THE WEIGHT OF SOULS by Bryony Pearce: reviewed by Gillian Philip

Bryony Pearce does a very good line in unstraightforward heroines. Her debut novel Angel's Fury featured the anything-but-easy Cassie Farrier, a tormented and difficult teen making what she could of a bad deal in life (and not always well); this of course is exactly what a lot of teenagers can relate to even when their lives aren't complicated by family curses, unfortunate bloodlines and tetchy gods. Pearce has pulled off the same success with Taylor Oh, the thoroughly imperfect heroine of The Weight of Souls.

Every teenager knows that there are things in life more important than school, homework or your parents' opinions. Taylor's problem is that having inherited a curse down her mother's bloodline, she's fated to avenge murder victims; this would be stressful enough in itself, but if Taylor ever fails to pass on the Mark (a kind of infectious Black Spot) within a certain time limit, the Darkness that's meant to swallow the murderer will come for her instead. (I've got three deadlines at the moment and I knew how Taylor felt.)

The book is interspersed with entries from The Diary of Oh Fah, the journal of the tomb-raiding ancestor who managed to inflict this fate on his own firstborn and every generation since. Oh Fah was the only survivor of an archaeological expedition that ended badly for everyone. What's more, Oh Fah only got away with it because the god Anubis was in need of a weapon in the mortal world. The curse seems to be all about divine vengeance; but never try to second-guess a god, because there may be mixed motives involved. This is the second time Pearce has made terrific use of mythology (Egyptian this time), in a modern context but without sacrificing any of the ancient horror.

Anyway, Oh Fah is not the most sympathetic character, but he's downright adorable next to some of the men in the story. I've got to say it: I wanted to slap Taylor's father, hard and regularly. Left in a wheelchair by the same accident that killed Taylor's mother – an accident directly related to the family curse – he spends his life bull-headedly denying said curse, telling his daughter she's mentally ill (and so was her mother before her), drawing blood from the girl's bruised arm, and taking everyone's side but hers. It's no wonder Taylor is a snippy verbal match for the bullies who torment her at school; her father's worse. It may be realistic parenting, and he may be showing his love in the only way he knows how, but really. *SLAP*

There comes a point, however, when the bullies do cause Taylor more harm than her father. And it starts when the worst of them, Justin Hargreaves, turns up at school dead. Unintentionally he passes the Mark to Taylor, which causes worse problems than usual... because Justin insists he wasn't murdered. It's at this point that the story spirals into an absolutely nail-biting tale of lies, peer pressure, and Truth Or Dare.

There's a lovely sinister heartbeat running through the book, and it belongs more to the malevolent V Club than it does to the god Anubis. The dares Taylor has to go through at the Club's bidding – because it's her only way of getting to the truth about Justin's death – are heartstopping, and I caught myself reading much farther into the night than I should have. Gripping too was the developing relationship between Taylor and the dead Justin. I do like an antihero, but I liked this one a lot. I grew very fond as well of Hannah, Taylor's long-suffering BF-possibly-not-F (though her ex-friend Pete was another slap-magnet. Really, the men don't come out of this very well).

The Weight Of Souls ends on a satisfying climax, but it hints very strongly at a follow-up. Taylor has tried never to wonder what exactly happens to the souls who are engulfed by the Darkness, but... oh, that would be spoilers. Go and read it. I'll certainly be reading the sequel.*

The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce; Strange Chemistry £7.99

www.gillianphilip.com

*(Tell me there's a sequel?)








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Vampire Dawn by Anne Rooney: reviewed by Gillian Philip

Real Vampires - as the ageless Spike would tell you in many a fetching internet meme - Don't Sparkle. Anne Rooney's don't, that's for sure. Nor do they disappoint.

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The Vampire Dawn saga is a cleverly constructed series of short novels in the hi-lo style, ideal for the reluctant reader but no small fun for the enthusiastic one, either. The stories are compact and bijou - ideal for devouring on a bus journey to school, say - but packed with incident and character, not to mention blood and guts. If you know a teen or a slightly-pre-teen who isn't particularly keen on romance but likes a decent bloodsucker, point them in the direction of Vampire Dawn.

The books are readable in any order, but it would undoubtedly help to start with Die Now Or Live Forever. The whole story begins here - in the fine tradition of horror movies, with a group of mildly bickering friends on a hike in the woods. In this case it's the Hungarian woods, which seem to be populated by especially big and Hungary mosquitoes (boom boom).

This is the lonely spot where Juliette, Omar, Finn, Ruby and Alistair stumble across a dead body that doesn't stay dead for long. They also run into the (temporary) murderer: a downright panicky Australian called Ava, who doesn't understand why she's just had to stick a tent peg through the heart of her beloved boyfriend.

And in the morning the appeal of sandwiches and ginger beer seems mysteriously to fade, and the group begins to look peckishly upon the bewildered Ava...

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The other books in the Vampire Dawn series focus on each individual member of the group, and what happens to them in the aftermath of their ill-fated camping trip: Juliette (Drop Dead, Gorgeous), Finn (Life Sucks), Omar (Every Drop Of Your Blood), Alistair and Ruby (Dead On Arrival) and Ava herself (In Cold Blood). Pretty much at random I chose Ava's story: some time after the events of Die Now Or Live Forever, the bewildered Australian girl is stumbling around Kosovo in a borrowed fur coat, with no memory of how she got there. All she knows is that she's hungry, and that she doesn't feel as jittery around a creepy and dilapidated circus as she normally would. In fact it could be a source of raw meat of several kinds...

Given the tightly restricted word count of each book (around 6,000?), the various characters and their relationships are briskly and efficiently drawn. Alistair, my particular favourite, is an OCD boy who likes to count things.

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For the teen who's especially keen on traditional vampires, there's even a guide book: Bloodsucking For Beginners. Like the mysterious Ignace, a handsome stranger who seems to have strolled into the group's lives out of a 1930s black-and-white horror movie, it's full of advice for perplexed immortal newbies...

These books are terrific fun, and they're a great, snappy read. I adore the device of giving a book to every character, and Anne Rooney (who apparently doesn't eat meat in case she gets too much of a taste for blood) has clearly had a lot of fun with the genre's tropes and traditions. Yet she never loses respect for the primal, terrifying ferocity of vampires. There's romance and teen angst here, and the delights and agonies of friendship, but there's plenty of blood too - just as there should be.

I can't imagine many teens who wouldn't love a brief trip to the world of Vampire Dawn. I had a great time. (Also, the covers are fabulous.)


Die Now Or Live Forever
Dead on Arrival
Life Sucks
Every Drop Of Your Blood
Drop Dead, Gorgeous
In Cold Blood
Bloodsucking For Beginners

By Anne Rooney; published by Ransom Publishing, April 2012

I mean, that guy's scary. He just IS.

www. gillianphilip.com

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The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: reviewed by Gillian Philip

My first Maggie Stiefvater. I KNOW. I'm not sure what's been keeping me - possibly the dread phrase 'paranormal romance' (not that I've anything against paranormal or romance, but in that two-word combination I always fear wet girls and improbable boys). I've been scolded for not getting round to The Scorpio Races (I do love a kelpie), and when the Raven Boys smouldered at me from the table in Waterstones, I knew they were The Ones. For that cover, frankly, I'd have picked it up even without the author recommendation.

It's not a frantic page-turner, and that's a good thing. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace, introducing the reader to Blue Sargent and her family - a trio (plus one) of female psychics - and to the Raven Boys of expensive, exclusive Aglionby School: Gansey and his three friends. That's not to say there isn't intrigue from the start - we learn on page one that if Blue ever kisses her true love, he'll die, which doesn't half make for some suspense when she starts getting involved (reluctantly) with the Raven Boys. But I loved that I wasn't expected to fall for Gansey on Blue's (or the author's) say-so. She and Gansey share the telling of the story, so we get to know them both well before there's any suggestion of that fatal kiss.

Gansey and his friends - scholarship boy Adam from the wrong side of the tracks, hard-edged Ronan, and the quiet, self-effacing Noah - are obsessed with ley lines, most particularly the ones that run through the small town of Henrietta. Obsession, of course, never turns out entirely well; and they aren't the first to fixate on the lines and on the secrets of a long-buried Welsh king. As the story picks up pace and thrills, and Blue joins forces with the rich boys to lend them her skills as a kind of psychic 'amplifier', the book blends mystery, murder and the supernatural in a truly spellbinding way.

Coming to the end I realised for the first time that The Raven Boys might not be a standalone title - and indeed sequels are planned - but to be honest, despite the loose ends and unanswered questions, I didn't expect more. Blue and the boys seem made for an uncertain future. But I'll be buying those sequels anyway.

The Raven Boys is a delight to read for every sentence, for every joke or observation tossed into the mix with apparent ease. I felt the heat and smelt the dust, and I certainly got the shivers. Most of all, how refreshing to read public schoolboy characters who aren't stereotypes. The friendship between the four boys is complex, real and elegantly analysed; and so is their developing relationship with Blue. Her prejudices against them are challenged every bit as thoroughly as their own attitudes to her and to their own wealth and privilege (or, in Adam's case, lack of them).

I didn't see the twist coming, but when it arrived it made perfect sense - the best kind. I loved the story and the writing, I loved the boys and I loved Blue. It was simply a pleasant bonus that I couldn't help casting David Tennant in the role of the villain. 

www.gillianphilip.com

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Really Weird Removals.com by Daniela Sacerdoti: Reviewed by Rosalie Warren

Cover illustration by Nicola Robinson

Is your home infested with anything you would like to have removed? A stranded sea serpent, perhaps, or a smelly troll, werewolf or baby dragon?

If so, you may like to know about ReallyWeirdRemovals.com, who specialise in the safe (and, on the whole, humane) removal of such creatures to places better suited to their idiosyncratic lifestyles and eating habits. The website is a real one, and you are invited to email them with your requests for help. (I don't think they deal with more common pests such as rats and wasps' nests, though.)

Luca, aged twelve, and his sister Valentina, eleven, live on an island called Eilean, off the west coast of Scotland. They have a rather scatty and delightful Italian mother who puts homemade pasta in their lunch boxes and lives, Luca tells us, in a world of her own, venturing out every now and then to look after her children. Luca's father is a writer who spends a lot of time alone, creating a series that aims to be as successful as Harry Potter - and, meanwhile, neglecting his own family just a bit.

The story begins when Luca's Uncle Alistair turns up in a blue van, announcing the set-up of his new pest-removal company. The children soon discover, however, that the pests to be removed are not the common or garden kind but supernatural creatures like kelpies and trolls.

Once the parnaormal element is introduced, the story bounces along, throwing up creatures yet more weird and wonderful with every chapter. Not all the beasties are dangerous and some are very appealing, like the female zeuglodon and her baby, Finlay. There's also Camilla, a lonely girl ghost who has been thrown out of the home she used to haunt and is looking for a family to take her in.

I love the way that many of the creatures come from Scottish folklore and mythology. The Luh, for example, is a Scottish werewolf. Kelpies look like ordinary women but can turn into white horses and are fond of eating children. Selkies are half-seal, half-human. Even the inevitable vampires have a Scottish flavour - they are known as Baobhan Sith and, with their long red hair, chalky faces, deer hooves and blood-sucking talons, could give some of the more conventional literary vampires a run for their money.

Life on a small Scottish island comes fully alive as we follow the adventures of Luca and his family. There's a longstanding argument between Uncle Alistair and his brother Duncan, Luca's father, which centres around the disappearance many years ago of their parents - lost, it seems, in an unfortunate time-fold experiment. The family relationships are warmly and convincly portrayed and contrast nicely with the scary stuff.

There is nothing too frightening here - just enough to provide excitement and chills. Young people from around 9 upwards will enjoy this greatly. Floris Books are a thriving independent publisher based in Edinburgh and this book is one of their 'Kelpies' series. I hope it gets the wide audience and enthusiastic response it deserves. I have a feeling more will follow!

(Just a final note to the copy-editor: Please change the last word of the book from 'I' to 'me'. I don't expect the ungrammaticality will bother many children, but it stuck in my craw, coming, as it did, at the end of a tasty feast!)

Book Details:
Title: Really Weird Removals.com
Author: Daniela Sacerdoti
Cover Illustrations: Nicola Robinson
Publisher: Floris Books, Edinburgh (Kelpies imprint)
Publication Date: October 2012
ISBN: 978-0863159022
Cover Price: £6.99 UK
On Amazon UK


Review by Rosalie Warren, author of Coping with Chloe
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