Genre: YA Paranormal Fantasy
Lacuna Valley Series, Book 1
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Description (taken from Faith McKay's website):
Ever since Samantha Winthrop’s mother moved them to Lacuna Valley, supposedly in search of better weather, the list of strange questions she has no answers for has been growing out of control.
Does her little sister, Violet, have the ability to make things happen just by “praying” for them? Are Sam’s dreams really predicting the future? Is she destined to marry the boy she just met, and what is the mysterious orb that he’s guarding? Why does she get the impression that there are dangerous creatures watching from the woods?
While Sam should be focusing on answering those questions, there is one other that makes them seem almost irrelevant: Is her mother planning on killing her and Violet?
Sam tends to move around a lot. Her family moves from one small town to another. And it prevents Sam from ever forming roots with people; she's doomed to remain an outsider. However, once she's in Lacuna Valley, things start to unfold and make sense. Also, she makes some friends (which is always a plus).
Did I mention there's a paranormal aspect? Sam and her sister, Violet, have some special abilities. Violet, a puppetmaster, can somehow manage to make things happen simply by wishing for it. And when Sam meets a cute boy in town, she realizes it's not just her family that keeps freaky secrets.
With this book, I'm simply torn down the middle. The romance between Sam and Nick (the cute boy mentioned above) was cute, but the paranormal aspects confused me at some points. A plus, Sam does grow throughout the novel. She starts out as very timid and is constantly pushed around. But when push comes to shove and her sister is threatened, she easily has a voice and fights back; it was awesome to 'watch'. And on the negative, there's this whole aspect of child abuse. There are only a few scenes involving it, but I cringed every time I read one of them.
The ending had a second-book-in-a-series feeling. In other words, it didn't exactly end and nicely wrap things up. So, I'm definitely recommending that we read this book with the intention of reading the second one right after. Otherwise, you're going to get an unsatisfied feeling once you're done.
Thanks goes to Faith McKay for providing me a review copy.
Challenges: Paranormal Reading Challenge
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