Book One:
Three Stars - Which means I liked it!! Enough that I already checked out book 2!
Cadence is different here - lots of slang and casual prose. Ghostalking is a profession in futuristic Edinburgh and Ropa is a teenage Ghostalker responsible for her family. She is hard shelled, poor, a hard worker and sees dead people, and she owes rent. She makes money delivering messages from the other side, until one client has a missing son and asks Ropa for help. She immediately is over her head but is determined to discover what happened to the missing boy, and finds several of Edinburgh’s other kids are missing too. What is going on???? Well constructed and definitely different. It took a while to really get into the plot, lots of backstory here. The style took some getting used to but I enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. Is this indicative of modern British/Scottish literature?? Cool.
Cadence is different here - lots of slang and casual prose. Ghostalking is a profession in futuristic Edinburgh and Ropa is a teenage Ghostalker responsible for her family. She is hard shelled, poor, a hard worker and sees dead people, and she owes rent. She makes money delivering messages from the other side, until one client has a missing son and asks Ropa for help. She immediately is over her head but is determined to discover what happened to the missing boy, and finds several of Edinburgh’s other kids are missing too. What is going on???? Well constructed and definitely different. It took a while to really get into the plot, lots of backstory here. The style took some getting used to but I enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. Is this indicative of modern British/Scottish literature?? Cool.
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Book Two:
Four Stars! Ok, I jumped right into this one after reading The Library of the Dead. This second book was unputdownable which is now a word. I love Ropa's voice, her slang, her family, and her loyalty. I love her friends and her talents and how she handles her imperfect but well meaning self in her new role as intern in a magical library. (She used to be a "ghostalker", carrying messages from the other side back to loved ones left behind - for a fee of course). She is a hustler and quite mature for a 15 year old!!! The setting of a not so distant future Edinburgh and the many references to the Catastrophe and how much of a slum the city is now is done only in passing. I am hopeful some of that will come to light in a future installment, as the author has said there should be a total of five books (yea!).
This installment has Ropa, her cradle bff Jomo and their new friend and healer Priya tasked with figuring out why local boys from magical schools are showing up comatose with high fevers, and end up chasing a dark demon, lots of money, better jobs, and for Ropa, a better future for her little sister Izwi. We get more characters in this story, with a more confusing mystery to solve, and some serious old magic. I felt like this novel flowed a little better even with a few "bridges" that sort of jumped time. But I really got into the cadence here of Ropa's narration, her slang, her life, and her intentions. I also hope we get more from her Zimbabwean grandmother in the next installment - of her powers and her history - like we did in the first novel.
A fun new character and series for me - I can see this as YA, but there is some language and some weird demonic violence. No romance though, which I appreciated, but some solid friendships that take a licking and keep on ticking.
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