Blackwood
Authors: Gwenda Bond
Tags: #Roanoke Island, #Speculative Fiction, #disappearance, #YA fiction, #vanishing, #Adventure, #history repeating, #All-American mystery
| Blackwood | |
| Gwenda Bond | |
| Strange Chemistry (2012) | |
| Rating: | *** |
| Tags: | Roanoke Island, Speculative Fiction, disappearance, YA fiction, vanishing, Adventure, history repeating, All-American mystery |
On Roanoke Island, the legend of the 114 people who mysteriously vanished from the Lost Colony hundreds of years ago is just an outdoor drama for the tourists, a story people tell. But when the island faces the sudden disappearance of 114 people now, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bringing them back.
Miranda, a misfit girl from the island's most infamous family, and Phillips, an exiled teen criminal who hears the voices of the dead, must dodge everyone from federal agents to long-dead alchemists as they work to uncover the secrets of the new Lost Colony. The one thing they can't dodge is each other.
Blackwood
is a dark, witty coming of age story that combines America's oldest mystery with a thoroughly contemporary romance.
Story Locale:
Roanoke Island, WA
Gwenda Bond writes young adult fantasy. She is also a contributing writer for Publishers Weekly, and her nonfiction work has appeared in the Washington Post, Locus Magazine, Subterranean Online, and Lightspeed, among others. She has been a guest on NPR's Weekend Edition, and also guest-edited a special YA issue of Subterranean Online. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts' program in writing for children and young adults.
Readers of the long-running zine Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet may know her best as everyone's Dear Aunt Gwenda. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband author Christopher Rowe, and their pets: Hemingway the Cat, Polydactyl, LLC; Miss Emma the Dog-Girl, CPA; and Puck the Puppy, INC
Author Residence:
Lexington, KY
"What delighted me about
Blackwood
was not only that it's about the Lost Colony, but also that it's a supernatural approach to the disappearance...A Favorite Book Read in 2012." -
Lizzy Burns
, SchoolLibraryJournal.com
"This haunting, romantic mystery intrigues, chills, and captivates."
-New York Times bestselling author
Cynthia Leitich Smith
"With whip-smart, instantly likable characters and a gothic small-town setting, Bond weaves a dark and gorgeous tapestry from America's oldest mystery."
-
Scott Westerfeld
, New York Times bestselling author of the Leviathan series
"A deft and clever debut! Bond takes some reliably great elements-a family curse, the mark of Cain, the old and endlessly fascinating mystery of the Roanoke Colony-and makes them into something delightfully, surprisingly new. How does she do that? I suspect witchcraft."
-
Karen Joy Fowler
, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club
"Weird, wise and witty, Blackwood is great fun."
-
Marcus Sedgwick
(shortlisted on 4 occasions for the Carnegie Medal, shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Award and won the Booktrust Teen Award)
"Miranda Blackwood's battle against her own history is utterly modern-and utterly marvelous. She's truly a heroine all readers can rally behind."
-
Micol Ostow
, author of
family
and *So Punk Rock
"Blackwood is an excellent choice for anyone looking for paranormal YA, mystery, or just something a little bit different. Unlike a number of other recent YA titles, the romantic elements are fairly low-key. I think this makes Blackwood particularly boy-friendly, and also a good crossover title for adult readers.
"
-* Jen Robinson's Book Page
"It's definitely a wistful sort of novel about being different and dealing with scary stuff like losing your family and falling in love, as much as it is about ancient evils and terrible curses and supernatural menaces. It's nice to see a gentler, more personal sort of coming-of-age-and-battling evil novel, although of course
Blackwood
does deliver the required showdown with the forces of evil with the fate of the world at stake."
-
Charlie Jane Anders
, io9.com
"This book was an excellent mystery, full of romance, ghosts, ancient curses, historical figures, betrayal, and so much more."
-
Delaney
(age 12), Sacramento Book Review
"There's quality writing here and Bond has some amazingly original idea. For fans of history, the supernatural, romance, pop culture references, and alternating POVs."
-
Gillyb
, Writer of Wrongs
Praise for
GWENDA BOND
"Weird, wise and witty, Blackwood is great fun."
Marcus Sedgwick, author of
Midwinterblood
and
White Crow
"This haunting, romantic mystery intrigues, chills, and captivates."
New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith
GWENDA BOND
Blackwood
Contents
Chapter 1
The Silence
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Island
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
The Return
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For my parents (principals but never fascists)
and
for Christopher (my partner-in-crime)
Entry from
A Brief History of the Unexplained
T
he Lost Colony of Roanoke Island
. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh began his push for English settlement in the Americas. Establishing a settlement in North America was attractive to both Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I – sure to bolster his influence and power as well as England's by opening access to a New World believed to be full of riches and by providing a staging ground for privateers to capture Spanish treasures on the high seas. Raleigh was granted seven years in which to make a successful colony in the lands then known as Virginia, after the virgin queen herself. The effort instead yielded one of the most enduring mysteries of the modern age.
After earlier trips proved largely exploratory, more than one hundred would-be colonists signed on to a 1587 voyage designed to finally create a permanent settlement on what is now Roanoke Island, part of North Carolina's Outer Banks island chain. But the journey proved harsh, as did the colonists' new home. Unfavorable conditions for cultivating crops and growing hostility with local Native American tribes made their future in America look bleak, especially without the hope of fresh supplies from England. Governor of the settlement John White – an artist by training whose daughter Eleanor Dare had just given birth to Virginia, the first English child born in the Americas – was chosen to go back to their homeland and petition Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth for help.
Unable to return for three long years, when White reached the site of the colony he found no sign of those he had left behind – save for a single word carved into an oak tree: CROATOAN. But a trip to that nearby island turned up no further traces of the missing colonists. The disappearance of the one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children of the Roanoke colony, known now as the Lost Colony, remains unexplained to this day.
For what we sometimes were, we are no more;
Fortune hath changed our shape, and Destiny
Defaced the very form we had before.
Sir Walter Raleigh,
Petition to the Queen
1
Miranda
The first time Miranda Blackwood checked the back of her closet for a portal to another world she was eleven. That was the year her mother died. After the closet, she tried other places. She wandered small patches of woods, seeking doors hidden in twisted trees, and peered into mirrors, searching for reflections that weren't her own.
But Miranda grew up. She no longer hoped to step over a secret threshold and leave Roanoke Island behind forever. Instead, she grabbed whatever escapes were in reach, no matter what they were. No matter that she stayed right here.
For three summers running, her best escape had been interning for
The Lost Colony
at Waterside Theater. She sanded wood, hammered nails, sewed seams, and did whatever else needed doing to make the show's version of history – complete with musical numbers – come alive for the tourists. In exchange for those hours of scutwork done without complaint, the stage manager, Polly, let Miranda join her at the side of the outdoor stage every night to watch the show's final scenes.
The set's faux oak tree, hollow boulders, and packed dirt floor passed for an abandoned settlement, except for the shining spotlights. While Miranda half-listened for her favorite part, she cocked her head back to take in the stars light years above. The view was as familiar to her as the small constellation of calluses dotting her palms, or as the lines of the play drawing to a close beside her. As familiar and set as everything in Miranda's life.