Compulsion

September 8, 2014
In Boone’s debut, an expansive Southern gothic tale, Barrie Watson is sent to live with her aunt Pru on Watson Island after Barrie’s shut-in mother, Lula, dies and her godfather is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Barrie was born with a “finding gift” that compels her to seek what is lost or left unsettled, and amid the Beaufort and Colesworth clans—the founding families of Watson Island, along with Barrie’s forebears—Barrie learns she isn’t the only one with a gift. Curses plague Watson Island, ghosts haunt its mansions, evil spirits live in its woods, and a frightening “Fire Carrier” emerges at night over its waters. Together, Barrie and a handsome Beaufort boy named Eight seek justice and to right old wrongs. Though the novel is grounded in the present day, there’s an old-fashioned quality to Boone’s dialogue and characters; she skillfully blends rich magic and folklore with adventure, sweeping romance, and hidden treasure, all while exploring the island and its accompanying legends. An impressive start to the Heirs of Watson Island series. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kent Wolf, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin.

September 1, 2014
After the death of Barrie Watson's heavily scarred, shut-in mother and her beloved godfather's terminal cancer diagnosis, Barrie's sent from San Francisco to her aunt's South Carolina plantation home. The first clue Barrie gets that something's off is the revelation that even her mother's twin, Pru, believed Barrie's mother had died in the same fire that killed Barrie's father before Barrie was born. But abnormal's routine for Barrie-she's inherited the Watson gift, a magical ability to find things. While settling in, she learns the gift's history and its entanglement with the town's other two other founding families, the Beauforts and the Colesworths. Privateers, Cherokee witch ghosts and voodoo collide in the mythology Barrie untangles while discovering why her mother left and her own role as a scion of two families: Her Watson mother ran away with a cursed Colesworth. Barrie's Colesworth connection gives her a charismatic new cousin she wants to trust and an uncle she definitely doesn't. There's also a handsome Beaufort possessing his own family gift, but the romance's forced. Barrie's a standard teen heroine-clumsy, artistic and unaware of her beauty. The first, molasses-slow act lingers on lavish, Spanish moss-filled derelict plantations and location-specific details (like Cheerwine)-once things start happening, though, even darker family secrets are unearthed, heightening suspense. A paranormal Southern gothic with decadent settings, mysterious magic and family histories rife with debauchery for patient readers. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)

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August 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-After the death of her mother, and her loving caretaker Mark's losing battle with cancer sends him to hospice, Barrie Watson makes her way from San Francisco to live with her Aunt Pru on her family's estate on Watson Island in South Carolina. Curious about her father, who died in a fire that led to her mother's facial scars and reclusiveness, Barrie is eager to meet relatives on both sides of her family for the first time. What she discovers is far more complicated than the open-armed reunion she'd desired. Watson Island is bound by an old curse that has kept its three founding families, the Watsons, the Beauforts, and the Colesworths, at odds with one another for years. The mysterious Fire Carrier that appears over the river outside of her window each night holds the key to some part of the curse, and the yunwi (spirits that keep watch around Watson Landing) are clearly trying to communicate something to the protagonist. She uses her gift for finding things that have been lost, with some help from dreamy Eight Beaufort, to figure out the secrets that have held her family captive. A little bit Gone with the Wind, a little bit Romeo and Juliet, along with a hearty dose of the paranormal, Boone's debut mixes a Southern gothic setting with fantasy and romance for an engrossing, albeit over-the-top mystery. Although the plot at times becomes overly complicated and the drama is of the hand-to-the-forehead fainting variety, this book will appeal to fans of paranormal and traditional romances.-Joanna Sondheim, Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 When her mother, Lula, dies, Barrie is sent off to her aunt's palatial plantation home in South Carolina. She has never met her aunt, and Lula never spoke of her life before the fire that left her scarred and her husband, Barrie's father, dead. That mystery alone would be enough to intrigue 17-year-old Barrie, but when she arrives at Watson Landing, her supernatural gifta powerful compulsion to find any lost thinggoes into overdrive. What has been lost at Watson Landing, and what will happen when Barrie finally finds it? Meanwhile, conflicts among the Watsons and the two other founding families of the beach town bubble to the surface as Barrie navigates her new family and a community preoccupied with knowing everything about her. Then there's the hottie who lives across the river and seems to understand everything she wants. While it sometimes sags under the weight of its occasionally ragged pacing and overstuffed plot, debut author Boone's southern gothic certainly delivers a compelling mystery about feuding families and buried secrets, not to mention a steamy romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)