Aoife (pronounced Eefa) is just a few weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. Unlike most teens,
this is an event she’s dreading. At age sixteen Aoife’s mother, Nerissa, and
her brother, Conrad, went mad, and the necrovirus that ate away at their logic
and reason lies dormant in Aoife’s blood. Aoife, now a ward of the city of
Lovecraft, expects that she, too, will go mad on her birthday. Until then she
applies herself to the thing she loves – engineering. She’s always had a knack
for working with machines, and she studies hard at the School of Engines.
Perhaps the numbers, figures and pure science running through her mind will
keep the madness at bay.
Then
Conrad makes contact via a stained letter slipped under Aoife’s dormroom door.
The ghost ink yields a strange and frightening message:
“The ink
of the HELP lifted off the page, suspended in the smoke, corpse-pale. As
the smoke dissipated, the ink stretched and re-formed, spelling a new phrase in
its ghostly hand, the encoded message the ghost ink had kept hidden.
Go to
Graystone
Find
the witch’s alphabet
Save
yourself”
With
these words Aoife’s life changes and expands in ways she could never have
imagined. Along with her best friend, Cal, Aoife hires the handsome guide Dean
Harrison to sneak them out of the city to her father’s house in Arkham. Aoife
thought that getting out of Lovecraft would be the difficult part, but more
hazards lie ahead than behind. Once at Arkham the trio will find long-buried
family secrets, dangerous creatures and maybe even romance…if they survive.
This
novel was simply amazing. The author has invented an alternate reality where
logic and reason dictate social norms, and those who believe otherwise, the
heretics, are hunted down and punished by cowled, over-lording proctors. In the
midst of this closed environment Aoife shines in her determination and stubborn
refusal to be anything other than herself. Her personality is deftly drawn by
Kittredge, and readers will find themselves cheering for her as she risks
everything to find her brother. Personally, I can't wait for the second book in this new, exciting series, and I highly recommend it to fans of steampunk, fantasy and adventure.
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