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and enter to win a copy below!
Resurrection Girlsby Ava Morgyn
Genre: YA Magical Realism
Release date: October 1st 2019
Summary:
Olivia Foster hasn’t felt alive since her little brother drowned in the backyard pool three years ago. Then Kara Hallas moves in across the street with her mother and grandmother, and Olivia is immediately drawn to these three generations of women. Kara is particularly intoxicating, so much so that Olivia not only comes to accept Kara’s morbid habit of writing to men on death row, she helps her do it. They sign their letters as the Resurrection Girls.
But as Kara’s friendship pulls Olivia out of the dark fog she’s been living in, Olivia realizes that a different kind of darkness taints the otherwise lively Hallas women—an impulse that is strange, magical, and possibly deadly.
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Advance Praise:
guiding readers through the darkness of Olivia’s story. Her compelling
characters are made all the more real by the eerie undertow
of myth. A beautiful, deeply emotional debut!”
and NEVER-CONTENTED THINGS
captivatingly woven with magic and ultimately hope. A
compassionately rendered debut.”–Emily Duncan,
NYT Bestselling author of WICKED SAINTS
loss writes letters to the strange things that lurk in the darkness.
It’s a stunning story that blends the inexplicable and the beautiful
with the bittersweet.”–Rin Chupeco, author of THE BONE WITCH
and THE NEVER TILTING WORLD
wrapped up in a compelling story. Resurrection Girls is a brilliant debut.”
THE SHADOW QUEEN and the RAVENSPIRE series
lingering sense of dread to pave the way for a strange but satisfying
conclusion … Morgyn’s supernaturally tinged debut is a
heartbreaking but hopeful exploration of death and grief.”
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My Review
As we inch towards the time of witches and ghosties, Resurrection Girls gives off an appropriately creepy vibe with an attention to death and the still-living who are faced with death. Accident and suicide play a part in the dynamics along with a strange compulsion for two teenaged girls to become penpals with men who have no hope of long life.
This tale is far more than that, though, as it delves into a family and how each individual member copes with the nearly unbearable grief after a child dies. There’s no real coming together here; the loss of Olivia’s little brother has fractured this family and Olivia and each of her parents have spent the past few years growing further apart and more mired in their devastation. When Kara and her mother and grandmother move in across the street, Olivia finally has something else to think about with this new friend and the oddities that seem to swirl around the new family.
You might think that this is a very depressing book with its emphasis on grief and the inability to recover but, in fact, it’s really a look at the journey to find peace as well as Olivia’s personal redemption helped along by Kara and a dose of…could it be magic?
Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, October 2019.
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Excerpt:
In the beginning, the dead are always with you. It’s almost as if they aren’t even gone, as though you could round any given corner and see them there, waiting. For months after Robby died, I heard his voice, his laughter catching in his throat, the sound of his footfalls down the long hall upstairs. I could feel his towheaded locks soft against the pads of my fingers still, and imagine his quiet breathing in the night. It was all there, floating around me, able to be summoned forward at any given moment. Like a balloon, I had Robby’s memory, his soul, on a string.
But that only lasts as long as the pain is fresh. You bleed memories for a while. And then one day you find you’ve bled them all out. And the sharp sting of loss has waned into a dull ache.
It’s the little things that go first. The way light would play across his face at a certain angle. The expression he made when he pouted. The smell of him in the morning. You go to summon some detail up from the depths and it’s no longer there. The dead drift away.
And then even the dull ache disappears, and only numbness holds in its place. You stop trying to recall details because the futility of it is worse than the grief. It’s no longer the loss of the person you mourn, but the loss of the haunt. And the absence is all that is left when you reach for your pain.
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About the Author
Ava Morgyn is a long-time avid reader and writer of young adult fiction. She studied English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX, and now lives in Houston—city with the most rain, best food, and worst traffic—with her family. When she isn’t at her laptop spinning darkly hypnotic tales, she can be found making fairy houses, talking to her crystals and plants, hunting for delicious new vegan recipes, or bothering her dog. She also blogs regularly about the devastating journey of child loss at ForLoveofEvelyn.com.************
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GIVEAWAY:
One hard copy of Resurrection Girls
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Buried Under Books 
Captivating and emotional novel. Wonderful review and excerpt.
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I hope you get a chance to read it, Anne!
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Thank you for such a wonderful review and lovely post!
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Once more, a well-done review by Lelia Taylor. Good excerpt. Sounds quite interesting.
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I have this on my list to read. I’m waiting for the right mood to read it. Wonderful review:)
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