The Fetch [Hardcover]

Laura Whitcomb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2009

Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth.The first to fall in love with a mortal girl. But when he climbs backwards out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm, where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Whitcomb (A Certain Slant of Light) revisits the hereafter with this ambitious fantasy that dips into Russian history to explain why Princess Anastasia and Prince Alex's remains were not found alongside the rest of the slain Romanov family: they were spirited away by Calder, a Fetch, who attends the dying and escorts souls to heaven. Calder is a hugely empathetic figure, abandoned as a baby and killed at age 19, but he errs, first by falling in love with a Romanov, and then in taking the dying mystic Rasputin's body as his own in order to pursue her, causing a major rupture in the spirit world. To heal the wound, he, Anastasia and Alexei (here called Alexis) travel the globe in search of a lost key. The story, riveting until this point, loses its focus as they begin their trek. Whitcomb's inventive vision of the afterlife almost makes up for the plodding pace of the narrative—it's an ultimately comforting place where souls see their deepest regrets woven into tapestries and their contributions displayed in the form of a garden only they can interpret. Ages 12–up. (Feb.)
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From School Library Journal

Grade 6–10—Calder is a Fetch, a ghost who escorts souls from their "earthly shells" through the Death Door toward a waiting boat to Heaven. While each soul sees him differently, Calder knows himself to be a young man of 19 who died more than 300 years ago. Obsessed with a beautiful woman who tends a dying child, he breaks his sacred vows and enters the earthly world at a pivotal time and place: Russia, on the eve of revolution. Occupying the body of Rasputin, he enters into an intimate relationship with the imperial family, before and after their executions. As the action-filled plot, bound by the complex and sometimes confusing rules surrounding "Fetching," makes its twists and turns, Calder finds himself on a round-the-world journey with the embodied ghosts of Anastasia and Alexi, the hemophiliac tsarevich, in search of a key that will enable them to reunite with their family in Heaven. Meanwhile, the spirit of Rasputin and a host of malicious lost souls follow in hot pursuit. Only Ana, as the book calls her, sees Calder's true self. This fantasy, based on Christian themes of Heaven and Resurrection, is at its heart a tender love story. The author's romantic vision of the hereafter could be fodder for thoughtful discussion, as well as a satisfying escape for those who thrill to disembodied lovers.—Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; 1 edition (February 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618891315
• ISBN-13: 978-0618891313
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,243,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Whitcomb grew up in Pasadena, California in a mildly haunted house. She received her English degree at California State University at Northridge in 1993. She has taught Language Arts in California and Hawaii. She has won three Kay Snow Awards and was once runner up in the Bulwer-Lytton writing contest for the best first sentence of the worst Science Fiction novel never written. In her spare time she sings madrigals with the Sherwood Renaissance Singers and is the props mistress for the Portland Christmas Revels. She lives in Wilsonville, Oregon, with her son Robinson.

A Certain Slant of Light has been published in Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish, and Taiwanese. The audio book is published by Listening Library. In 2005 ACSOL was also chosen for the "Discover Great New Writers" program at Barnes & Noble bookstores.

The Fetch was #5 in the top ten of Children's Indie Next List 2009 and was published as an audio book by Recorded Books. It was also published in Spanish and German.

Under the Light, the long-awaited sequel to A Certain Slant of Light, was published in May 2013. It will also be published in Taiwanese.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Writing is beautiful but story feels detached December 4, 2008

By sanoe.net VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

The Fetch is the second book by Laura Whitcomb that I have had the pleasure to read.

It is the story of a death escort named Calder who becomes enamored with a mortal girl.

If this sounds similar to the Meg Ryan/Nicolas Cage movie, City of Angels, it is because the premise is an age-old one.

Yet, while the premise is one that has been done before, the way Whitcomb uses that premise along with the tense-filled history of the Russian Revolution feels fresh and new.

That said, there is a certain detachment that I felt when reading the story of Calder and his Ana. I don't think it is plot itself but Whitcomb's writing which can be so beautiful that it can read like it is a separate entity from the story.

In short, the prose duels with the plot and that can make for tough reading at times. I kept wanting to say, "I get it, Ms Whitcomb, you are an exceptional master of words but dammit, can you get to the point already!?"

But that opinion might be me being a lazy reader rather than a fully engaged one.

As such, I only knocked the story down by 1 star to make it a 4-star novel.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Fetch me a book that establishes the rules, and then plays by them December 15, 2008

By beckyjean VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This supernatural fantasy for teens starts off engaging. We're shown the Aisle, a hallway in the afterlife in which each dead soul sees personalized symbolic interpretations of his or her life on Earth. The descriptions of each stop along the Aisle are interesting enough to signal that further riches lie ahead in this story.

Unfortunately, the book fails to deliver. The writing seems detached and does not engage the reader in any emotional way. I found it hard to believe that Calder the Fetch was in love with anybody, or that anybody was in love with him. The rules of being a Fetch -- a dead soul's escort to the "other side" -- are outlined pretty clearly at the beginning of the book, but as the story goes on, it veers in such a way that the rules we learned don't seem to matter any more, and so they aren't referred to. The reader and the characters are left not knowing what the rules are, so nothing really seems to matter. Nothing packs an emotional punch, not even when Calder accomplishes the two things he's supposed to do in order to correct his wrongs.

The idea of including the Russian Revolution and characters from Russian history was a good one, one that probably saved the book from being completely unreadable. I felt that the dramatic possibilities of having Rasputin and the Romanov children as characters were left largely untapped, however.

Going back to the muddled idea of the order of the Fetch, it seemed strange that Liam and the Captain were incommunicado throughout the book, and unable to offer Calder any assistance. I'd think that somebody would at least come through to tell Calder he was in big trouble! And it seemed that Calder had very few resources at his disposal, other than being impervious to physical wounds. The trips to LA and London take up so much of the book, with no payoff. The side plot with the Russian sailor goes nowhere. The side plot with Pincher wraps up in a way that's meant to be significant, but carries no emotional weight. The battle with the forming demon seems thrown in as window dressing -- we never see another demon for the rest of the book. And what happens to Calder at the end of the book is nothing short of baffling -- it comes out of absolutely nowhere, and the reader is given no clue as to what it's supposed to mean.

Give this book a miss.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars somewhat confusing historical fantasy November 29, 2008

By guitarchick24 VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

As some of the other reviewers have already noted, this book seemed to be completely misrepresented. It sounds like a fascinating fantasy novel, but in reality, I found it to be a very slow, very confusing book.

"The Fetch" is Calder, a nineteen-year-old boy who has been serving as an usher of souls for over 300 years. His job is to be a neutral presence when someone is about to die. The person's soul chooses whether or not they want to stay on Earth; if they choose death, Calder and his fellow Fetches take them to the Aisle of Unearthing, a midway point en route to Heaven. Some of the main vows of a Fetch are to not influence someone's dying decision, and to not upset the world of those still on Earth. Calder breaks both of those vows when he switches with a dying soul, in the hopes that he can get closer to the woman he falls in love with while on Fetch duty. His influence on a very famous family changes the fate of Russia forever.

While I found the historical tie-in with the Romanov family a neat idea, the author's execution left something to be lacking. The story is slow and plods along. It's hard to like Calder, the story's protagonist, since he seems so distant (probably a side effect of being dead, but still...) and his choices, especially in the beginning, just don't make sense. I didn't feel particularly sympathetic to his character or find anything relatable in him.

The author also assumes that her readers will know something about Russian history, and the stories behind the main players of the revolution in particular. I found myself having to reference history websites about the revolution, Rasputin and the Romanov family in order to understand what was going on. I think a little more exposition in the narrative - or even some sort of glossary or author's end note - would have been helpful as a reference, since I can't imagine that the target audience would come to this story knowing much about the Russian Revolution. The author also randomly referenced the Titanic disaster, and I had to switch gears in my mind thinking about American vs. Russian history, which didn't help my confusion.

If you're already into that period of history, then I think this would be a fascinating book to read. It's an interesting fantasy version of "what happened to Anastasia?" but for the casual average reader, I don't think it would be an enjoyable experience.