August 18, 2014
Calhoun’s first YA novel is set in post-apocalyptic America, where Selah Chavez goes against her family’s wishes and hunts for Landers, a people with distinctive markings who are captured and sold to a business known as the Company for reasons unknown. Those who live in the Mountain, the underground colony where the Company is located, have been protected from the devastation of the outside world. When Selah captures, then loses, a Lander named Bodhi Locke, she becomes one of the hunted when the same markings appear on her body. Calhoun (Cooking the Books) paints a dark, serious world and does not shy away from the violence that her characters suffer as they struggle with prejudice and even genocide, the latter activity veiled by justifications of scientific knowledge and progress. At times, the story suffers from clichéd writing or overdramatized incidents, but despite its shortcomings, Calhoun’s novel, which inaugurates the Stone Braide Chronicles, is on balance an entertaining and suspenseful read that will please those who enjoy intrigue and grimness. Ages 12–up. Agency: Hartline Literary Agency.