Reviews

Gr 9 Up-An interesting combination of fantasy, light horror, and historical fiction, with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure. On her 16th birthday, Gemma Doyle fights with her mother. She wants to leave India where her family is living, runs off when her mother refuses to send her to London to school, has a dreadful vision and witnesses her mother's death. Two months later, Gemma is enrolled in London's Spence School, still troubled by visions, and unable to share her grief and guilt over her loss. She gradually learns to control her vision and enter the "realms" where magical powers can make anything happen and where her mother waits to instruct her. Gradually she and her new friends learn about the Order, an ancient group of women who maintained the realms and regulated their power, and how two students unleashed an evil creature from the realms by killing a Gypsy girl. Gemma uncovers her mother's connection to those events and learns what she now must do. The fantasy element is obvious, and the boarding-school setting gives a glimpse into a time when girls were taught gentility and the importance of appearances. The author also makes a point about the position of women in Victorian society. Bray's characters are types-Felicity, clever and powerful; Ann, plain and timid; Pippa, beautiful and occasionally thoughtless; Gemma, spirited and chafing under society's rules-but not offensively so, and they do change as the story progresses. The ending leaves open the likelihood of a sequel. Recommend this to fantasy fans who also like Sherlock Holmes or Mary Russell.-Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

British actress Wyatt has already proved herself keenly adept at handling a complex audiobook role, as Lyra in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Here, she effortlessly becomes 16-year-old Gemma, a 19th-century British girl who finds herself possessed of the frightening and supernatural ability to see dark visions of the future, including the violent death of her mother. Bray's gripping and suspenseful debut novel provides the perfect canvas for Wyatt, who alternately conveys fear, agitation and guilt and sometimes invokes the hissing tone of all things sinister. Gemma's journey from her childhood home in India to a posh London boarding school, combined with her forays into a chilling otherworld, will likely take hold of many teen listeners (and general fiction fans as well). Colorful details of Indian bazaars and the Spence School in London make this outing all the more compelling. Ages 12-up. (Dec. 2003) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.