It is a commitment to begin a new series, but this one is
comprised of short novels. I tend to gravitate toward fantasy stories, so this
series is right up my alley. As of this posting, there are 11 published books
with the twelfth slated for publication early next year. I plan to read and
review each of them. Thanks to my coworker, Brittany, for the recommendation!
FYI: The
write-ups are in chronological order.
<This is
the first novel in a series.>
There sits an elegant manor. It houses Eleanor West’s
Home for Wayward Children. Eleanor – once little Ely West – has a door that
remains open, though that is not the norm for most who cross the threshold of
her house. They come desperate to return to the worlds they have visited. They
are desperate to find their doors. This includes Nancy Whitman, who’s just
arrived. She went to the Halls of the Dead and plans to return to the darkness
and stillness and right otherness of that Underworld. All this color and fast
movement is as nonsensical to her as terms like Nonsense, Logic, Wickedness and
Virtue (world types). But Nancy’s only just arrived, and three students are
murdered in quick succession. Who’s an easier target to blame than the new girl
with darkness in her veins? Fortunately, Nancy has comrades in Kade (Prism: a
Fairyland), Jack Addams (the Moors with a mad scientist) and Christopher (Mariposa/Country
of the Bones: a world of happy, dancing skeletons).
Here is
a gothic fantasy series opener for adults that is a grown-up version of holding
childlike imagination. When one door closes, the door each of these people want
may not actually open again. Or it may be lurking, but the traveler isn’t
looking in the right place. This short novel is a gem of darkness, yearning and
hope. The story can be mean, and it isn’t typically pretty. It’s a portal
fantasy that’s “Grimm” but strangely charming, too. It is for every person who’s
ever felt out of place, but I hope you, dear reader, don’t have to portal to
another world to find your home.
<This is
the second novel in a series.>
When Chester and Serena Wolcott got pregnant, it was for
the convenience of a handsome baby boy or a beautiful baby girl. When they were
told they were expecting twins, they were smug about the idea, how it “smacked
of efficiency.” Instead of a girl and a boy, out came two girls: Jacqueline and
Jillian. While Louise Wolcott (a.k.a. Gemma Lou) tried to raise them with love,
she was kicked out by her son after five years. The twins were given a type
according to their parents’ whims: Jacqueline got the frilly dresses and long
tresses, while Jillian got the pixie cuts and sports gear. When they’re 12,
Jack and Jill open an old steamer trunk holding an impossible stairway instead
of clothes and costume jewelry. They find the Moors. They are promised three
safe nights, but Jack leaves with Dr. Bleak after only one, and Master despises
being selected second. Jill had already chosen him, though. The same of face,
Jack and Jill are competitors as well as companions, but here, where a vampire
and a mad scientist reside, they are as different as night and day in a
land of eternal twilight. Jack learns of love from Alexis, a plump,
well-endowed teen whom she and Dr. Bleak once resurrected, but Jill does not.
Yearning to become Master’s daughter, she chooses ruthlessness. She also
chooses desperation, and it has devastating results for the both of them.
While
someone could read this without reading the first book, I’d still start at the
beginning. Jack and Jill are 17 in the series starter, but this is the story of
what happened first. It gives context to why they wound up at Eleanor West’s
Home for Wayward Children. The Moors are dark and fantastical, but they aren’t
the only land through that doorway, and I do wish more had been said about the
werewolf lords of eternal winter in the mountains and the Drowned Gods of the
sea. McGuire’s prose is lyrical even when upset and is lush in its discontent.
The second short novel in the Wayward Children Series is
richly crafted, a gothic fantasy charmer with horror always at its heels.
<This is
the third novel in a series.>
<Alert:
Potential spoilers ahead.>
A girl falls from the sky and lands with a splash in the
pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, her sugary dress
dissolving and leaving her [confidently] naked. The girl is Onishi Rini, from
Confection, a “land of the culinary art become miracle.” She is looking for
Sumi, her mother (who was in political exile per the Countess of Candy Floss),
not expecting to hear that her mother was murdered. Rini is from a Nonsense
world, and Reality cannot stop her quest. But without Sumi existing, Rini’s
story is dissolving. Rini sets off with Kade (Goblin Prince: Prism), Cora
(Mermaid: the Trenches), Christopher, beloved of the Princess of Skeletons
(Mariposa) and Nadya (Drowned Girl: Belyyreka). They travel to the Land of the
Dead to meet with Nancy, who was at the Home, but was able to find her door
again, but there is a cost. One of them must stay behind. With Sumi’s walking
skeleton (it cannot talk and has no soul), the group falls into Confection.
Literally. Here, the world rearranges itself so that anywhere is within a day’s
walk from one’s starting point: “A good day’s journey is like baking soda: use
it well, and the cake will rise up to meet you.” To everyone’s dismay, they’re
captured by the Queen of Cakes’ soldiers. Without Sumi to overthrow her, she’s
back in power. They’ll have to escape a jail of baked gingerbread bricks “glued”
together with hard-packed frosting and trick the cakey queen if they’ve any
hope of finding the mythical Baker and baking Sumi back to life.
The
third in McGuire’s Wayward Children Series is a magical,
restorative tale of adventure, baking and friendship. The gothic portal fantasy
exists with reality, even when reality for one world is nonsensical to another,
and this story homes in on a character’s struggle with self-acceptance as
readers are wooed by robust and zesty prose. This installment is another
diverse one, and it happens to contain a world where milk grows on trees and
candy corn farms exist. It’s a world where brownies are perfect treats that
also double as roofing materials. It’s a world where the Wizard of Fondant can
whip up sugar traveling beads. It’s a world where one might go to great lengths
to save Confection, even if it means, “I was just a candy shell filled with
shadows.” Most importantly, it’s a world where “...everything was different,
and everything was finally the same.”
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