Daughters unto Devils

October 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-There isn't a moment of reprieve for haunted protagonist Amanda Verner in Lukavics's intensely creepy debut. Tormented by the guilt of sleeping with a local post boy and the unplanned pregnancy that results and confused by the strange visions that appeared after the birth of Hannah, her blind and deaf sister, Amanda is convinced that the troubles that follow her family are a result of her sins. Turn-of-the-century prairie life is already intrinsically tough. The previous winter was long and arduous, and the small cabin that her family has called home no longer seems hospitable for the coming one. In a protective move, her father decides to relocate the family to an abandoned settlement, where the harsh winter weather should prove milder. The Verners enter their new abode, a large cabin that from the outside looks promising, to find the floors and walls covered with blood. This is only the first in a series of chilling ordeals that ultimately leads to possession, death, and a flight from a demon whose evil seems baked into the very land the family inhabits. VERDICT There is no happy ending here and horror, and spine-tingler readers, YA and adult alike, will relish Lukavics's tale right down to the last terrifying page.-Joanna Sondheim, Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City

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July 15, 2015
An old-fashioned ghost story plays on primal fears: parents turning on children, the dread of what is out there, and the horror of what might be within. Teen Amanda has been playing out in the woods, and she hasn't been playing alone. Against all teachings of her religious family-and after suffering a devastating breakdown the previous winter-she is now "with child" and trying to hide her secret in the family's crowded mountain cabin. Set in the unspecified past, the tale is reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder's, even including parents called Ma and Pa. Relocation by ox-drawn wagon begins when Pa decides to follow rumors of a better life available out on the prairie, and soon, true to the genre, they move into a cabin thick with old blood and gore. Amanda laments, "I'm starting to believe that Hell is everywhere," and readers won't disagree. There's pestilence in the form of ants, feverish plague, and evil of, well, biblical proportion; Job has nothing on this family. This is nightmare on the prairie, and on the mountain, and in the woods, and pretty much everywhere in between; the only real question is which devil will get them: the one within Amanda or the ones circling the cabin? The fast pace and period dialogue mesh reasonably well. Best read late at night in a tent with a trusted friend nearby.... (Horror. 14 & up)

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