In Maggie Stiefvater's (Shiver; The Scorpio Races) spellbinding novel of friendship, romance and death, the first in a planned quartet, the author once again carves out new territory. Sixteen-year-old Blue has been lovingly raised by her mother, Maura, a psychic, along with a chosen tribe of other psychics like her. They have all made the same prediction: "If Blue was to kiss her true love, he would die."
Blue cannot detect what the psychics can, but her presence makes their gifts stronger. Their hometown of Henrietta, Va., is situated on a ley line (a "supernatural energy path that connect[s] spiritual places"), also known as a "corpse road." Each year on April 25, St. Mark's Eve, Blue records the names of the "future dead" who travel the corpse road as her mother announces them. But this year, Maura's half-sister, Neeve, goes in Maura's place. For the first time, Blue can see one of the travelers on the corpse road: a student at the ritzy all-boy Aglionby Academy, a "raven boy"--known by the raven mascot on his sweater. He tells Blue his name: "Gansey." When Blue asks Neeve why she can see him, Neeve answers, "Either you're his true love... or you killed him."
Stiefvater explores uniquely American striations of class and privilege in a psychologically complex novel. Gansey, from a wealthy family, acts as leader in a foursome of raven boys. They all join Gansey on his quest to find Owain Glyndwr, the Raven King, whom legend says is buried somewhere on the ley lines--but for different reasons. Adam, from a poor and abusive family, works to pay his way through Aglionby. Brooding Ronan discovered his father's body upon his death. Noah, soft-spoken and nearly invisible, brightens in Blue's company. Blue becomes involved through a series of coincidences... or is it destiny? Stiefvater explores the questions that will determine the adults they'll become. What does it mean to come from wealth? What do you owe society, or does society owe you? Do you own yourself only if you pay your own way?
Stiefvater's exquisite writing captures what it's like to believe in something greater than oneself, as in this passage, when the group discovers a threshold to the ley lines called Cabeswater, and Blue describes Gansey's expression: "She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars." The author leaves plenty of questions to ensure readers' return for answers in the subsequent books, and they will genuinely care what happens to these flesh-and-blood characters. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: The author of Shiver and The Scorpio Races creates an original legend of a Welsh king buried in America and a group of young people obsessed with finding him, no matter the cost.