Publisher Description
“Carol Goodman’s Blythewood is reminiscent of both Harry Potter and The Diviners, but in a way that doesn’t distract from the entertaining story within."*
After narrowly escaping death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, seventeen-year-old Avaline Hall is sent to Blythewood Academy, the elite girls’ boarding school in New York’s Hudson Valley that her mother attended years before. Ava hopes to solve the mystery of her mother’s death and its connection to the students who keep disappearing from Blythewood. But the school is not all that it appears . . . and neither is the handsome young man who saved Ava from the fire. What’s the meaning of the extraordinary powers Ava possesses? Who’s good and who’s evil? And who has the right to make that distinction?
*review of Blythewood by Forever Young Adult
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this atmospheric period piece set in 1911 12, a teenage factory girl is sent to her mother's alma mater, an elite girls' school located in upstate New York. There, Avaline Hall discovers that the girls of Blythewood Academy are secretly trained to work magic in order to fight off the dangers of Faerie, including winged Darklings and treacherous lampsprites. As Avaline unravels the mysteries of Blythewood, her own unrealized potential, and her deceased mother's tragic past, she grasps a larger picture, one in which the Fae may not be all evil. Goodman (Arcadia Falls) delivers a beautifully evocative tale perfect for fans of Libba Bray and Tiffany Trent. First in a trilogy, Goodman's story is intriguing, romantic, eerie, and adventurous, with the narrative wrapped around fairy tales and historical events, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Some of the supernatural framework may be familiar, but Goodman's integration of social causes and philosophy of the era notably workers' and women's rights, as well as the roles of superstition, science, and reason lead to a multifaceted and mature fantasy. Ages 12 up.
