What I learned after reading Libba Bray's THE DIVINERS
1. Haunted houses are scary, really really scary.
2. Ditto remote graveyards, religious cults, evil songs sung to a nursery-rhyme tune (which I already knew from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies) and dark places under bridges.
3. Oh but holy crap the haunted houses! Do not enter them unless you are carrying crosses AND weapons and accompanied by a Vampire Slayer (or two!). And Spike. And Willow. And Oz. Hell, even Xander! Oooh and especially Giles. MUST HAVE GILES.
4. The 1920s is a period vastly under explored in speculative fiction and yet it seems perfectly suited for the haunted story Bray told here. It's modern enough to be recognizable (as opposed to the 19th century) and yet includes a lot of intriguing quirks in language, clothing and social convention.
5. You can write a strong heroine who does not seem outside the time she lives in. Evie is a smart ass with a secret who feels like (in many ways) she has nothing to lose - perfect set up for her later feats of bravery. Ditto Theta who has plenty of backstory to support her bravado.
6. There is no excuse for not crafting multi-ethnic novels if you want to. Ditto gender balance, socio-economic balance and inclusion of GBLT characters. Bray pretty much has it all in this book and it all makes sense because - wait for it - the book is set in fucking New York City! (Take that writers for every all-white television show to be set in the Big Apple in the past 30+ years!)
7. The idea of a bunch of amateur crime solvers sitting around a table covered in books in a big library never gets old. Ever. Laptop research will never get that kind of visually appealing.
8. You don't need vampires or zombies or werewolves to tell a thrilling story. Consider this fact to be my gift to the world.
9. A slow burn romance is the best kind, especially in a thriller. (It's way more believable that two characters would be more focused on stopping a serial killer than making out.)
10. As Stephen King fans know all too well, nearly 600 pages of reading material flies by when the story is tight, the characters fully formed and the scary brought on hard and fast.
11. And that Stephen King name-dropping - I did that on purpose. Bray has written the new IT as far as I'm concerned with the added bonus that the ending doesn't let you down like that giant spider did. Bray balances a wide but distinctive group of characters, moves across several POVs with ease, ratchets the tension in a steady arc, does not shy away from the blood thirsty nature of her evil, does not waste a word or scene in her plot and - Booyah! - throws in some believable girl power to boot. My only complaint would be that a key character seems to wimp out at one point just so the girl can have her moment of power. But even Giles had his moments of indecision so I'll give Bray this one. Overall, as Robin Wasserman's Book of Blood and Shadow is a teen improvement on The Da Vinci Code, so is The Diviners all the good and more from IT. Two must buys for your book loving teens (male or female) this holiday season and my favorite reads of the year, hands down. (Formal review of The Diviners to follow in December column.)
[Post pic of killer UK cover.]
