Delicious.
Set in 1978 in Newfoundland, Canada, this middle-grade novel weaves together a family history and a curse.
Twelve-year-old Ruth grew up in Toronto when she wasn’t traveling with her botanist father, but she is spending this summer in Newfoundland with her aunt Doll—a relative she doesn’t know—while her father and new stepmother travel. Sleeping uneasily on her first night, Ruth awakens to see a girl holding a candle get into the bed opposite her own. She assumes it is Ruby, her cousin whom she has never met, who will also be staying at Aunt Doll’s for the summer. But in the morning, the girl is gone, and Doll tells her that Ruby is coming later that day. This is the intriguing beginning of an engrossing tale at whose core is a feud between two families, the Barretts and the Finns, who sailed to Newfoundland from Ireland in 1832—and a curse that affects the female blonde, blue-eyed twins of each generation of Finns. When Ruth and Ruby meet, they are struck by their identical physical features, including blonde hair and blue eyes, and when Ruth begins having strange visions, the girls delve deeper into a generations-old secret. Cotter’s complex and engrossing story is enhanced by its superbly presented isolated Newfoundland setting and a satisfying dose of ghosts. The theme—the power of words—creates both a fascinating conclusion and food for thought. The book assumes a white default.
Delicious. (Supernatural adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-91889-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Deliciously dark and gripping.
Evie enters the otherworldly place called the Dark Sun Side, searching for Blight Harbor’s missing ghosts in this sequel to 2022’s The Clackity.
Twelve-year-old Evie Von Rathe returns, this time following the trail of missing ghost Florence and finding herself lured to the Dark Sun Side by ghoulish, evil Portia. Once there, Evie learns about the Radix, a swirling, black, oceanlike expanse of unforgiving magical power. In exchange for Evie’s return to the land of the living, Portia tasks her with retrieving the soul light from the center lantern of the Nighthouse. With the help of Bird, her tattooed sidekick who moves about her body at will, and a girl she meets on her journey named Lark, who is neither ghost nor human, Evie is pushed to her limits as she navigates this terrifying world on her important, soul-saving mission. Senf’s nightmarish, well-imagined supernatural landscape is original and compelling. Evie and Lark’s friendship is believably close and trusting, their shared pain and fear binding them together. Bird continues to be a scene-stealing companion, a necessary voice of reason and encouragement for Evie and readers alike. More than just a battle between good and supernatural evil, this story shows the ultimate power of empathy and tenacity. Readers will be left both satisfied by the ending and wanting more. Evie is cued white.
Deliciously dark and gripping. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665934633
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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