susie offers her wisdom that people deserve second chances to win back trust. Do you agree with this? Do you think Sam was right in ultimately forgiving Drake and marrying him? Can people change and redeem themselves?



6. Hunter's past is not revealed much in this book. He doesn't believe it's relevant to who he is now, and he encourages Lucy to judge him by the man he is today, not who he was. Do you agree with him? Do you think the past is only useful in regards to how it shaped us, but isn't worth talking about beyond that?



7. Lucy used the sphere to calm herself down and ultimately it became a crutch that disallowed her from facing her own problems. Is it better to avoid problems or face them head on? What are some ways other characters in this series avoided their own problems? Was it affective for them to do this? What were some consequences of their behavior in this regard?



8. Steele has been set up throughout the series as the big bad guy behind Rent-A-Kid. What did you imagine his motivation would be before reading the final book? Were you surprised by the truth of his past and why he made the choices he did?



9. Many character in this series are seduced by the lure of power. Steele began this whole enterprise so he wouldn’t feel weak and bullied. Simmons betrayed her people and her mission for the chance to get the para-powers she'd always wanted. Drake made a deal with the devil and used untested drugs to reclaim his own power. Why do you think people are so motivated by power? What is the lure? What does this power gain them? What do they lose by pursuing power at all costs?



10. There are some young kids in this book who are given a heavy burden. Toby is a young boy who was thrust into the streets at an early age and forced to survive. Tommy lost his parents and had his innocence stolen from him. Serena also lost her parents and had to face real life monsters. All three kids fought Rent-A-Kid in their own way. Were they too young to be involved in this war? Was there a way they could have avoided it? What does it say about society that at such a young age children are used, abused and abandoned so regularly?



11. When Drake lost his ability to use his para-powers he felt useless and incomplete as a human being. What makes a human valuable and worthy? Is it what they can do or who they are? Is who we are determined by how 'useful' we are?



12. Drake transforms quite a bit in this book as he faces himself without powers and comes to grips with never having them again. When he meets his real father, Beleth, at the end of the book, Beleth gives Drake new powers. What kind of person do you think Drake will be with his new powers? How might these very different, and more passive powers, shape who he is and who he becomes?



13. Steele believes he won't be respected or found valuable without his powers. He and Drake have a similar arch, but they handle it much differently. How do you feel about the choices Steele made? If he'd succeeded in getting the level of power he wanted, do you think he would have finally been truly happy? Why or why not?



14. Sam changes as she faces the loss of her daughter. She must become the kind of person who isn't afraid to make hard choices and do what must be done to save Ana. Do you see these changes in her as positive or negative? Are there times when it's justified and morally acceptable to break the rules? How are her choices different from the choices Simmons or Steele made?



15. Mr. K was presumed dead until Lucy, Luke and Hunter found him in Hawaii. Had he not perished in the fire, he would have spent his life trapped as a tree. Was his death a blessing for him? Would you have wanted to live as a tree?



16. Everyone in this trilogy was at one point or another forced to break the rules to do what they thought needed to be done. Some of these choices we'd consider 'right' and others 'wrong.' When was it right for a character to break the rules? When was it wrong? How do you determine when it's right or wrong? Does that make morality subjective? If so, how can society function if so much is left to individual discernment?





Forbidden Christmas

A Forbidden Series short story by Karpov Kinrade





Luke perched on top of the ladder, twinkling Christmas lights wrapped around his shoulders, as he used the staple gun to secure another strand to the dorm roof. "Remind me again why we're not letting the maintenance crew handle this?"

Lucy and I sighed in tandem, and I laughed and looked up at her twin. "Because, they always screw it up. They don't put up enough lights—"

"—and they hang the decorations crooked—" Lucy interjected, tugging on her red scarf.

I nodded, my dark braids bouncing against my neck. "And they use that lame, broken-down Santa instead of the one Mr. K and I created."