AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile
Author Seanan McGuire narrates her story of twins who follow a mysterious staircase into a dark and violent world. Jacqueline and Jillian’s parents have raised them, doll-like, without any attention to the girls’ actual interests or personalities. The sisters escape their oppressive homelife for a magical world filled with vampires, mad scientists, and, for the first time ever, the freedom to make their own choices. McGuire’s interpretation of the characters is less than fully successful. The petulance of the adolescent characters occasionally bleeds into the rest of the narration, and her voice for the Frankenstein-like mad scientist Dr. Bleek is such a soft whisper that his dialogue is barely intelligible. Her narration is best when she captures the storytelling cadence of her witty prose. E.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 03/13/2017
“Everything comes down to blood” in McGuire’s bittersweet, heartbreaking novella. Identical twin sisters Jacqueline and Jillian Wolcott (introduced in Every Heart a Doorway) were raised to behave and obey. Only their grandmother, Gemma Lou, told them “they were clever, they were strong, they were miracles,” but their time with her was short. When they’re 12, the twins discover a winding staircase in a trunk; it leads to a door, to a land under a blood-red moon, and to a choice between the Master, a vampire, and Dr. Bleak, a scientist with the power to bring the dead to life. Jill stays with the Master, while Jack is apprenticed to Dr. Bleak. As years pass, Jill, under thrall to her master, longs for the day he’ll grant her immortality, becoming bitter and cruel. Jack enjoys learning the ways of Dr. Bleak’s power and falling in love with the beautiful, reanimated Alexis. When Jill commits a shocking act to prove her worth, Jack must choose between her sister and revenge. McGuire’s exquisitely written fairy tale is about the choices that can alter the course of a life forever, lost innocence, and what it is to love and be loved. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (June)
From the Publisher
"McGuire has a miraculous talent for examining adolescent discontent, wedding the strange with the poignant, the fearsome with the fascinating." —RT Book Reviews Top Pick, 4 1/2 stars
“Beautifully crafted and smartly written, this fairy-tale novella is everything that speculative fiction readers look for: fantastical worlds, diverse characters, and prose that hits home with its emotional truths." —Library Journal starred review
"Exquisitely crafted, this is the rare companion novel that can stand alone." —Booklist starred review.
"Down Among the Sticks and Bones has the voice and rhythm of a fairy tale... It is vividly characterised, as so much of Seanan McGuire’s work is, and has the kind of prose that carries you along to find out what happens next." —Locus
"McGuire’s exquisitely written fairy tale is about the choices that can alter the course of a life forever, lost innocence, and what it is to love and be loved." —Publishers Weekly starred review
PRAISE FOR EVERY HEART A DOORWAY:
"A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics." —NPR
"Seanan McGuire has long been one of the smartest writers around, and with this novella we can easily see that her heart is as big as her brain. We know this story isn't true, but it is truth." —Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (TV's True Blood)
"This is a gorgeous story: sometimes mean, sometimes angry, and always exciting." —Cory Doctorow for BoingBoing
"McGuire's lyrical prose makes this novella a rich experience." —Library Journal, starred review
"So mindblowingly good, it hurts." —io9
"This gothic charmer is a love letter to anyone who's ever felt out of place." — Publishers Weekly
"This gothic novel is ideal for fantasy fans who have longed for a world of their own, as well as readers looking for books with diverse casts." —Bookish
“Girl Interrupted meets Grimm's Fairy Tales. Let it in and it will touch your heart and open your mind.” —Geek Syndicate
Library Journal
06/01/2017
Twin sisters Jacqueline and Jillian fulfill their parents' expectations of the perfect family. Jacqueline is her mother's feminine ideal, and Jillian is the adventurous, athletic tomboy who is almost the son her father didn't get. When the siblings find an impossible staircase hidden in the bottom of their grandmother's trunk, they follow it to the Moors, a place filled with science, magic, life, death, and, most frightening, the chance to choose to be who you really are. VERDICT McGuire revisits the world of Every Heart a Doorway to tell the story of two of its main characters. Insightful, harrowing, and wickedly funny, it will enthrall readers. (LJ 4/15/17)
School Library Journal
★ 12/01/2017
Jacqueline and Jillian's parents were more taken with the idea of having children than the reality of raising them. The Wolcotts are now too busy making sure that the identical twins are the perfect accessories to their perfect lives to see how unhappy the sisters are about the roles they are shoved into. So when they discover a trunk containing a set of stairs instead of old clothes, the siblings take flight. They find themselves in a bleak, desolate, brutal land where good girl Jacqueline can be Jack, the mad scientist's apprentice, and tomboy Jillian is Jill, the pampered, proper companion to a vampire. This stand-alone prequel to the Alex Award winner Every Heart a Doorway features the same haunting and lyrical prose. Tightly crafted chapters compare the mundane horrors of the girls' childhood with the horrors of the Moors and invite readers to meditate on what really makes a monster. Coupled with McGuire's examination of the strained relationship between the sisters in both worlds, this is a work that will deeply resonate with teen readers. VERDICT Beautiful and devastating, this gem of a novel lingers and will garner many more fans for McGuire.—Jennifer Rothschild, Arlington Public Library, VA
AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile
Author Seanan McGuire narrates her story of twins who follow a mysterious staircase into a dark and violent world. Jacqueline and Jillian’s parents have raised them, doll-like, without any attention to the girls’ actual interests or personalities. The sisters escape their oppressive homelife for a magical world filled with vampires, mad scientists, and, for the first time ever, the freedom to make their own choices. McGuire’s interpretation of the characters is less than fully successful. The petulance of the adolescent characters occasionally bleeds into the rest of the narration, and her voice for the Frankenstein-like mad scientist Dr. Bleek is such a soft whisper that his dialogue is barely intelligible. Her narration is best when she captures the storytelling cadence of her witty prose. E.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-11-19
This second novella in the Wayward Children series (Every Heart a Doorway, 2016) explores the origins of casually ghoulish Jack and her beautifully dressed serial-killer sister, Jill.
The emotionally chilly Wolcotts regard their twin daughters as ornaments to their lifestyle, clay to be forced into molds designed to make their parents look good. Although the girls are identical, the adults decide that Jacqueline is "the pretty one," who will wear lovely dresses and shun dirt at all costs, while Jillian is "the sporty one," who will forge boldly ahead and win medals. Neither girl is really comfortable in her assigned role, and that discomfort creates a rift between them. That rift widens dangerously when the girls discover a set of stairs leading to the dimly lit land of the Moors, inhabited by dark gods, monsters, mad scientists, and ordinary villagers who somehow manage to (mostly) survive the treacherous environment. When offered a choice, the two sisters welcome the chance to switch roles. Jacqueline becomes Jack, the apprentice to mad scientist Dr. Bleak, while Jill is adopted by the local vampire lord, his pampered food source until she turns 18, at which point he will make her a vampire. Jack discovers a love for the resurrection sciences as well as for the local innkeeper's daughter. Jill loves being outrageously spoiled and pressuring the mortal locals to bow to her whims out of fear of her "father." But Jill's impatience to become immortal, a desire to prove herself to her "father," and continued resentment of her sister lead to tragedy for them both. McGuire deftly depicts how love can bloom in the most unlikely places while the lack or distortion of love can be devastating.
The trappings of gothic fantasy act as an eloquent backdrop to this vivid portrayal of a painfully dysfunctional family.
