Unspoken

July 16, 2012
Kami Glass is the kind of 17-year-old who can roll a sentence like “I can defenestrate my own thugs” off her tongue. She’s working on becoming an investigative reporter, and someone in her tiny English village of Sorry-in-the-Vale is trying to kill her. Almost as distracting as that fact are the Lynburn cousins, Ash and Jared, scions of the manor house family—Ash because he’s gorgeous, and Jared because he’s been the voice in Kami’s head for all of her life. Like its characters, the kickoff to Brennan’s Lynburn Legacy series is charming, awkward, and smart, occasionally biting off a bit more than it can chew. In the acknowledgments, Brennan (the Demon Lexicon trilogy) notes her debt to two centuries of gothic novelists, but many plot elements—the light boy and the dark boy, the inexplicable family curse, the emergence of magic as an explanation—owe as much to manga (and indeed Kami is part Japanese). The dialogue, if sometimes improbable, is frequently a laugh-out-loud delight. A promising launch with a dark cliffhanger of an ending. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency.

August 1, 2012
Sassy girl detective meets overwrought gothic romance, and it goes about as well as you'd expect. Kami Glass knows that she could be a great reporter, if there were only something worth investigating in her sleepy Cotswolds village. But now the aristocratic, secretive Lynburns are coming home to their sinister ancestral mansion, and Kami is determined that her high school newspaper will get the scoop. Soon, two gorgeous, near-identical Lynburn cousins, princely Ash and bad-boy Jared, join her journalistic team--not to mention Kami's imaginary best friend since babyhood, who turns out to be not quite so imaginary after all. And that's when the grisly murders start....From the abandoned abbey to the veiled villain, no gothic trope is forgotten while creating the doom-drenched atmosphere. Unfortunately, when an admirably intrepid 21st-century heroine with supportive family and friends replaces the traditional isolated innocent, and when every character banters with the same witty genre-savvy repartee even under the direst of circumstances, any suspension of disbelief is stretched to the snapping point. The abrupt tonal shift at the climax, when the magic previously hinted at is revealed as both deadly and heartbreaking, makes the final cliffhanger even more devastating. Far too self-consciously clever to be truly emotionally absorbing, this is nonetheless an enjoyable tribute for established fans of the gothic, as well as an enticing introduction for new ones. (Fantasy. 11-17)

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2012

Gr 7 Up-Aspiring journalist Kami lives in Sorry-in-the-Vale, a sleepy little town in the English Cotswolds. The school year's just started and she's already achieved a major coup-after sweet-talking the administration into letting her start a school newspaper, she convinces her best friend, Angela, to partner with her. They promptly set up shop in an empty room, dub the glorified closet "headquarters," and start sniffing out stories. The out-of-the-way arrangement works well. Gorgeous Angela prefers to be away from the ogling eyes of others and Kami, well, Kami has not kept it a secret that she talks to a boy's voice in her head, a fact that doesn't make her the most popular girl in school. When the Lynburns, the "ruling family" in town, return to their home after 17 years away, Kami is able to get to the bottom of the many secrets swirling in the air. And when the boy in her head appears in the flesh, her own story intertwines more and more tightly with those of the Lynburns and of the townfolk. The cover aptly describes Unspoken as a "gothic romance," but it has equal parts fantasy and supernatural rolled in, all emanating from the somewhat mythical forest around the town. While the rush of overly witty, pithy banter rolling from Kami's lips can be a tad much at times, Brennan molds a likable and independent heroine. Most importantly, the cliff-hanger ending and depths left untrolled will keep readers guessing and wishing for book two. Fans of Maggie Stiefvater's "Wolves of Mercy Falls" books (Scholastic) need look no further for their next series.-Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
Grades 7-12 Kami Glass has been talking in her head to a boy named Jared for as long as she can remember. She is shocked when her imaginary friend turns up in her Cotswald village with the rest of his family, the mysterious Lynburns, who founded Sorry-in-the-Vale hundreds of years ago. Although attracted to Jared's cousin, Ash, Kami cannot deny the link she has always had with the dark Jared. As the two of them try to figure out why the Lynburns have returned and what their frightening powers mean for the village, they discover a shocking reason why they have always been inside each other's heads. Although the story could have used a good deal of tightening, the intriguing premise holds interest. Kami, a wisecracking teenager, sometimes seems oddly carefree about the dangerous events circling around her. (She is barely fazed, for instance, when she is thrown down a well.) The first of a trilogy (natch), this installment has enough going for it to make readers look forward to the next book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)