Patterson continues his extremely popular Maximum Ride series with its seventh volume which starts with the flock of flying kids being fractured. Leader Maximum is feeling abandoned because Fang, the love of her life, has left the flock and fled off because of his jealousy of Dylan. Max has returned home with Iggy, Gazzy, Angel, Nudge, Total the talking dog, and new addition Dylan to stay with her mom and half sister. She is torn because it seems like Dylan was imprinted by the genetic engineers to be attractive to her, and everyone seems to agree that the two will be the leaders of the new world order that everyone says is coming, and they really need to focus on starting a dynasty. She might still want to be with Fang.

Fang has decided that he wants to continue to try and protect the world from the dark times that are coming, according to prophecy, even it won't be with the rest of the flock. The best way to do that is to start his own flock. That is easier than one would consider because he has access to a number of other genetically engineered kids through the followers of the blog he has been writing about the original flock's adventures for years. The resulting team provides a great deal of hope because their various talents will help cover all the bases. They include Ratchet, Star, Kate, Holden, and Beth.

The one major challenge is going to be Maya, the one remaining member of the team who is actually a clone of Max. Fang included her in order to have some strong fighting skills he knew from working with Max, and maybe because of some subconscious need to keep Max around in the form of a clone.

Both flocks find themselves confronting the same menace. A mysterious cult has set its eyes on taking over the world through the work of genetically engineered kids. What makes things even worse is that they want to do it by killing all of the normal humans. Are the two flocks going to be able to work together despite all the fighting between the them and the members themselves? Time is running short, and they only have days to sort things out to save the world.

This is actually a strong book than the last few in the series have been. I liked the original trilogy, but found the second set of three to be weak and too forceful in its focus on turning the kids into ecowarriors. Patterson has finally found an effective set of villains with this newest book, and I am really looking forward to the next (and allegedly final) book in the series.