The first words of this novel set the tone: magic is in the air. Stars fall from the sky and land in the water with audible force. But is this actual magic or the eerie thoughts of a brooding outsider?
Avril is on the beach with a group of new friends. They’re all part of a theater camp and filled with the joie de vivre of irrepressible youth. They gather around the fire and trade stories about each other. It’s like something out of a 1980s film about adolescents at a camp, complete with a ghost story and a fog that comes out of nowhere.
The author teases us with this clichéd setup. Then the mood gradually gets darker, stranger and more ominous. When Avril nearly slips away past the safety buoys, the tension ratchets even higher. She’s being lulled into a dangerous calm, a seductive urge to let light and life slip away.
This first look gives us just the barest hint into Avril’s past. She’s harboring a tragedy the others are apparently unaware of and one that slips in and out of her consciousness. Avril has been searching for something or someone for a long time but she’s not telling this lot. The jagged edges of her secrets isolate her while drawing in the reader, like a voice whispering in a darkened room.
Avril is on the beach with a group of new friends. They’re all part of a theater camp and filled with the joie de vivre of irrepressible youth. They gather around the fire and trade stories about each other. It’s like something out of a 1980s film about adolescents at a camp, complete with a ghost story and a fog that comes out of nowhere.
The author teases us with this clichéd setup. Then the mood gradually gets darker, stranger and more ominous. When Avril nearly slips away past the safety buoys, the tension ratchets even higher. She’s being lulled into a dangerous calm, a seductive urge to let light and life slip away.
This first look gives us just the barest hint into Avril’s past. She’s harboring a tragedy the others are apparently unaware of and one that slips in and out of her consciousness. Avril has been searching for something or someone for a long time but she’s not telling this lot. The jagged edges of her secrets isolate her while drawing in the reader, like a voice whispering in a darkened room.