Praise for the Uncommoners series:
Winter 2016-17 Kids Indie Next List pick!
A 2016 Sainsbury Children's Book Award Nominee!
“It’s impossible not to hear the chimes of Harry Potter ringing through.” —The Telegraph
“Slightly spooky atmosphere, well-paced action, and engaging mystery.” —Booklist
“A return visit would be worth it.” —The Bulletin
"Inventive momentum and intrigue keep the pages turning." –Kirkus Reviews
The Uncommoners #2: The Shadows of Doom
Narrated by Jayne Entwistle
Jennifer BellUnabridged — 9 hours, 37 minutes
The Uncommoners #2: The Shadows of Doom
Narrated by Jayne Entwistle
Jennifer BellUnabridged — 9 hours, 37 minutes
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Overview
"Part Tim Burton, part J.K. Rowling! A terrific series." --Soman Chainani, New York Times bestselling author of the School for Good and Evil series
Ivy and her older brother, Seb, are back in Lundinor--the underground city where enchanted objects can do incredible things, if they're uncommon. But not everyone is thrilled at their arrival. Namely, Selena Grimes, the wicked ghoul who will stop at nothing to return her guild, the Dirge, to their former glory. When Ivy and Seb learn that Selena is after the Jar of Shadows, one of the five most powerful uncommon objects, they know it's up to them to find it first.
But there's more than just Selena to worry about this trading season. Jack-in-the-Green, an escaped shape-shifting convict, haunts the city; Grivens, a troubling game where players often end up horribly injured--or worse--is on the rise; and foes disguised as friends lurk in the shadows. Ivy will have to figure out who they can trust--before they meet their uncommon ends.
Editorial Reviews
2018-11-12
A race to locate a powerful receptacle of terrible dreams puts Ivy and her compatriots in danger underground following the events of series opener The Crooked Sixpence (2017).
In the vast belowground market called Lundinor, humans and races of the dead engage in the buying and selling of a variety of objects. Ivy and her brother, Seb, and their friend Valian (his search for his missing sister set aside in this sequel) attempt to locate the Jar of Shadows before the nefarious Selena Grimes finds it to deploy for her own wretched purposes. The trio must stay a step ahead of Grimes and her scary associate, a sinister shape-shifter called Jack-in-the-Green. The technology in Lundinor has an unusual source: Bits of human souls cause items that in our world would be quite ordinary to work as they do in this place, providing light, mapping, music, virtual reality, and more. The result is both intriguing and often amusing. The jar is one of five valuable and old objects that make up the Great Uncommon Good: a hidden collection that contains possibilities for good—and evil. Bell's setting and worldbuilding are marvelously inventive and diverting, with creepy and sinister villains and occasional kindness and friendship that will feel pleasantly familiar. Ivy, Seb, and Selena present white; Valian has light-brown skin.
Even if the sheer profusion of details nearly overwhelms the story at moments, the pacing and plotting are robustly energetic, and the inventive momentum and intrigue keep the pages turning. (Fantasy. 9-12)
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940169124972 |
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Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
Publication date: | 02/05/2019 |
Series: | Uncommoners Series , #2 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Age Range: | 8 - 11 Years |
Read an Excerpt
Ivy hurtled headfirst through the darkness. Her brown curls blew into her face as the bag walls flapped noisily around her. “Seb!” she shouted. “Are you still there?”
A crack of light appeared in the distance.
About time.
She slowed as the crack grew into an opening, and then squeezed her way out of the burlap bag, her body expanding back to normal size like a balloon filling with water.
She found herself in a small, lavishly furnished room. Moonlight streamed through a single porthole window, illuminating a polished oak desk, leather armchair and deep-pile rug. Leaning against one wall was a boy with pale skin, green eyes just like hers and messy blond hair.
“Seb, where are we?”
Her brother’s cheeks bulged. “Can’t speak . . . trying not to hurl.”
“We’re on a ship,” answered a shaky voice behind her. “And we’re not alone.”
Ivy turned to find their friend Valian with an expression of distress on his tan angled face. He was kneeling beside the body of a man wearing a black uniform. The man lay sprawled across the floor, one arm above his head, the other squashed under his side. He looked about the same age as Ivy and Seb’s parentsmidfortieswith a curly blond beard and a white streak of hair through his left eyebrow.
“Is he sleeping?” Ivy asked, crawling closer. The man’s eyes were closed. She nudged his shoulder, but he was unresponsive.
Valian lowered his ear to the man’s lips, and then felt his neck. “He’s not breathing.”
“We’ve got to help him!”
“I don’t think we can.” Valian lifted his fingers away, swallowing. “He hasn’t got a pulse.”
Ivy went still. “You mean . . . ?”
“He’s dead,” Valian said somberly. “He’s still warm. It must’ve happened only recently.”
There was a loud bang as Seb bolted through a door, hand clamped over his mouth. Through the gap Ivy glimpsed a white marble bathroom. “Maybe he tripped over the rug and fell,” she suggested. As she stood up, the floor swayed. On a tray in the corner a set of whiskey glasses rattled.
Valian frowned. “I don’t think so; there’s no bump on his head and no blood from a wound.” He got to his feet and studied the cabin. Amidst the jeweled lamps and gilt mirrors, his straggly dark hair, slashed skinny jeans and muddy red basketball shoes looked completely out of place. “We need to find out what vessel we’re on.”
“There’s a badge on the man’s jacket,” Ivy observed. Beneath a logo were some words. “Chief Officer,” she read aloud. “MV Outlander.”
A toilet flushed and the door to the bathroom swung open. Seb wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his hoodie. “SorryI couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
Ivy crinkled her nose as he tramped into the center of the cabin and slipped his cell phone out of his jeans pocket. “Can you just do something helpful?” she asked. “You’re the one who made us rush into this whole thing without a proper plan.”
Seb glared down at her. “It’s an experimentI was using my initiative. I didn’t know there’d be a dead person here.” He was broad-shouldered and tall, with the muscular arms of someone whounfortunately for Ivydid an hour’s drum practice every evening. She didn’t know how they were siblings; she was so slight.
Valian peered over Seb’s shoulder. “Can that device tell you where we are?”
Ivy still found it odd that Valian knew next to nothing about common technology.
“Hmmm.” Seb slid his finger across the phone a few times. “GPS is working, but I’m on a different network operator, so we must be somewhere outside the U.K.” His eyes widened. “Whoa. By the looks of this, we’re just off the coast of Norway!”
“Norway?” Valian grabbed the burlap bag that Ivy had just crawled out of and snatched at the paper luggage tag tied to the top. He read it twice. “I definitely wrote the label correctlyit says Selena Grimesbut what would she be up to in Norway?”
Seb jerked his head. “Er, parent-napping? Blackmail? Torture? The Dirge probably do bad-guy stuff all over the world.”
A chill ran through Ivy’s body. The Dirge was an organization that was so evil, just hearing their name left her cold. “We don’t know for sure that she’s here yet. The label might not have worked.” Secretly she was hoping it hadn’t. Selena Grimes was dangerous. The last time their paths had crossed, Ivy had almost been eaten by Selena’s pet wolf. “Perhaps the bag can’t take us directly to a person, only to a certain place, like all other uncommon bags?”
“This bag is different,” Valian insisted. “You know that. The Great Uncommon Good are the five most powerful uncommon objects in existenceI’m telling you, this thing is capable of more than we know.”
Ivy considered the shabby old potato sack. It was strange to think that something so ordinary-looking had the power to transport you thousands of miles in only a few seconds. But that was the thing about all uncommon objectseven the most normal, everyday item could be hiding an extraordinary ability.
Seb squinted at the chief officer. “What’s that in his hand?”
Ivy turned her attention back to the body. There was something glinting in the man’s grasp. Grateful that she was wearing gloves, she gently pried his fingers apart to reveal a tiny silver coin. It was bent in the middle and there was writing around the edge.
“A crooked sixpence,” she blurted, scrambling away. She’d recognize the coin anywhereit was the Dirge’s calling card.
“One of the Dirge murdered him,” Valian said with a scowl. “The label on the bag must have worked; it’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Selena did this.”
Seb cast a sidelong glance at the door that led out into the rest of the ship. “Selena must have left the cabin only moments before we arrived. Which means she’s on board somewhere, possibly with other members of the Dirge.” He grabbed the Great Uncommon Bag off the floor. “You were right; we didn’t think this through. Let’s get out of here.”
Ivy was about to raise an alarm to warn the crew, when the bitter whiff of chemicals wafted into her face, making her blink. “Yuckwhere’s that smell coming from?”