Feathered friend, feathered foe

  

     Following on neatly from yesterday's post, here is a book with a bird for a title, but happily for me the creature doesn't feature in the way that you might think, so I could read without fear of claws and beak and flapping wings. The corvid makes its presence felt in other ways, though, but let me tell you what else there is in Marcus Sedgwick's White Crow to add to the intense atmosphere of menace and suspense that permeates this "modern gothic thriller" for young adults.

    The story takes place over a long, stiflingly hot summer, and the heat is almost a subordinate character as tension builds, very reminiscent in that respect of Sarah Stovell's Mothernight and Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion.

   There is a village, Winterfold, gradually falling into the sea as the East Anglian coast is eroded. As in La Cathédrale Engloutie, you can almost hear the bells of the drowned churches.

   There is an abandoned house, ancient, long left empty and boarded up, but its past is the subject of rumours and disquieting legends.

    There is a girl, Rebecca, lost and almost alone as her father faces accusations and slander, and her friends no longer want to know her.

    And there is Ferelith, a person of strangeness. Who is she? What is she? And for Rebecca, is she friend or is she foe?

     Those are the elements of an extraordinary story of good and evil, one which combines the bizarre deeds of an eighteenth century doctor and cleric, men determined to discover whether there is life after death, with the tale of a vulnerable contemporary teenager, a girl who stumbles upon something she cannot understand.

   Marcus Sedgwick cleverly leaves questions unanswered, and there's much to ponder, not least the very sinister side to this intriguing, intelligent book for older teenagers, one whose obvious quality - in both imaginative and narrative force - makes it stand out.

Comments

[LizF]

My 16 year old daughter and I both love Marcus Sedgwick's books. We discovered him after reading a review of My Sword Hand is Singing and have since read all that we can find and this sounds as though it is going to be a fascinating read. Thanks for the review!