Good day, persons of book interests, and welcome to the latest edition of the Humpback Writers, the book feature that falls on Hump Day, but as far as we know has no actual hunchbacks among the writers. I keep asking but they refuse to acknowledge one way or another. Of course many of the writers are no longer alive to return my calls, but today's writer, England's own Jonathan Stroud, is alive and kicking. And leaping.
Stroud is best known, and justifiably so, for two of the great fantasy series of the modern day, the Bartimaeus books and the Lockwood & Co. books. The Bartimaeus books are set in an alternate world where magic works because of the use of the capture of extra-dimensional demons, such as the snarky narrator, Bartimaeus; Lockwood & Co. stars a company of ghost-hunters in a London where dangerous hauntings have suddenly erupted. Both series are full of humor and suspense and genuine frights. They are targeted to young adult readers (that is, teens), as is today's one-off title, but I'd recommend them to any adult as well.
The Leap is a different sort of fantasy novel. It takes place in current times, but tells a much more personal tale. At the story's beginning, a boy named Max has drowned in a mill pond. Max's best friend, Charlotte (called Charlie), almost died trying to save him. During the event she saw strange and horrible things -- and no one believes her. And it's not surprising that they don't:
And then I noticed other things moving in the water; pale thin women with long hair streaming like river moss, who wrapped their arms around him as he spun in the waters of the mill pool.
I swam toward them, and they turned, and Max's face was white and his eyes were open, but I knew he couldn't see me anymore. He smiled and the women smiled with him, and they could see me all right -- they were looking at me with eyes as green as buried pebbles.
Charlie's single mom and her older brother are terribly concerned about her, of course, even though she stops trying to tell the truth and goes along with the usual psychologists and grief counselors. She is sure that something strange has happened to Max, but can't understand what. Then she starts to have exceptionally vivid dreams, beginning with coming out of the water and finding something shocking:
I bent down to the nearest print. It was crisscrossed with lines and had an oval imprint in the heel. Crouching there, I bit my lip until it bled; Max's Nike trainers had that pattern in the sole. Before I straightened, a vague dread made me scan the sand for a few yards on either side of Max's trail, but there was no sign that anyone else accompanied him.
Where is Max going? Why is Charlie having this dream?
Night after night, Charlie follows the trail, hoping to catch up to Max. Then one day she wakes up and finds that the cuts she sustained in the dream are on her body, and thus somehow her dreams are real. Which means Max must be alive somewhere.
Her actions in the waking world become increasingly distressing to her little family, who find her doing things like searching around Max's house, upsetting his mother and father. The crisis and the suspense build through the book. Something very strange is going on, and Charlie is determined to find out what -- but the farther she travels, the more it looks like her own life is in jeopardy.
It's a moody story, so well and richly written that it's hard to believe it's just over 230 large-print pages. Stroud is simply an excellent wordsmith with an imagination to match.
If you like fantasy novels but are not convinced that The Leap is your cup of tea, do try one of his other books. I have not yet read them all but I've enjoyed all that I have.
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