For fans of Wilder Girls comes a nightmarish debut guaranteed to keep you up through the night, about an idyllic small town poisoned by its past, and one girl who must fight the strange disease that’s slowly claiming everyone she loves.
Wren owes everything she has to her hometown, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture-perfect slice of America. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family’s farm. At least, they did. Until five months ago.
That’s when the Quicksilver blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops, thick silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes fogged white, leering from the trees.
Then the blight came for the neighbors.
Wren is among the last locals standing, and the blight has finally come for her, too. Now the only one she can turn to is her ex, Derek, the last person she wants to call. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common: Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only, there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its celebrated miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.
Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.
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School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-The four founding families of Hollow's End have been raising miracle crops for generations, bringing stability and lucrative tourism to the idyllic and secluded farming town. When the quicksilver blight attacks, it destroys the crops first, coating plants in glistening silver sludge and a rotting stench. Next it comes for the animals and finally for the people, who develop foggy white eyes and run off to the forest, returning at night to mindlessly attack. After Wren is exposed to the blight, she and her ex-boyfriend Derek try to stop the menace and learn the dark truth about their families' legacy. Fraistat's debut is richly detailed and pulsing with harrowing suspense. As Wren and Derek race around town in a truck and on horseback, narrowly escaping the increasingly aggressive blighted horde, Wren grapples with her own transformation. Her perspective as the blight overtakes her is intriguing, adding complexity with the discovery that the blighted are not senseless zombies. Horror tropes are put to good use to create a tense plot that unfolds at a breakneck pace. Lush detail brings the town and the gruesome blight to life, along with a hefty dose of body horror. Fraistat uses the concept of harvest to explore the idea of taking responsibility for one's own actions and the lingering harms of ancestors' wrongs. Wren presents as white, while Derek presents as white and Latinx. Derek's sister and her girlfriend are prominent secondary characters. Recommend to fans of Rory Power's Wilder Girls or Claire Legrand's Sawkill Girls. VERDICT This atmospheric tale of zombies and rotting legacies is riveting, and recommended for general purchase.-Elizabeth Lovsin?(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.