Daire Santos has been living a life of travel, without a
home, accompanying her make-up artist mother to film sets around the
world. In Marrakech, she starts
seeing – things. She finds herself stopping time. After she attacks an actor
without remembering what she has done, her mother takes her to live with her
grandmother, Paloma, in Enchantment, New Mexico.
Paloma knows why Daire has been seeing glowing people and
stopping time. She is a soul seeker, descendant of a long line of shamans. Her
father should have taken over from his mother, Paloma, but died in his teens,
while his girlfriend, Daire’s mother, was pregnant. Paloma must teach Daire
what she needs to know before time runs out. And time could run out as soon as
November 2nd, the Day of the Dead.
For the Santos family aren’t the only shamans around. The
Richter family, who run the town, are also powerful in magic – or magick as
it’s called in this novel. And they have their own plans…
I liked the use made of Native American themes in this book.
There are spirit quests, guardian animals and medicine magic. The cover is
nicely designed to reflect the novel’s themes, with a girl with dream-catcher
earrings and ravens in the sky behind, or possibly crows, both of which play a
role in the story.
The heroine is terrified, but goes ahead with what she must
do anyway, so is genuinely brave, and won’t take nonsense from anyone, not even
the school hunk, who is a real bad boy.
He has a twin who is so good he’s almost over-the-top, but there is a reason
for it.
The novel doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, though there are
more books to come in the series, so the few loose ends will hopefully be tied
next time. For example, we never find out exactly who or what those glowing
people were.
My one beef with this book is the regular use of
half-sentences. You know. The kind that start this way. No doubt intended to
increase the drama. But that could often be just the second half of the
previous sentence. With the use of a simple comma. I don’t mind one every so
often - grammar can be a pain in
the neck, sometimes. But having them every page – and there’s at least one,
usually more – becomes grating.
Other than that, this is one of the better YA paranormals
I’ve read, and I heaved a sigh of relief when there was not a single vampire or
fallen angel to be seen!
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