Description (from cover):
"Do you believe there are ghosts and demons and Diviners among us?
Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped of to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It's 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.
Evie worries he'll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.
As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened...
Printz Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Libba Bray opens a brand-new historical series with The Diviners, where the glittering surface of the Roaring Twenties hides a mystical horror creeping across the country."My thoughts:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has just the right mix of historical fiction, occult, fantasy and mystery to keep my utterly captivated. Libba Bray has a fantastic writing style and her characters are easy to fall in love with and feel for. This takes place in the Roaring Twenties era of New York with speakeasies and flapper culture all over the place. Evie O'Neill is freshly arrived from a small backwater town Ohio, where nothing ever happens and she is bored to tears. She finds herself in trouble for upsetting the society of the small town and her parents exile her to Manhattan to visit her Uncle Will in hopes that he can straighten her out. Why would anyone think that NYC is the place to straighten someone out is beyond me, but nevertheless she arrives and immediately is caught up in the flapper scene.
There's a murderer on the loose, who seems to have an occult theme to his murders and the police ask Evie's uncle Will to help them investigate as he is the head of the Occult Museum and is somewhat a specialist in the dark world of the occult. Providing his help with the police, Evie can't help herself and finds herself drawn to finding clues and learning more about a special talent that she has. She learns that this special talent can help solve the murders and bring a criminal to justice. Evie finds some friends along the way that help her and all have their own unique gifts that they can bring to the table.
This is the first book in the Diviners series by Libba Bray and you can tell by the ending and the use of foreshadowing that there is a lot in store for Evie and her friends. I love the way Bray uses the slang from that era in this book. You really feel like you are a part of the flapper scene. The author paints a beautiful scene in New York City in the mid-twenties. I can't wait to see what happens and where the friends are heading in their fight with dark forces and evil beyond comprehension. A lot of questions are left unanswered and I can't wait to see what answers we get in the next book and what the future holds for these loveable characters.
Overall Rating: 5/5
Title: The Diviners
Author: Libba Bray
Series: Diviners #1
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
Pages: 592
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Disclaimer: This book was selected from the library by myself and I reviewed this book without compensation of any kind. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.
