Bound To Stay Bound

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Booklist - 06/01/2014 Lucy Darrington, on the run from a terrifically boring and lonely boarding school, is searching for her father, a ghostologist, in this sharp new story. While trying to find him and root out what he was looking for, a secret cure-all called dreamwood, Lucy encounters all manner of menacing scares, from prospective outlaws on the train, to werewolf princesses in the secret world of the dreamwood. Along with her father’s ghost-finding gadgets and her new friends Pete and Niwa, she faces delight and danger alike. Lucy is a bright, hopeful young lead; her new friend Pete is an adventurer at heart; and First Peoples’ royal Niwa is sparkling and bold. The book has a steampunk feel to it, thanks to Lucy’s father’s inventions, and it would be a good option for young readers not quite ready for young-adult genre titles such as the Finishing School series, by Gail Carriger. Mackey’s descriptions of the creatures and hazards of the dreamwood are gorgeous and lush, a fantastic setting for a fantastic tale. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 06/01/2014 Gr 5–8—Lucy Darrington's adventures begin on a train as she flees a starched ladies finishing school to join her ghost-chasing father on the west coast of the vaguely Victorian, slightly steampunk American States. When Lucy arrives in the town of Saarthe, her father has disappeared and the community faces a terrible tree blight called Rust, which threatens the timber industry and everyone's livelihood. Lucy and her landlord's son, Peter, set out to find her father and Dreamwood, a legendary cure for Rust in a mystical region called Devil's Thumb. They face the menacing tests and traps of the carnivorous tree spirit His-sey-ak. The villain does not easily suffer greedy mortals to cross its land, and their death-defying expedition requires the combination of Lucy's research and steampunk gadgets with Peter's common sense. Mackey combines fantasy, ecology, and adventure in her debut novel, all to good effect. Vivid desciptions (such as a tree that digests blood and sea serpents that can be harnessed to speed a boat ride) capture the imagination at every turn. Dialogue and perilous situations nudge the story along at a steady clip, with the second half a breathless page turner. Dreamwood will please character-focused readers. Hand this to children who want an environmental adventure like Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea (Dutton, 2002) or a character-grounded speculation like Kenneth Oppel's Airborn (HarperCollins, 2004).—Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 09/01/2014 Lucy wants to be an adventurer and ghost hunter like her dad, and his leaving her at a boarding school for her own good isn’t going to stop her for long. Off she goes to find him in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest in this parallel version of the past where ghosts exist, the Lupine people protect nature, and magic and realism coexist, even if they are awkward partners. Lucy has a little help from allies she acquires along the way, but it’s mainly her on this quest that quickly turns epic and may involve her saving the world (or at least the nearby territories) from a horrific blight that is killing all of the trees. Although things do end mostly for the good, Lucy makes a refreshing number of wrong turns as she goes, learning to challenge her assumptions in ways that make her a more open, thoughtful, and generous person. In a much-needed afterword, Mackey mentions her liberal use of artistic license in referencing familiar cultural elements, traditions, and iconography of indigenous people of North America, even while she states that her “what if” representation of an alternative past is entirely fictional. While this is a slightly tricky stance to take, in particular when there is just a hint of “noble savage” generalizing throughout, it does at least make clear that this is an intentional exercise. The novel itself is gorgeous, replete with effective plot twists, a memorable protagonist, and a richly developed setting; thoughtful readers will catch the hints of realism and blend it smoothly with the fantasy details. AS - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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