Wildefire

May 23, 2011
Knight's debut novel is an edgy twist on the magical boarding school theme. Ash Wilde, 16, is a Polynesian girl adopted, along with her biological sister, Eve, by an American family. A catfight over a philandering boyfriend ends with a warrant for Eve's arrest and Ash's banishment to Blackwood Academy, 3,000 miles from home. There she meets Ade, Lily, Serena, Raja, and Rolfe, a rainbow coalition of sorts united under the influence of Serena. Each teen has a godlike abilityâexcept for Ash, who has only memories of her sister's horrifying rage and strength. Ash would rather play tennis and flirt with park ranger Colt Halliday, but she can't deny her affinity for the strange events and visions associated with Serena. Despite cherry-picking gods and goddesses from around the globe, Knight doesn't delve too deeply into any of the mythology he makes use of, and his heroes feel a little Captain Planet in their studious diversity. Not that it much matters: it's a fun, well-written, and engaging read with a last-sentence twist that suggests a sequel is all but inevitable. Ages 14âup.

December 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Sixteen-year-old Ashline Wildefire senses that she is different and knows her sister Eve is a rebellious outcast with a significant personality disorder. When a fight between Ash and a rival results in the girl's death after Eve calls down lightning to strike her, Ash transfers to a boarding school across the country, where her story really gets going. Wildfire evokes a number of books, and yet, Knight has created a novel quite different from the coming-of-age/paranormal-teen reads that have glutted the market recently. Ash is a wry and interesting protagonist and the romance and gritty, violent action scenes are compelling. As Ash learns more about her and her fellow students' supernatural abilities, the numerous subthemes (family obligations, duality, moral ambiguity) and mysteries will leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.-Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2011

Perhaps inspired by Rick Riordan's phenomenal success, debut author Knight takes a more-must-be-better approach for this multiple-mythology mashup.

Readers meet Scarsdale High sophomore Ashline Wilde in the school parking lot, where she's just felled the classmate who stole her boyfriend. Ash will knock out an incisor before she's done, and her sister Eve will do much worse. In the aftermath, Ash--like Eve, she's a Jewish-raised, Polynesian-born adoptee--transfers to a prep school sequestered in the California redwoods. There, she and assorted peers learn they're reincarnated deities, each from a different pantheon (Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Zulu and Polynesian) called together to prevent Ragnarok, a.k.a. the End of the World. Just enough narrative infrastructure is provided to keep the plot moving. Breezily values-free, these deities mostly drink, flirt and fight, displaying buff bodies and handy superpowers, but Ash is troubled by dreams of a child, who may be her sister, and visited by Eve, who plays rough even by action-hero standards. When the dust clears, enough dangling plot threads remain to supply as many sequels as the market will bear.

The Mighty Morphin Power Ranger ambiance and frenetically paced action scenes might have worked well in a graphic novel, but without art to supply missing emotion and nuance, the shallow, flat-footed prose, fueled by escalating violence, fails to engage. (Fantasy. 14 & up)

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July 1, 2011
Grades 8-10 Ashline, who transferred from a Westchester County high school to a Northern California boarding school after a fight that led to her rival's death, is a basically good kid with a sinister (not to say psychopathic) older sister. They have long known that their birth parents were Polynesian, but Ashline makes a startling discovery of her own: she is the incarnation of the volcano-fire goddess, Pele. Like several other students drawn together at the school, she has superhuman powers to discover and control, along with the sometimes-overwhelming emotions and drives of normal adolescence. There's introspection here as well as sizzling sexuality, but the novel's strong narrative thrust relies on action, from violent brawls and accidents to encounters with terrifying, supernatural creatures in the redwood forest. Although some of the many characters are well drawn and distinctive, others tend to merge as the story moves forward. The abrupt ending (a puzzler for readers unschooled in world mythology) and the interconnected dream interludes seem to point to a sequel. A promising first novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)