THE WELL OF SACRIFICE

A bustling ninth-century Mayan city is the setting for this engrossing first novel. When 11-year-old Eveningstar Macaw is scavenging through the nearby jungle, looking for the rare herbs her mother, the healer Blue Quetzal, uses as medicines, she stumbles across a scouting party of invaders who have been pillaging nearby villages. Eveningstar races to warn her brother, the brave warrior Smoke Shell, and her quick-thinking leads to a Mayan victory, and the naming of her family to nobility. Eveningstar persuades the evil High Priest, Great Skull Zero, to spare the youngest of invaders, whom her family takes as a slave and then befriends; her unease at their family’s unexpected good fortune is validated when, at the death of the King Flint Sky God, Great Skull Zero orders six of the city’s bravest warriors to accompany the royal corpse, including her brother. Although she can’t prevent her brother’s death, or the reign of terror that Great Skull unleashes, she rises up to resist the evil that threatens to destroy them all. Eboch crafts an exciting narrative with a richly textured depiction of ancient Mayan society, without dulling any of its edges; the author captures the enlightened elements of Mayan culture—its sophisticated economy, strict legal code, and elaborate pantheon of gods—while also portraying its ritual human sacrifice. The novel shines not only for a faithful recreation of an unfamiliar, ancient world, but also for the introduction of a brave, likable, and determined heroine. (Fiction. 9-13)