Libba Bray‘s latest series, The Diviners, combines popular culture favorites from Roaring Twenties of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire series to Showtime’s Dexter’s most recent season of a serial killer’s elaborate staged murders set to bring about the End of Days. Throw in her trademark historical fiction and a dash of romance, and Bray’s new series is going to be a big hit.
The first book in the series centers around spunky, smart and convention-fighting Evie. She’s got too big of a personality for her small Ohio home town and at 17 has already crossed the conservative social lines one too many times. Sent to live in New York City until the latest scandal she’s caused calms down, Evie couldn’t be happier, knowing she truly belongs in the City of all Cities. The only downside is that she’ll be living with her stodgy Uncle Will, a bachelor professor who runs a decrepit museum housing collections of paranormal artifacts from across the country.
When a series of brutal, occult-style murders start ravaging the City, the police ask Unc to give them some insight into these baffling cases. And it’s here that Evie senses her true calling: what she always thought was no more than a parlor trick turns out to be the key to catching a madman. For Evie has the power of a diviner; by touching an object she can see into the owner’s past – his memories, thoughts and feelings, even his last moments, brutal as they may be. All she has to do now is convince Unc to trust what she’s seeing and allow her to help, before it’s too late to save the world.
Clever foreshadowing abounds, as do hints and clues to a mystery far greater than can be contained in a single book. There is just the right balance of paranormal, horror, and a well crafted historical setting to build a framework for a series, and in this first book Bray introduces a wide cast of characters who could (and probably will) all carry their own story in future volumes. I’m looking forward to getting to know them better and seeing how their powers will combine to thwart unspeakable, otherworldly evil.
- Posted by Cori