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Magic Dark and Strange by Kelly Powell

2020; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 74; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bcc.2020.0704

1558-6766

Kate Quealy-Gainer,

Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health

Reviewed by: Magic Dark and Strange by Kelly Powell Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Powell, Kelly Magic Dark and Strange. McElderry, 2020 [208p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781534466081 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781534466104 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 6-9 Seventeen-year-old Catherine Daly spends her nights digging graves, restoring life to the dead for an hour so their loved ones—for a price—can say their last goodbyes. This time, her boss has an even more unusual job for her, finding a timepiece rumored to be able to bring back the dead permanently. She enlists the help of Guy Nolan, a watchmaker's apprentice, but unfortunately their mission goes awry when instead of finding the item she finds the body of a dead boy, a boy who is magically and seemingly permanently brought back to life right before her eyes. Her boss thinks she's hiding the timepiece, however, and now she's got to find the prize before he turns her out or gets her arrested. References to gaslit streetlamps, resurrectionists, and orphan houses along with the genteel formality of the dialogue lend the setting a distinctly Victorian flavor, but this is clearly a world where the supernatural is the everyday, as Guy can stop and even sell time, and Catherine is one of many able to raise the dead. The mystery of the timepiece is only mildly compelling and the villain easy to identify, but more interesting is the story of Owen, the revived dead boy who can't remember anything of his past, and Catherine and Guy's search to figure out his identity. Despite the morbid setup, this is a true cozy mystery with a tidy wrap-up, and a chaste romance between Catherine and Guy completes the quaint ending. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois