Spirit Animals Book 2: Hunted

Spirit Animals Book 2: Hunted by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Inc)

PB RRP $12.99

ISBN 978-1-74283-999-8

Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Hunted, the second book in the Spirit Animals series, follows Wild Born, where the four young heroes of Erdas - Connor, Abeke, Mailin and Rollan - found the ‘Granite Ram’ talisman, the first of the lost talismans they are searching for. Now they are back at Greenhaven, an island fortress which serves as the headquarters of the Greencloaks, guardians of Erdas. Here they train hard to come together as a team and bond with their spirit animals, the Four Fallen Great Beasts.

But when word is sent that the next Great Beast, Rumfuss the Boar has been traced to a remote castle in the wilds of Eura, the children must set off in a hurry before the Conquerors learn of the location and beat them to the talisman. Rumour is growing also, of the Devourer using Bile to force bonds between his followers and spirit animals.  And that this unnatural bonding gives humans more control over their animals, making them even more powerful.

The books in the Spirit Animals series are all written by different authors. Hunted is by Maggie Stiefvater, author of many popular fantasy novels for children and teens. She continues the quest of the children and its many threads with great skill. The writing is fabulous and evocative, with the relationships - both between the four children, and with their animals - coming to the fore.

As the children grow they are tested. Themes such as loyalty, trust, rules and leadership are all explored within the context of an exciting adventure story where it is the children themselves directing the path while still learning where they need to accept adult help.

The Spirit Animals Series will suit middle school readers mostly, between grades five and eight and is Scholastics’ new multiplatform release. Read the book, and then discover on-line the action role-playing game, complete with a spirit animal of your own, at www.spiritanimals.scholastic.com

The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Inc)
HB RRP $24.99
ISBN 978-0-545– 42492-9
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Maggie Stiefvater is a well known and popular YA author. She has written many books for teens with a gothic flavour, packed with paranormal activity and fantasy. The Raven Boys is the first of a new trilogy, The Raven Cycle, and is engrossing and addictive. The author’s writing is mesmerising at times, creating an uneasy atmosphere in places, drifting into events in sly tendrils, creeping around people and place with increasing intensity until you suddenly realise the storyline is being choked by it. It is easy to sink into this book and just let the enchantment of the words carry you away.

Blue Sargent is the daughter of a psychic. Although she has not inherited any of her family’s psychic abilities, her gift is to amplify the energy and magic of those near her.  And she believes wholeheartedly in her fate, that if she kisses her true love he will die. Partly because of this, Blue avoids boys in general, but she takes special care to also avoid the Raven Boys, students from the local private school Aglionby. However, after her mother specifically forbids her from becoming involved with Gansey, Ronan, Noah and Adam and their quest, she is drawn towards the foursome and their search for ley lines and Glendower, the Sleeping King.

The characters in this book are well rounded with depth and complexity. The dialogue is natural and convincing. Even some of the more elusive characters such as Persephone and Calla are tangible and intriguing.

Nothing is straight forward and simple, but the subplots add to the twists rather than distract the reader from the main storyline. There are so many delicious moments when something unexpected happens, but with hindsight all seems obvious and makes perfect sense. The relationships and bonds the teens have, both healthy and destructive, are skilfully painted as is the relationship they each have to the woods, where the seasons change as they walk through and the trees whisper in Latin.

It is easy to see why this author is a favourite with teens and young adults. The Raven Boys has all the elements of an entertaining story. It is wonderfully gothic, with the drama of adolescence, forbidden romance, mystery, psychic predictions, ghosts, obsession, compulsion, a quest and an ending that promises more to come. But with all this magic and drama, it doesn’t lose sight of the importance of family. Much of the characters motivations come from these bonds, and the family ties, or lack of, that reach out to affect their lives, decisions and fate.

The end does not resolve the story but it is satisfying.  Although not exactly a cliff hanger, it leaves many questions unanswered with the last sentence creating much anticipation for the next book in the series. It is a long book for YA reading, over 400 pages, but I found it easy and quick to read as I became so involved with the people and story.

Maggie Stiefvater is an author I have heard much about but had never read. From my first glimpse of the fabulous cover- a bold raven with wings outspread, painted in feathery brush strokes - I was intrigued, and happily followed Stiefvater’s words to see where love and death would lead the characters and me. I will definitely be reading more.

The Scorpio Races

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Inc.)

HB RRP $24.99 

ISBN 9780545224901

 Reviewed by Dawn Meredith

This beautifully bound and illustrated book caught my eye straight away. The bronzed effect, black silhouetted female rider on a horse and embossed gold letters speaks quality and intrigue.

I have become a fan of Maggie Stiefvater. The elegance and simplicity of her writing reveals a poet’s sensibilities. No words are wasted, although, perhaps, she endows the young male character, Sean Kendrick, with a little too much poetic vision. But then, he is an unusual young man and I’m not surprised his leading lady, Kate Connolly, alias Puck, falls for him. As with all leading men, Sean has skills and abilities which draw admiration from other characters within the story, as well as the reader. He is a gifted horseman and the horses in this story take some handling! They are part mythical kelpie, part harpie, part devil, but beautiful in their dangerousness. Let me explain.

Each year on a frigid beach of the island, the carnivorous water horses, the capall uisce  come out of the foam to hunt. It is the annual test of manhood to catch one and train it to run in the Scorpio Races. Sean Kendrick is a natural, as was his father, But unlike his father, who died in the race years ago, Sean has a small gift of magic with the beasts. He has captured Corr, the red horse his father rode that day and he wins almost every year riding him.

This year, however, against all advice, there’s a girl in the race and she intends to ride a normal warm-blooded, herbivore, Dove. The stakes are high for Kate, who must win the prize money in order to keep her eldest brother from leaving the island to look for work. Otherwise it will be just herself and her slightly autistic brother, Finn, and they are dirt poor.

So, the ‘evil dude’ – he’s Benjamin Malvern, who owns the big flash stables and sells horses to rich Americans like George Holly. Sean is indebted to the Malverns and is slowly working off his debt by using his talents to make them richer. He dreams of saving enough money to buy Corr. The Malvern’s son, Mutt, a useless oaf, jealous of Sean, is always looking for an opportunity to humiliate or harm the gifted horseman.

The myth and legend in this story are part Irish/Celtic culture, part Stiefvater, but it’s appealing and adds to the authentic feel of the harsh but somehow entrancing island life. Having lived on an island myself, in Scandinavia, I could taste the salty wind and the coldness that seeps into your bones after sunset and the freshness of mornings on a deserted island beach. There’s nothing quite like it. Having done her research in the south of England, Stiefvater does a wonderful job of recreating the culture, language and climate of island life.

The build-up of tension is just right. Stiefvater cleverly invites us to invest in the hopes of these two people and their fledgling love, to feel excited and yet frightened about the outcome of the race. Will Kate survive? Will Dove be able to run against the bigger, faster, meaner Capall Uisce without being eaten? Will Sean give up his dream of buying Corr with the winnings of this race just to help the girl he loves win it? Will Mutt Malvern be successful in his attempt to get Sean killed ‘by accident’? And most of all,( to me), does Corr, the water horse with the killer instinct, feel any connection or loyalty towards Sean?

You’ll have to read it to find out!

Dawn Meredith writes from the Blue Mountains and is a May Gibbs Fellow 2011. You can follow her exploits at www.dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com  

Ballad

Ballad by Audrey Stiefvater (Scholastic UK)

PB RRP $19.99

ISBN 9781862918672

Reviewed by Dawn Meredith

Once again, Stiefvater charms me with her misty half-world where reality and faerie mingle seamlessly. Nuala is a hunter, taking on several different human forms in succession, each lasting sixteen years. She must hunt to live, giving the gift of creative genius to her victims in exchange for their lives. The music inside James draws her to him as her next target. James is still recovering from a bad experience with faerie. In the first book, Lament, his best friend Dee fell in love with a faerie and was lost. James has left home and come here to Thornking-Ash School of Music to start a new life but is confronted with the strange and sexy Nuala, who is dangerously, hypnotically invading his thoughts and dreams. Can he extricate himself from her? Will she succumb to the urge to bind him forever or will she resist?

James has an otherworldly talent for playing ‘the pipes’. As he spends more and more time with Nuala, music is taking over his body, appearing on his arms in strange writing. His dreams are infused with it. He is falling into something he can’t control. Thornking-Ash is the centre of faerie activity and the faerie queen is hungry for a new human lover. Only James’ unusual teacher, Sullivan, knows what’s really going on and Nuala, in her stunningly gorgeous human form, is working her way into James’ affections. Even though he knows it could kill him. And then Dee returns and James is faced with that familiar longing that eats away at him.

I do enjoy Stiefvater’s feisty pseudo-evil character, Nuala very much. Not having read Lament I can’t compare her with Dee, but Nuala does, in her own abrupt and concise way:

          One, her eyes were too big. She looked like an alien… Three, she used James to make herself feel better. It was the sort of attribute I only liked for me to have.

James is a little wimpy and gets tossed along the shoreline with the flotsam for a good portion of the book. He understands what’s at stake, but he rarely does anything. Samhain is looming and Nuala’s sixteen years are up. The fey have found a way to become more powerful, to invade the human world of the present. James is being pulled by the king of the dead’s nightly song. Dee is a cloverhand, attracting more and more faeries to the area. Sulllivan is desperately trying to save James and all the other talented students, like James’ room mate, Paul, who hears the lyrics of the King of the Dead’s song – a list of people who are to die. To be free of her curse of immortality, Nuala must stand in a fire and be burned alive. Only in the ashes can she return to James. It’s a risk she is willing to take, but will it work?

I wanted to read this book in one sitting, but alas, life is a bit too busy for that. Its magical little fingers worked their way into my daily routines, snippets and ideas following my thoughts. Stiefvater is a master of infiltrating our world with her intriguing creations.

Dawn Meredith writes from the Blue Mountains and is a May Gibbs Fellow 2011. You can follow her exploits at www.dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com  

Linger

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, jacket design by Chris Stengel (Scholastic Inc) 

HB RRP $29.99 

ISBN 9780545123280

Recommended for 12+ years

Reviewed by Dawn Meredith

In this stunning sequel to Shiver, the plot crackles, with lives shifting from human to wolf and back again.

While Sam readjusts to his future as a full-time human, Grace struggles to ignore the wild instinct inside her, growing more insistent each day. Then there’s Cole, who would rather live the uncomplicated life of a wolf than deal with the pressures of his rockstar existence. He yearns for the onset of winter, when he transforms into what he considers his better half, his true self.

All the main characters seem to be running away from something – Grace from her parents, Sam from his tragic past, where his parents tried to kill him as he transformed, Cole from his wild, soulless existence as lead singer of Narkotika and Isobel from her grief at the loss of her brother.

Again, parents have hardly any role or input and seem rather superfluous, with the exception of Grace’s father, who roars into life in the latter part of the book when he discovers his ‘perfect’ daughter has been ‘corrupted’ by Sam. Perhaps this is a reflection of how teens see their parents, in which case Stiefvater has it down pat.

The reader’s sympathies are deftly held with Sam and Grace throughout as we follow their mismatched destinies. There is a sense of growing doom that the roles will be reversed and that it is Grace who will answer the call of the wild, so it is no surprise that at the point of bleeding to death, she is saved by the unworthy Cole, who exonerates his selfishness by helping her to transform before her life slips away completely.

It is an interesting book. Characters you care about, and believe in, struggle with their own reality. Somehow Stiefvater weaves truisms of life into this story, which adults can relate to. Sam and Grace have a maturity uncommon to the teens we are shown in movies and TV. They have an urgency to cling to every tiny moment of their life together; every movement, every sound, every chaste kiss, every cuddle. Although their celibacy seems unlikely, I buy into it. I want to. There is an innocence that lies neatly beside the exploration of the link between the softness and emotionality of human existence and the raw, instinctive wolf social order. Stiefvater concludes we are not dissimilar to these primeval hunters – loyal to the pack, linked in non-verbal communication. It’s as though they are our distant cousins, who have retained the essence of the clan fastness we once had. Linger encourages us to find our better selves by learning from the snow white wolf with amber eyes, watching from the edge of the woods.

I look forward to seeing how Stiefvater handles the storyline she has created when the third book is released.

Dawn Meredith writes from the Blue Mountains NSW. You can see photos of her recent writing workshops for kids here: www.dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com