Edgeland
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The companion novel to the New York Times bestselling NIGHTFALL
Thousands of miles due south from the Polar North is is the island of Edgeland. Here, day and night last for 72 hours. And here is one of the natural wonders of this world: a whirlpool thirty miles wide and a hundred miles around. This is the Drain. Anything sucked into its frothing, turbulent waters is never seen again.
Wren has spent most of her life on Edgeland, watching people bring their dead to the island's famous bone houses to be blessed and prepared for the afterlife. There the dead are loaded into boats with treasure and sent over the cliff, and into the Drain. Orphaned and alone, Wren dreams of escaping Edgeland, and her chance finally comes when furriers from the Polar north arrive with their dead, and treasure for their dead.
With the help of her friend Alec, Wren plans to loot one of the boats before it enters the Drain. But the boat - with Alec and Wren onboard - is sucked into the whirlpool. What they discover over the abyss is beyond what either of them could have imagined.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this intriguing fantasy, two friends discover the secret of life after death as they travel to the realm where people go to await their final fate. Wren is an orphan and thief living on Edgeland, an island that services the Drain, a hole in the ocean into which the deceased are sent. When Wren is framed for murder, she attempts to flee, and she and her best friend Alec are swept through the Drain, ending up in Purgatory. They discover a bizarre community made up of the living and the dead, led by religious leaders who exercise tyrannical control over their subjects. In order to return to the world in which they belong, Alec and Wren must unravel long-hidden secrets and free the trapped spirits. Halpern and Kujawinski provide a fascinating world, and their story is fueled by a strong premise and compelling protagonists, but it doesn't reach its full potential. As in Nightfall, too many aspects of the setting are left unexplained while the plot rushes ahead at full speed. Ages 10 up.
