Dark Eyes
-
-
4.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
Wally was adopted from a Russian orphanage as a child and grew up in a wealthy New York City family. At fifteen, her obsessive need to rebel led her to life on the streets.
Now the sixteen-year-old is beautiful and hardened, and she's just stumbled across the possibility of discovering who she really is. She'll stop at nothing to find her birth mother before Klesko - her dark-eyed father - finds her. Because Klesko will stop at nothing to reclaim the fortune Wally's mother stole from him long ago. Even if that means murdering his own blood. But Wally's had her own killer training, and she's hungry for justice.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for teens, this debut thriller introduces our next big series heroine!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Russian mobster out for vengeance. A distraught adoptive mother who takes time from her high-flying real estate business to go to the morgue. A hardnosed cop admiring the street skills of a private-school kid gone rogue. These cameos are sketched with skill and conviction, but the protagonist of screenwriter Richter's first YA novel, 16-year-old Wallis Stoneman, is more of a puzzle. Independent and fierce, Wallis has willingly given up a sheltered life on the Upper West Side to join a tight crew of homeless youth who rummage for food and clothing on the streets of Harlem. Obsessed with the search for her birth mother, Yalena Mayakova, who she has never known, Wallis becomes involved with ruthless criminals who will lead her toward discovering her true origins, but will also destroy those she loves. Despite Richter's well-paced action sequences and the book's cinematic scope, Wallis is not an entirely convincing teenage heroine, strongly reminiscent of characters like La Femme Nikita and Lisbeth Salander, but lacking in authenticity and psychological depth. Noir homages may also be lost on the intended audience.
