The Valley and the Flood

Starred review from August 15, 2020
When the past keeps usurping your present, can you tell what's real anymore? Senior Rose Colter's car breaks down somewhere between Las Vegas and San Diego in the middle of a dark desert night a few days before New Year's Eve. When her radio picks up the broadcast of a voicemail from her best friend, Gaby, who died a year ago, Rose decides to walk toward a distant, blinking radio tower where she finds the town of Lotus Valley, someplace she can wait while her car is repaired. The local residents are wary of her presence, and Rose learns there's a prophecy predicting a cataclysmic flood--and she is the harbinger. Rose has been diagnosed with PTSD that she usually tries to keep hidden, and thanks to the help of her therapist (who checks in with her), she is aware of the ways it influences her perceptions. However, her symptoms become tangled up in the memory manipulation of a lurking creature who is focused on her. This is a story strongly crafted in the vein of surreal fiction about memories and grief, with flashes of times and places past, and creatures somewhere between shadows, eldritch horrors, and bogeymen. In this ensnaring tale, debut author Mahoney strikes a flowing balance, weaving together suspense, connection, uncanniness, healing, devastation, and hope. Rose is White, and the supporting cast contains characters of color and queer representation. Superb storytelling. (Fabulism. 14-18)

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October 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-Rose, grieving the death of her best friend Gaby, breaks down in the Nevada desert, with only the thinnest hope of rescue: A radio tower that somehow is repeating the final message Gaby left on Rose's phone. Striking out for the unknown village of Lotus Valley, Rose, who is white, discovers she is the subject of a prophecy that spells doom for the entire town. Along with the regular townsfolk, "neighbors" live in dark places and abandoned buildings; Rose learns that these beings are formed when an event occurs in someone's life that changes it forever. As the population of "neighbors" grows, so does their menace. And Rose finds it nearly impossible to shoulder the burden of saving the town along with her own sanity. Debut author Mahoney deals with themes of grief and loss in a Twilight Zone setting where citizens accept the presence of spirit "neighbors" as part of their town's commitment to hospitality. She carefully ratchets up the tension: Will Rose be able to accept her own pain and shame and help Lotus Valley, or will the citizens literally drown beneath the weight of their shared experiences? In addition to Rose, interesting characters abound, including a collection of "prophets" who all hold a different piece of the puzzle...if they can be persuaded to share it, rather than holding on to their own self-interest. The story requires some intuitive thinking, and Rose often seems like an unreliable narrator, so it's better for older readers. VERDICT Part mystery, part thriller, part horror-lite, this genre-bending story will be popular with many teens.-Elizabeth Friend, Wester M.S., TX

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2020
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* One year after her best friend Gaby's death, Rose's car breaks down in the middle of the Mojave Desert, stranding her physically and emotionally near the eerie town of Lotus Valley. After Rose hears a ghostly voice coming from her radio, Mahoney's refreshing, magical debut follows her on a journey to find Gaby--and to escape the haunting memories of her friend's overbearing mother and the secrets of the unpleasant young man who was in the driver's seat the night Gaby died. In Lotus Valley, Rose finds herself surrounded by psychic prophets, a nostalgic diner with to-die-for pie, a wolfish mayor and her cronies, and paralyzing flashbacks and triggers to the PTSD she was diagnosed with. Mahoney has crafted a wholly unique world, replete with mysterious, otherworldly "neighbors" and a foreboding prophecy that Rose's arrival in town will bring about an apocalyptic flood. It's up to Rose and her allies--including the town's third-best prophet, bumbling interns, her reliable therapist, and a fashionable sheriff--to figure out how to prevent the destruction, but only Rose herself can calm the storm within. Something strange has followed her to Lotus Valley, and in this poignant exploration of emotion and trauma, she must make a stand and figure out who she wants to be.

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