by Frances Hardinge
ages: 11+
First sentence: “It was a burnished, cloudless day with a tug-of-war wind, a fine day for flying.”
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This book is much like that proverbial boulder: it takes a while to get going, but once it gets started, it rolls down the hill until it crashes to a stop, leaving you breathless.

It’s the story of an island where there’s tension between the colonists and the native peoples, the Lace. There are people — Lost, they call them — who can spend time outside of their bodies. The island needs them — it’s how they communicate over vast differences — but doesn’t exactly trust them. And when all of them, except for one Lace Lost, Arilou, suddenly die, an investigation starts. And sends Arilou and her sister, the unobtrusive Hathin, on the run for their lives.

It sounds pedantic, and for the first 200 pages or so, it is. Hardinge is a gifted writer, one of the least clunky similie and metaphor writers that I’ve ever read. They roll of the page effortlessly, drawing the reader in, rather then putting them off. But even her gifted writing couldn’t keep the first part from dragging a bit. Which is sad, because many people (like M) will give up before the book really gets exciting. Because, right around the 1/3 mark, it does. Hardinge starts weaving in folk tales and traditions, giving life and personality to volcanoes, and turns the book into a bit of an adventure story and mystery. There are twists and turns, help from unexpected sources, and a bad guy who is scary because he’s so reasonable and so wrong at the same time.

And all of that adds together to make this book a true pleasure to read.