This week’s series spotlight goes out there to any readers who are looking for a lengthy fantasy series to add to your TBR! The 7th installment in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series was released last week and we dare you to peep the list of awards that the books have collected since the first was published in 2016. Additionally, each book in this series tells the tale of a different child residing at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, so this may really appeal to readers who don’t prefer to follow one continuous story over the course of multiple books.
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This new story from a veteran fantasy author offers writing that’s full of imagery and evocative emotions and helps build suspense from the very first sentence. Behind the titular doorway lie alternate worlds, some magical, some dangerous, and some both. The children, mostly girls, who go through the doors become irrevocably changed, many of them becoming mature beyond their actual years. When they return to the real world, their families and friends no longer understand them. And some, like Nancy, want desperately to return to their alternate world, where they felt welcomed and loved.
Eleanor West was once a young traveler to those worlds, and now she runs a home for these wayward children, helping them adjust to reality. Just as Nancy begins to make a place for herself, a puzzling and gruesome series of murders threaten the students and the home’s very existence.
The characters are well-drawn, and their feelings about their impossible situation are believable. The alienation they experience and their struggles to find a way back will appeal to teens. When the murderer is revealed, the motivation will be understood by characters and readers alike. VERDICT: Though short (this tale is more novella than novel), this clever inside-out fantasy will intrigue fantasy fans and those who loved Ransom Riggs’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. —From School Library Journal
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- Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
- Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
- Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
- Book 4: In an Absent Dream
- Book 5: Come Tumbling Down
- Book 6: Across the Green Grass Fields
- Book 7: Where the Drowned Girls Go
- Select ebooks and audiobooks on Libby
- Audiobook on Hoopla
