Wynne-Jones (Rex Zero, King of Nothing) creates a tale of twisted family ties that begins with a college coed running from an affair turned sour. Wanting to get as far away as possible from NYU-and the professor who is stalking her-Mimi heads to Canada to stay at her artist father's long-abandoned country cottage. When she arrives, she is startled to find the house occupied by a stranger, Jackson (Jay) Page, a half-brother she didn't know existed. After the siblings agree to temporarily share living quarters, more surprises are in store as personal items go missing and Mimi has the eerie sensation of being watched. In chapters focusing on a local and his mother, readers get hints about the big picture, but suspense remains high as the book races to its climax. The characters have strong voices and personalities-their realness, coupled with the idyllic setting, contrasts starkly (and thrillingly) with the story's dark side. If the number of letches and unbalanced individuals that Mimi attracts appears extreme, readers will probably be too caught up in the action to care. Ages 14-up. (May)
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The Uninvited
Narrated by Angela Dawe
Tim Wynne-JonesUnabridged — 8 hours, 12 minutes
The Uninvited
Narrated by Angela Dawe
Tim Wynne-JonesUnabridged — 8 hours, 12 minutes
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Overview
Who IS the uninvited? This twisty page-turner from a master of suspense plumbs the unsettling goings-on at a picture-perfect woodland cottage.
Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she's glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north. The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she's shocked to find someone already living there-Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition. But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want? Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie-a mysterious character in its own right.
Editorial Reviews
Gr 9 Up–Mimi Shapiro, film studies major at NYU, leaves her predatory professor lover and escapes to a remote Canadian cottage that belongs to her father, Marc Soto, a prominent artist who walked out on Mimi and her mom years before. She finds the cottage occupied by Jay Page, a music student who is also Marc’s progeny by a local woman. Despite knowing nothing of one another, the half-siblings forge a quick bond and investigate a series of odd occurrences at the cottage. They discover a hidey-hole under a trapdoor in the floor with an escape tunnel, raising alarm that escalates after a break-in. The story unfolds in alternating viewpoints between Mimi and local loner Cramer Lee, yet another secret Marc Soto offspring, who lives nearby with his mentally unstable artist mother. Cramer supports her by working two jobs and spends his spare time working out with weights and spying on Jay and Mimi. Despite the thriller premise, the tension tends to be tepid, bogged down by overly picturesque descriptions of surroundings, clothing, and cuisine. Cramer’s character is well developed and sympathetic in his pathological shyness and twisted maternal relationship. City girl Mimi enthusiastically takes on rural life and travel by kayak, growing past self-absorption, but Wynne-Jones devotes more space to her possessions than her qualities. Jay remains peculiarly flat for a passionate musician. The complications and improbability of suddenly becoming family thrust upon the three are largely untapped.–Joyce Adams Burner, National Archives at Kansas City, MO
A selfish New York painter fathered three children by different mothers in his reckless youth. Now young adults, the spoiled college coed, the introspective classical composer and the disenfranchised factory worker discover each other when each of them has cause to visit their father's old studio in rural Canada. As their lives begin to intersect, one of them unknowingly introduces a murderous presence into their midst, an action that will have tragic consequences for them all. While the cover and title of Wynne-Jones's latest suggests a supernatural mystery, what emerges from the mist is more suspenseful family drama than haunted-house tale. The mystery of how the trio is linked would have been more satisfying had the author not spelled out their connections so plainly. Still, the three separate viewpoints he incorporates are compelling, the climax is truly heart-pounding and the beautifully evoked bucolic setting comes from behind to play a starring role. Older teen readers looking for something akin to Celia Rees's sensual, brooding The Wish House (2005) will not be disappointed. (Mystery. 14 & up)
Wynne-Jones has consistently raised the bar for literary thrillers…showcased his talents for suspenseful plotting, nuanced characterization, atmospheric sense of place, and humanistic themes, but The Uninvited may be the best one yet.
—The Horn Book (starred review)
Mimi flees to her father’s remote Canadian cottage after a disastrous affair with her college professor. Angela Dawe credibly portrays the facets of Mimi’s personality as she experiences the surprising encounters and events that follow. When she meets Jay, a musically inclined half-brother she never knew she had, Mimi exhibits acceptance and conviviality. Soon, however, she experiences suspicion and anger when she realizes she’s being watched and her cottage has been invaded. Dawe also presents the alternate viewpoint of Cramer, another half-brother. Cramer is mysterious—he lacks social skills, longs for love, and is controlled by his manipulative, frightening mother. Imbuing even the minor characters with menace, Dawe depicts Mimi’s fear while heightening the story’s suspense. S.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172502286 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 11/10/2010 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
The Uninvited
By Tim Wynne-Jones
Candlewick
Copyright © 2009
Tim Wynne-Jones
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780763639846
CHAPTER ONE
MIMI MISSED HER TURN and screeched to a stop.
"Shit!"
She checked the map on the seat beside her, backed up, and squinted through her own dust at the signpost.
Uppe V lenti e Rd.
"Close enough."
A deep-throated bark seized her attention. A gargantuan dog was tearing toward her from the dilapidated house on the corner.
"Shit!"
The animal bounced up and down at her door, brindle and with far too many yellow teeth. She threw the Mini Cooper into reverse again and slewed to the left, almost hitting the ugly mutt.
"Take that, Hellhound!"
Then she thrust the stick shift forward and left the paved road, sending out a rooster tail of gravel.
Undaunted, the dog stayed on her tail - stayed with her for a hundred yards or so - then finally fell behind, his territory no longer in danger.
Mimi took a deep breath and patted the leather-upholstered steering wheel. "Ms. Cooper, we are now officially not in Kansas," she said. And the Mini's horn beeped twice in reply.
The little car was red with a black top, and Mimi had red shades and black hair. She wore a red T-back sports bra and black low-rise capris, as if the car were an accessory. Well, it was small, after all. Like Mimi - small and powerful.
Gripping the wheel tightly in her lefthand, she picked up her digital camcorder from the passenger seat and held it at arm's length, aimed at her face.
"News update," she said. "This is Mimi Shapiro reporting from Nowhere!" She swiveled the wine-red JVC HDD around to take in the countryside: the empty dirt road stretching out before her, the overgrown borders and broken-down fences, the unkempt and empty fields, the desolate forest beyond them.
"Not a Starbucks in sight," she said, returning the camcorder to her face. "What do you think, Chet? Have we actually entered the Land that Time Forgot?"
"Well, Mimi," she replied in a low and amiable TV sidekick kind of voice. "you'd think the officials at the border might have warned us about this, wouldn't you? 'Welcome to Canada. Sorry we're out right now.'"
She put the camcorder down in order to negotiate a long S turn, and there up ahead - just to prove her wrong - two huge mud-stained trucks were pulled over onto the shoulder, nose to nose. Farmer One leaned on the driver's side door of Farmer Two. With both hands on the wheel, Mimi swerved around them, glad to be driv ing such a small and responsive vehicle. Both men wore ball caps, which they tipped as she flew by. They took her all in with their shaded eyes, and she wished she hadn't taken her shirt off back at the rest stop on 401.
"Oh, Ms. Cooper," she muttered. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"
She had left New York City yesterday morning and stayed overnight just outside Albany. Then bright and early this morning - way earlier than she was used to - she had set her compass due north, and here she was, though with every passing mile she wondered if maybe Marc had been lying to her. He was hardly the world's most reliable father.
"Almost there," she told herself, to calm her misgivings.
She glanced into her rearview mirror, half expecting Clem and Jed to be on her tail. She imagined them hopping into their trucks to follow the half-naked girl in the toy car. Yee-haw! But the road was empty behind her. She crested a hill. There was a house ahead, though it was hard to tell if anyone still lived in it.
She whooshed by the driveway, where an old woman with an even older dog was collecting the mail from her mailbox. The woman glanced Mimi's way, clutching a letter to her flat chest, glaring at the girl as she flew by. She was wearing a ball cap, too.
"Got to get me one of those," said Mimi.
The road was climbing now. On her right she caught the odd glimpse through the trees of a river - the Eden, she hoped, though it wasn't as impressive as Marc had led her to believe. She wouldn't put it past him to turn a creek into a river. She wouldn't put anything past him.
Lost Creek. She had seen a piece in the Tate Modern by the American artist Kathy Prendergast. It was called Lost and it was a map of the United States, but the places marked were all lost places: Lost Valley, Lost Hills, Lost Swamp, Lost Creek. All these lost places. She wondered if Prendergast had done a map of the lost places of Canada. She could use it about now. Or GPS.
A magical place, Marc had said. It wasn't the kind of word he used very often. A place to get your thoughts together.
Just then her cell phone started playing "Bohemian Rhapsody." She found it under the map, looked at the number, and threw the cell phone down. It stopped after a while but then started up a few minutes later.
"Fuck off, Lazar Cosic!" she shouted. "What part of 'leave me alone' don't you understand?"
Then she pulled the map out from under the cell phone and laid it on top. Ontario was a big province - seven times bigger than the Empire State. Surely you could escape someone in a place this large? She pressed a little harder on the accelerator.
Now the road began a lazy decline, and soon she was in the bowl of a wooded valley. Towering maples made a tunnel of the road ahead, though she could see late-afternoon sunlight glinting through the canopy, tinting the leaves with gold as if she had traveled right through summer into fall. She shuddered at the thought. Shuddered at the coolness of this leafy tunnel. She tried to reach her shirt on the backseat but swerved dangerously and gave up. There wasn't a lot of road to work with. Then she was out in the open again, and there was a flurry of tilting and rusted-out mailboxes. And then nothing . . .
In all fairness, Marc had described much of this, but he had never really gotten across the isolation of the place. But that's...
Continues...
Excerpted from The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones Copyright © 2009 by Tim Wynne-Jones. Excerpted by permission.
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