The other night, I forgot to attend the annual Night Of The Notables, which is held by the Children’s Book Council of Australia, to announce the long list for the awards. So I looked it up on line.
It’s quite a long list, so here is a link to the Reading’s page.
https://www.readings.com.au/collections/cbca-notables-for-older-readers
When I was a teacher librarian, I only read the list for older readers, as I worked in a secondary school anyway, and sometimes got one of my favourite student readers to read with me and compare notes. Now I’m on my own and even though I do occasionally exchange emails with my former students, they are a bit too old for that. I’m not, and never will be, of course.
I have bought two of the nine so far, and have just finished the first, which was available in Apple Books. That was Unhallowed Halls by Lili Wilkinson.
I remember when she was at the start of her career, writing YA romcoms. They were delightful and funny. She doesn’t write those any more, and hasn’t written one for years. Unhallowed Halls is far from romcom. It’s horror fiction with teenagers in it. There is some romance, mind you.
She is an Australian writer, but her heroine is American.
Page Whittaker has had some scary things happen at several schools and believes they were her fault. She has some powers she doesn’t understand. One event led to the death of a nasty teacher who was burned to death while Page was trying to protect a friend. Soon after, she is invited to study at Agathaion, a boarding school in Scotland, which is aimed at bright but troubled kids. The others are all from wealthy families, but Page is offered a scholarship, something nobody else has.
When she gets there, she finds there are some very strange things going on - well, what else would you expect from horror fiction? And there are good reasons for the other kids to be wealthy, apart from a boarding school being aimed at kids with money, but we find that out late in the novel, so no spoilers. She does, however, make some friends, one of whom tells her some background to the school, which is hundreds of years old, and some Scottish myth and legend connected to it. As you might expect, they are important to the plot.
There are a number of twists in the story. They work well.
Just be aware that this is not an Enid Blyton boarding school and definitely not Hogwarts!
I’m thinking of nominating it for a Hugo Award, as I’m a member of this year’s Worldcon.
Available on line and in ebook.
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