Overview
Role-playing takes on a terrifying cast when 17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a school fair, begins to see actual visions that can predict the future. Frightened, the other students brand her a witch, setting off a chain of events that mirror the centuries-old Salem witch trials in more ways than one.
When seventeen-year-old Sarah works in the fortune-telling booth at a school carnival, she finds that sometimes she can really see the future in the crystal ball, a talent that disturbs some of the other students and makes them suspect her of being a witch.
Synopsis
Role-playing takes on a terrifying cast when 17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a school fair, begins to see actual visions that can predict the future. Frightened, the other students brand her a witch, setting off a chain of events that mirror the centuries-old Salem witch trials in more ways than one.
Publishers Weekly
Duncan (Stranger with My Face) delights in building suspense brick by brick until she has a whole creepy wall to collapse at the climax. This time, her mortar is an eerie crystal paperweight, the Salem witchcraft trials, hints of reincarnation and the unsteady alliances of step families. Sarah and her mother, Rosemary, have moved to a small, conservative town in the Ozarks because Rosemary has fallen in love with the hypocritical, still-married Ted. Sarah tries to fit in at the high school, but she has no friends-until the too-perfect Eric asks Sarah to be a fortune-teller at the Halloween carnival. Speed ahead in the predictable plot, and Sarah finds that she really can read future disaster in the crystal ball. Soon, frightened classmates proclaim her a witch, put a dead crow in her locker and lure her to a remote gallows to meet her fate amid a crowd of unbalanced teens and a blazing bonfire. While the characters are far too pat-the jolly fat boy, cruel cheerleaders, evil handsome class president, shrill ex-wife, bossy stepfather-Duncan nevertheless propels the reader along, dropping sinister clues on every page like bread crumbs in a forest. As in many YA suspense novels, the adults are unsympathetic and clueless, allowing their teens to run rampant into the alluring arms of evil. The real nightmare of being a teenager is having nobody believe you or help you conquer your demons, but in this book, Sarah manages through self-reliance to face her fears, both natural and supernatural.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Duncan (Stranger with My Face) delights in building suspense brick by brick until she has a whole creepy wall to collapse at the climax. This time, her mortar is an eerie crystal paperweight, the Salem witchcraft trials, hints of reincarnation and the unsteady alliances of step families. Sarah and her mother, Rosemary, have moved to a small, conservative town in the Ozarks because Rosemary has fallen in love with the hypocritical, still-married Ted. Sarah tries to fit in at the high school, but she has no friends-until the too-perfect Eric asks Sarah to be a fortune-teller at the Halloween carnival. Speed ahead in the predictable plot, and Sarah finds that she really can read future disaster in the crystal ball. Soon, frightened classmates proclaim her a witch, put a dead crow in her locker and lure her to a remote gallows to meet her fate amid a crowd of unbalanced teens and a blazing bonfire. While the characters are far too pat-the jolly fat boy, cruel cheerleaders, evil handsome class president, shrill ex-wife, bossy stepfather-Duncan nevertheless propels the reader along, dropping sinister clues on every page like bread crumbs in a forest. As in many YA suspense novels, the adults are unsympathetic and clueless, allowing their teens to run rampant into the alluring arms of evil. The real nightmare of being a teenager is having nobody believe you or help you conquer your demons, but in this book, Sarah manages through self-reliance to face her fears, both natural and supernatural.Publishers Weekly -
Duncan (Stranger with My Face) delights in building suspense brick by brick until she has a whole creepy wall to collapse at the climax. This time, her mortar is an eerie crystal paperweight, the Salem witchcraft trials, hints of reincarnation and the unsteady alliances of step families. Sarah and her mother, Rosemary, have moved to a small, conservative town in the Ozarks because Rosemary has fallen in love with the hypocritical, still-married Ted. Sarah tries to fit in at the high school, but she has no friendsuntil the too-perfect Eric asks Sarah to be a fortune-teller at the Halloween carnival. Speed ahead in the predictable plot, and Sarah finds that she really can read future disaster in the crystal ball. Soon, frightened classmates proclaim her a witch, put a dead crow in her locker and lure her to a remote gallows to meet her fate amid a crowd of unbalanced teens and a blazing bonfire. While the characters are far too patthe jolly fat boy, cruel cheerleaders, evil handsome class president, shrill ex-wife, bossy stepfatherDuncan nevertheless propels the reader along, dropping sinister clues on every page like bread crumbs in a forest. As in many YA suspense novels, the adults are unsympathetic and clueless, allowing their teens to run rampant into the alluring arms of evil. The real nightmare of being a teenager is having nobody believe you or help you conquer your demons, but in this book, Sarah manages through self-reliance to face her fears, both natural and supernatural. Ages 12-up. (May)VOYA -
When seventeen-year-old Sarah Zoltanne lets herself be talked into playing a gypsy fortune teller in her new high school's Halloween Carnival by handsome and popular Eric Garrett, she uses an old crystal paperweight that had belonged to her deceased Hungarian grandmother, and sets in motion a chain of strange and ominous events that create discord and danger around her. She gradually learns that all is not as placid as it seems in this small town in the Missouri Ozarks, where Sarah and her mother have recently relocated from California. And when the mysterious glass paperweight reveals secret information that she could not possibly know, and her disturbing visions begin to come true, Sarah is accused of witchcraft and threats are made against her. Particularly upsetting are her vivid dreams and vision of the infamous witch trials in seventeenth century Salem, and when people and happenings in Pine Crest begin to parallel those of the old New England village, Sarah realizes that her life is in mortal danger. She also now knows that it is really Charlie Gorman, intelligent and loyal but not particularly handsome or popular, who is her one true friend. Duncan's consummate storytelling skills convey a pervasive supernatural atmosphere as she weaves the facts of the Salem witch trials into her story line to offer an unusual and intriguing tale peopled with believable characters. It also illustrates how ignorance and bigotry can prevail against fairness and common sense, turning neighbor against neighbor, in the seventeenth century or today. Entertaining and enlightening, this is a book that should have wide appeal. VOYA Codes: 3Q 3P M J S (Readable without serious defects, Will appeal with pushing, Middle School-defined as grades 6 to 8, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).The ALAN Review -
Sarah is the new girl at school when she is asked to work in the fortune-telling booth at the school carnival. Although hesitant to do so, she accepts the offer because she doesn't want to be an outsider forever. In her booth Sarah is shocked when she looks into the crystal ball for her "clients: and sees vivid scenes that later come true. Branded as a witch by her school mates and the jealous daughter of the man her mother lives with, Sarah soon receives threatening objects and notes. The plot of this supernatural thriller then thickens when Sarah and her friend Charlie begin their school research projects on the Salem Witch Trials and Sarah has terrifying dreams of being part of the Salem witch hunt. What can be happening? Are the participants in the Salem Witch Trials gathering in the present to work out the struggles they experienced hundreds of years ago? Will Sarah survive the intense hostility she feels building? This compelling, fast-paced novel is classic Lois Duncan, and her fans will welcome this newest book.School Library Journal
Gr 7-9Sarah, 17, has just moved from California to a small Missouri town so that her mother can be near her new boyfriend. The teen reluctantly agrees when handsome, popular Eric asks her to run a fortune-telling booth at the school's Halloween carnival. After her impressive performance, he convinces her to continue telling fortunes off campus. Then Sarah becomes unnerved by the startling visions about other students that she sees in the antique paperweight/crystal ball and begins to have terrifying nightmares. Her classmates, not knowing how to deal with Sarah's unsettling information, label her a witch. Her only friend is another misfit, Charlie. Because both of them are having dreams about the Salem witchcraft trials, Charlie develops a theory that they are living out the results of what happened in past lives in Salem; that many of Sarah's classmates may be former victims of her false accusations seeking revenge. Parts of the plot stretch credibility. That so many students could so easily become convinced that Sarah is a witch seems highly unlikely. Equally hard to accept is the idea that Sarah's mother has been drawn to the town so that Sarah can fulfill some sort of karmic destiny. Charlie's belief in reincarnation causes him to sound like a textbook on Eastern religions. Adult characters merely serve to move the story along. Sarah, however, is an insightful and perceptive character, and readers will identify with her anguish as she tries to deal with the cruelties inflicted on her. Unfortunately, the ending is abrupt and loose ends get tucked in too easily. Despite its weaknesses, this is still an exciting, suspenseful tale that will certainly be welcomed by Duncan's many fans.Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NCKirkus Reviews
A sloppy suspense novel—Duncan (Night Terrors, 1996, etc.) unsuccessfully charts a plot full of witchcraft, ESP, reincarnation, book-burning, and fortune-telling, as well as an utterly incredible chain of events.When Sarah's mother inexplicably falls in love with Ted, a tyrant, she gives up her job and home so they can move to his small town. Since he is separated from his wife, Sarah's mother is the "other woman" in a Peyton Placestyle community where it is nearly impossible for Sarah to make friends. When she poses as a fortune-teller at a school carnival, Sarah actually sees the future in her crystal ball, an ability that results in the widespread suspicion that she is a witch. With a heavy hand, Duncan draws parallels to the witchcraft trials of 17th-century Salem. When Sarah faces hanging at the hands of a drunken mob of kids, Charlie—son of a bookseller whose store was torched for selling "books that people didn't approve of"—saves her by convincing his classmates that they were all in Salem in a past life, and need to put it behind them. In addition to such implausible scenes, some subplots simply trail off, teenagers sound like adults, and too many characters are suddenly versed in witchcraft. Readers are repeatedly informed that the town is "conservative" and churchgoers are uniformly hypocritical. Bleakly shallow.