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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-A suspenseful psychological page-turner with a supernatural element. Set in a small coastal village in Cornwall, it opens with a girl being snatched from her home in the middle of a storm. Fin, her older brother, blames himself for leaving Ella and their little brother, Sam, alone while their parents were at the pub. The kidnapper, a boy about Fin's age, hides Ella in a cave beneath an abandoned lighthouse and demands ransom money. When Sam sees and hears a spectral girl who encourages him to catch the next storm from the cliff's edge, he repeatedly follows the voice along the dangerous coastal path. His sensitivity helps Fin use a form of dowsing with a pendulum to find Ella in the nick of time. But, just as the lighthouse collapses, so does the family, as Ella learns the dark secrets of her father's past, including an affair, the accidental death of a child, and blackmail. Can the family weather this next storm? Bowler's plot is tightly scripted, with good pacing and steadily building tension. The complex themes of guilt and betrayal enhance the suspense. The author's stylistic use of symbolism, such as the collapsing lighthouse and three offshore islands, the Three Furies, also enriches the story. A lot happens very quickly in the resolution. There is some strong language, appropriate to the intensity of the situation. This dark thriller will appeal to fans of Robert Cormier.
Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Gr. 6-10. In the first chapter of this exciting thriller, 13-year-old Ella is kidnapped at gunpoint in her home by a huge teenage boy who keeps her captive in a cave near the raging ocean in Cornwall, England. Then the story switches to her distraught family (especially her older brother, guilt-ridden because he had left her alone), as they try to find her and wait for the kidnapper's terse phone calls: "Tell a soul and she's dead." Bowler won Britain's Carnegie Medal for River Boy (2000), but here the mystical edge to the story is sometimes contrived, in particular the pendulums used to find Ella and the intricate parallels with the fantasy world of her 3-year-old brother. It's the fast, realistic action and dialogue and the stormy coastal setting that drive this story, as well as the seething presence of horrifying family secrets. As in Mariah Fredericks' True Confessions of a Heartless Girl [BKL Ap 1 03], the adult characters are as complex as the kids. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence:
THE SOUND CAME AGAIN, cutting through the night: a sharp, metallic tap that carried even up to the first floor of the house where Sam lay sleeping. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
automatic lighthouse, coastal path, speaker button Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Ricky Prescott, Free Spirit, Lindy Prescott, Imogen Prescott New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
THE SOUND CAME AGAIN, cutting through the night: a sharp, metallic tap that carried even up to the first floor of the house where Sam lay sleeping. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
automatic lighthouse, coastal path, speaker button Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Ricky Prescott, Free Spirit, Lindy Prescott, Imogen Prescott New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 1
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1
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cites this book:
- River Boy by Tim Bowler in Front Matter
- Firmament by Tim Bowler in Front Matter
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