Fates Divided

Finished November 4

Fates Divided by Jules Bernard

This is the first novel in the Halven Rising series. Set partly in our world and partly in a Fae world called Tirnan, this is a novel that brings the worlds together in an interesting way. Elena is enjoying college, studying chemistry, and becoming friends with her roommate Reese. Her mother left shortly after she was born, and her father died in a farm accident, but she is close to her cousin and grandmother. When she turns eighteen, odd things begin to happen. She sees a classroom where one doesn't exist and her senses seem more acute. When a group of tall blondes take her into an academic area she's not seen before and tell her that she is half-Fae (Halven) and needs to help them with a cure to a deadly disease killing Fae, she is overwhelmed. 

Then she meets Derek, a student who was offered a research opportunity to come to this college, who also has some unusual skills. She finds out that he is also Halven, and he's protective of her in terms of the Fae, who only seem to want what they think she can do.

As Elena discovers who her mother is and feels that going to the Fae world will be the only way to accomplish the task she's been given, she finds that the Fae themselves are divided but most of them seem to agree that Halven are inferior and undeserving of life. 

As Elena and Derek collaborate, others work to come between them and gain power for their own purposes. 

This novel is fast-moving with lots of characters and no clarity on who can be trusted. This series progresses in the combined worlds with each book, but each book is also a stand-alone story around a couple. The world-building is detailed enough for the plot without getting caught up in the details. 

The Fervor

Finished March 10

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

This novel combines historical fiction with horror. 

The story begin in 1944, and Meiko Briggs and her daughter Aiko are in Minidoka, a Japanese internment camp in Idaho. Meiko's husband Jamie is a pilot, currently serving in the Pacific. Through the novel we learn how they came to be where they are now after his deployment. 

We also see Archie, one of Jamie's friends, as he and his wife Elsie take a group of children to a fishing area in the mountains near them. When an explosion happens and people are hurt, Archie begins questioning why. 

We also see Fran, a journalist in Nebraska, as she witnesses an explosion and discovers something interesting in the aftermath when she is in a remote area on a tryst with her lover. 

Along with these three stories, that gradually converge, are excerpts from a Japanese diary from seventeen years earlier, when a scientist studying winds comes across another discovery. 

This historical narrative becomes horror when people at the camp, in Nebraska, and in other places start to die from a strange disease. With a group of men in suits and expensive cars recently arrived at the camp, Meiko catches one of them in the kitchen at night and begins to suspect that they are using the Japanese there to conduct some kind of experiment. 

This novel is gripping and scary as you follow the clues to figure out who is doing what and whether anyone can be trusted. 

Ghost Hawk

Finished April 13

Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper

I first came across Susan Cooper as a teenager, but I hadn't been aware of this book, so I was glad to come across it. This is historical fiction, with a touch of fantasy, and focuses on two boys. 

It starts with Little Hawk, a boy of the Pokanoket people. As the book opens, Little Hawk is preparing to go on his initiation journey, a journey that all boys take as they become men. There are four boys going out at this time, including Little Hawk's good friend Leaping Turtle. They take little with them: a bow, a tomahawk, and a knife. They go in the fall and return in the spring, and live in the wilderness alone through the winter. They must make their own shelter and find their own food. They must fast until the are visited by their Manitou, the animal spirit that will guide them throughout their life. 

Little Hawk goes through many trials during his journey, but he finds more when he returns, and finds his village almost deserted. Disease has ravaged it, leaving few survivors. He must gather with other nearby people and create a new village.

As he does this, he learns more of the leader Yellow Feather, who has negotiated a peace with the white men who have come recently to the land. And he interacts briefly with the child of one of them, a boy named John Wakeley. 

Some time later the two boys meet in a different place and this meeting will change both their lives irrevocably. From there the story follows John for the most part, as we see him make choices that will alienate him from some of his countrymen, and take him farther away from the places where he and Little Hawk met and continued their unusual friendship. 

This is a story of the early settlers in the United States, their interaction with the native people, and the prejudices and actions that determined the fate of both. 

The author includes a section at the back giving more historical information and context that will be useful for readers to place this book in the history of this continent.