An Inheritance of Ashes

Starred review from August 24, 2015
This superb fantasy takes place in a grim world that readers will come to recognize as a future North America. Reasons for society’s collapse aren’t given, but civilization is at a roughly 19th-century level. Guns are considered relics, but no one thinks twice about having Hmong neighbors. Months ago 16-year-old Hallie’s brother-in-law, Thom, marched away from the farm she co-owns with her sister, Marthe, to fight the Wicked God Southward, an entity that traveled through a rent in the universe and, accompanied by its Twisted Things, was turning their world to ash. The ragtag human army defeated the Wicked God, but Thom, like many others, did not return; those who did have been badly damaged. When Hallie finds another Twisted Thing on the farm, the horror seems ready to return. Bobet (Above) is an accomplished stylist (a survivor of the war “carried the distance between us, five feet back and steady, like the borders of a whole universe”), and she insightfully examines the corrosive dangers of sibling rivalry in a story filled with impossible choices and unknowable ambiguities. Ages 12–up. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates.

October 1, 2015
Grades 7-10 Sixteen-year-old Hallie and her older sister, Marthe, are struggling to maintain the family farm after their father's death. With Marthe pregnant and her husband still not returned from the wars in the South, there's too much to do, and the once-easy and loving relationship between the sisters is strained. One day, a wandering soldier turns up, and Hallie convinces Marthe to accept his offer of work for room and board. But nothing is simple in this magical postapocalyptic world; strange creatures that torch everything they touch appear from nowhere, souls get trapped in netherworlds, and the hired man is not what he seems. Hallie's survival depends on her finding the courage to trust her extended family and community and establishing trust and love. Bobet's narrative voice is beautifully spare and richly creative: the blank pain vulturing on my shoulders. Bobet repeatedly emphasizes the importance familyof blood or of choiceplays in surviving calamity. The satisfying yet realistic ending will leave readers hoping for more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)