Deborah Noyes is the author of two adult novels, as well as The Ghosts of Kerfol and other books for young readers. About Plague in the Mirror, her first novel for young adults, she says, "I'm fascinated by twinship and the idea of another person out there wearing your face in the world and behaving badly. But in this story, the setting is as much a character as the two protagonists. With all those layers of human endeavor, suffering, triumph, vanity -- the past is like rich, dark soil or an old-growth forest. It's a dense, haunted place, and I guess I'm inclined to feel haunted." Deborah Noyes lives in western Massachusetts. Amy Rubinate has been a professional voice actor and singer for over a decade. In addition to her audiobook work, she has narrated and provided character voices for many toys, video games, and interactive books for children. She is the voice of Leapfrog's Tad toys.
Gr 9 Up-The summer before May's senior year, she goes to Florence with a friend of her mother's and her son, May's childhood best friend. May's parents are getting a divorce, and she needs to decide which one she will stay with once she returns. Liam, whom she has always thought of as a kind of brother, is showing signs that his feelings for her are far warmer than she's prepared to deal with. To compound her confusion, a haunting figure appears at the foot of her bed during the night. Her ghostlike twin has come to lure her into a desperate trade: May will go to 14th-century Florence, while she, Cristofana, takes her place in a world free of the plague. May visits ancient Florence with Cristofana and becomes obsessed with a handsome young artist named Marco. Will her passion lead her to choose what is clearly the more dangerous option? Although the premise should make Noyes's first YA novel an absorbing read, the dissonance that May experiences is the same that readers encounter while attempting to put a picture together of what this book is trying to be. Is it historical fiction? A horror story? A romance? A book can certainly be all three, but in this title, the history lessons are too forced, the horror is too unbelievable, and the romance so nonsensical that readers will be frustrated.-Kathy Kirchoefer, Henderson County Public Library, NC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
