Blood and Salt

August 17, 2015
For as long as she can remember, Ashlyn Larkin has been haunted by visions of a dead girl who looks almost exactly like her. Her mother claims that Ashlyn is psychically connected to their ancestor Katia, an alchemist who has been waiting centuries to be reunited with her murdered lover through the bodies of their descendants. Ash's twin brother, Rhys, thinks alchemy is just superstition, but when Katia chooses their mother as her vessel, the 17-year-old siblings leave New York City for the eerie Kansas commune of Quivira, hidden deep in an enchanted field of corn. Ashlyn becomes overwhelmingly attracted to a temperamental boy named Dane, but because Dane comes from the wrong bloodline, any relationship between them is forbidden. Entertaining though the sordid backstory and star-crossed romance can be, the real driving force of this story is Ashlyn's loyalty to her mother and brother. Debut novelist Liggett spins a complex but engrossing story as Ashlyn uncovers the truth about the dead girl in her visions and faces what it truly means to be a Larkin. Ages 14âup. Agent: Josh Adams, Adams Literary.

July 1, 2015
Ash finds herself trapped in the cult her mother grew up in, surrounded by carnivorous corn and possibly destined to have her body inhabited by an immortal ancestor.Ash has always been haunted by visions of a hanging girl, from whom her peculiar, mystical mom protects her with a series of invisible tattoos. But when her mother disappears, Ash and her twin brother, Rhys, suspect she's been taken back to her ancestral cult, and they set out to rescue her. Upon arriving, Ash is immediately drawn to Dane, who meets them in the car junkyard just beyond the boundaries of the corn. Turns out these cars foreshadow the fact that people who wander through this cornfield end up being eaten (unless they are magical like Dane). Once in the cult, Ash's visions begin revealing a fantastical back story that involves true love gone wrong, immortality, black magic, and plenty of bloodshed, all of which is difficult to follow. Equally confusing is how quickly Ash accepts the strange cult rituals and how her concern for her mother and brother only rarely surfaces. Stylistically, metaphors abound, but characters and their relationships are given far less attention and development. The end sets readers up for another installment. The combination of underexplained plotting, baroque setup, and inconsistent characters creates a bewildering read. (Paranormal romance. 14-18)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Dead bodies in a cornfield in the middle of Kansas, a mysterious ritual centuries in the making, visions of a dead girl, and the sinister plotting of an immortal Francisco Vazquez de Coronado all conspire to turn New York City teen Ash Larkin's life upside down in this complicated but original paranormal tale. Ash and her twin brother take off for Kansas to find their mother, who has decided to return to the cult she escaped when she was pregnant with them. Their spotty knowledge of family history and Ash's increasingly disturbing visions about her ancestors do not prepare the siblings for the people in the insular community of Quivira, who have clearly been waiting for them. Thrown into the center of a ritual she does not understand, Ash must sort through violent visions of 16th-century love, loss, and betrayal in order to find her mother and protect her brother. Help comes in the form of a handsome boy she's not sure she can trust. What readers know of the key players' complex histories and motivations changes as things are revealed to Ash in her visions, which makes the narrative difficult to follow at times. However, Liggett keeps things moving along with plenty of sexy, frightening, and funny moments. While the history gets a bit convoluted, the idea that when Coronado wandered into Kansas looking for gold, he stumbled across immortality and is still around, pulling puppet strings in a doomsday cult, is too good to pass up. VERDICT A sweeping, scary, and entertaining paranormal read.-Beth McIntyre, Madison Public Library, WI

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
Grades 9-12 Ashlyn has always seen visions of the dead girl, suspended from her ankles by a creaky rope, but it's not until she and her twin brother search for their missing mother in Quivira, the isolated community of their ancestors, that she finally understands the visions. Quivira, Kansas, surrounded on all sides by cornfields, is populated by worshipers of Katia, the immortal alchemist who brought their ancestors there from Spain centuries ago. Ashlyn is supposed to participate in their yearly ritual, but she is irresistibly drawn to forbidden Dane, who promises to help her escape. Before long, Ashlyn learns not only the secret of the dead girl from her vision but also the truth behind the founding myth of Quiviraand the secrets Dane has been keeping. Liggett's debut is riddled with so many magical devicesalchemy, past lives, evil corn, demons, pagan ritualsthat the plot and characters are often cloudy. Nevertheless, there's plenty of earthy atmosphere, lyrical descriptions, and intense physical chemistry between Ashlyn and Dane to satisfy patient readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)