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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Silver Falls Library | YA WATSON | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | TEEN Watson, M. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Thrilling, atmospheric, and filled with ancient magic, this lyrically written YA debut is perfect for readers of The Raven Cycle and Wink Poppy Midnight .
Once a year, Wren is chased through the woods near her rural Ireland hometown in a warped version of a childhood game. Her pursuers belong to the judges, a group in control of an ancient, powerful magic they stole from her own people, the augurs . . . but they know nothing of her real identity. If they learned the truth, the game would surely turn deadly.
Though she knows the risks, Wren also goes on the hunt, taking a dangerous undercover assignment as an intern at enemy headquarters, the Harkness Foundation. If she can uncover a long-buried secret, she can save her family and end the judges' reign once and for all.
But as the web of lies, deceit, and betrayal thickens around Wren, she hurtles toward a truth that threatens to consume her and reveal who she really is. Not only has she come to the attention of powerful judge Cassa Harkness, but she is also falling dangerously in love with the one person she shouldn't. And she may need to decide which she'd rather lose, her heart or her life.
This spellbinding YA debut from Mary Watson is part thriller, part love story and entirely captivating.
Author Notes
Mary Watson grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where she worked as an art museum guide, library assistant, actress in children's musicals, front-of-house duty manager, and university lecturer. She now lives on the west coast of Ireland with her husband and three young children. After publishing a short story collection and novel for adults, she fell in love with the brave girls in YA books, which inspired her to write her debut novel for teens, The Wren Hunt .
www.marywatsonbooks.com
@stonemadonna
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Wren, an orphan raised in a community of augurs by her grandfather, is encouraged to stop the yearly wren hunt. But she doesn't. Readers live through the excruciating hunt with Wren as she hides in the ruin of a cottage once inhabited by Arabella de Courcy, an artist who had fallen in love with a tree man and is eventually killed by him. Epigraphs, perhaps from de Courcy's diary, are interwoven into Wren's story in such a subtle way that one doesn't immediately realize their significance. After the bloodshed of the hunt, Wren goes home in time to be chosen to spy on the Harkness Foundation, the epicenter of the judges, who are apparently bent on destroying the augurs. A slow-moving story at first, the novel picks up the pace with the introduction of Tarc, the head of security for the judges, and his forbidden and mutual attraction to Wren. What will happen when he discovers Wren's true mission and identity? Among increasingly blurry allegiances, the ending is a shocker and entirely satisfying. The fantastical work is reminiscent of Maggie Stiefvater's "Raven Cycle," with its search for a Welsh king in a Latin-speaking forest, and Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" series. Watson brings a deep and visceral voice to old stories as well as an authentic and modern urban sensibility, making this a highly stylized read. VERDICT Give this title a prominent place in YA collections. Highly recommend.-Janet Gross, Cushing Academy, Ashburnham, MA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in present-day Ireland, this YA debut from South African thriller writer Watson (The Cutting Room) tells the tale of two warring clans of druidic descendants: the augurs, who have a preternatural affinity for patterns, and the judges, who have a magical connection to nature. Both groups draw their power from sacred objects, called nemeta, most of which are now controlled by judges. Without access to nemeta, the augurs will become extinct, so 17-year-old Wren Silke goes undercover as an intern at Harkness House, the charity run by chief judge Calista Harkness, hoping to glean tactical information. Although Wren's augur abilities allow her to see the future, she fails to predict Calista's intense scrutiny-or the attraction she feels for Calista's bodyguard, Tarquin Gallagher. Despite a contrived setup and an overly complex mythology, Watson's core characters still enchant. Calista is a nuanced, sympathetic antagonist; Wren's struggles between love and duty, fate and free will are transfixing; and Wren and Tarquin's forbidden romance feels at once modern and folkloric. Ages 14-up. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Augurs scry prophecies from patterns, but 17-year-old Wren Silke is uncertain about her own future.Raised by her gruff grandfather Smith, Wren distrusts her own dark powers of apophenia but yearns to protect her "grove" of fellow augurs in Kilshamble, Ireland. To help the augurs in their secret war against the fearsome, violent judges, Wren reluctantly goes undercover, intending to find the Daragishka Knot and restore the augurs' power sources. Interning at the judge stronghold of Harkness House, Wren must deflect the avid attention of Calista Harkness; avoid Calista's nephew, predatory bully David; and struggle with her crush on brooding bruiser Tarc. Wren's visible differencesshe is half-white, half-other, dark-haired and brown-skinned, courtesy of an absent, perhaps Indian fatherare less about ethnic identity and more symbolic. Wren suffers from "Chosen One" syndromei.e., inexplicable allure, checklistlike prophecy, pivotal role in mythic battlebut is oddly passive; after Wren experiences Betrayal and Sacrifice, Surrender (the third element of the story surrounding the Knot) seems like an inevitability rather than a choice. Watson (The Cutting Room, 2013, etc.) excels at the quotidian details, but the fantastic elements are ill-explained and impressionistic: The Knot is a confusing MacGuffin, the magical terminology clunky, and the mythology contradictory.Lush, if meandering and muddled; good for fans of Maggie Stiefvater and Holly Black. (Fantasy. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In the isolated Irish village of Kilshamble, modernity and myths coexist. A summer internship is both a contemporary rite of passage for young people searching for their calling, and an opportunity to infiltrate the operations of an ancient enemy. Wren is descended from a powerful line of augurs, traditional wielders of Ireland's natural magic. Opposing them are the judges, ruthless and oppressive enforcers of order. Wren conceals her true identity in order to spy on the enterprises of the local judges, but a slowly burning romance with a secretive boy, along with growing doubts about her family's motives, begins to undermine her loyalty. The mythology introduced in this debut is lovely and haunting especially fascinating is the heroine's gift of divining the future from invisible natural patterns. A confused middle and a rushed, unsatisfying ending don't quite live up to the intriguing beginning, but readers who loved the dark lore and lyrical language of Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood (2018) might overlook the story's pitfalls.--Carolyn Kelly Copyright 2018 Booklist