When a stranger shows up in Lexi's village of Near and children start disappearing, the people gather their torches and pitchforks (ok, so not QUITE literally..but close) and set out to hunt him down.
Even though Lexi is told to let the men search, she goes off to find answers of her own. Upon meeting the stranger, who she names Cole, she believes he is not the one taking the children and sets of to clear his name before the unthinkable happens. Will she find the missing children before it's too late? Can she stop this from happening before her little sister becomes one of them?
This is one of those books I have been hearing about for a LONG time, so long in fact, I temporarily forgot that it isn't in stores yet when I was telling my mom I thought she'd enjoy it. Oops.
The writing was absolutely fantastic and there were a few times where I re-read a sentence because it was so beautifully worded and it just seemed magical. The descriptions made the book play out kind of like a movie in my head and the littlest things, like Lexi's little sister hopping around, were just so vivid I felt like I had seen it for myself. I thought the story was interesting and well told and was full of mystery, romance, conspiracy, with a little bit of creepy thrown in.
I loved Lexi as the main character. She was strong, fearless, determined, stood up for what she believed in, and was very confident, even when she wasn't feeling like it. The characters were well done and I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I got a small battle of the sexes vibe between everyone else outside of Lexi and Cole.
I don't want to say much more since it isn't out yet but I will say that I really enjoyed reading this and I hope you do too. Victoria did a wonderful job on her debut novel and if she figures out a way to bottle up some of her talent, I'll gladly take some.
I'll also be hosting an interview with Victoria in the next week or 2 so look for that as well as me gushing over meeting her and many other wonderful authors at the 2011 Decatur Book Festival. EEK! Only about 46 more days!
An ARC of The Near Witch was provided to me by Disney Publishing Worldwide and in no way sways my opinion of the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment