Jack and Jill, twin sisters born from successful and high-class parents who never really wanted children to begin with, are being raised by their grandmother, Louise, who moves in to help take care of them since the parents are working all the time. But when Chester and Serena think her services are no longer needed, they ask her to leave.
After she’s gone, the twins go snooping around in her upstairs bedroom and find an old steamer trunk ‘Gemma Lou’ left behind. When they open it, they find a ‘magical’ staircase that takes Jack and Jill down into a mysterious underground world, where they are separated and raised by two very strange scientists, one in a kingdom, the other in the common land.
Jack is the apple of her father’s eye, although she’s a little wild, and Jill is the prim and proper one who prefers to keep her life prim and proper. But their new guardians raise them completely opposite of how they were, and in doing so the twins learn that their differences aren’t so different than they thought.

Anybody who enjoys a childhood tale of love and trust and mystery, magic, and mayhem will enjoy this young adult book by well known and award-winning author Seanan McGuire.

The dark and mysterious way McGuire wrote it. She keeps the reader on their toes as the twins try to find their way in their new lives. There’s never a dull moment with all the dark secrets and twists and turns, and the reader will be compelled to keep turning the page to find out what happens next.

Go out and buy McGuire’s next book about Jack and Jill, since Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a prequel to a previous novel, Every Heart a Doorway.

Like I was a kid again reading 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' with its mysteries and magic. It was a little darker though, but still very entertaining.

Has written several other books, including 'Every Heart a Doorway', the 'October Daye' urban fantasy series, the 'InCryptid' series, trilogies and stand-alone works. She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and became the first person to ever to appear 5 times on the same Hugo ballot in 2015.

For only 182 pages, McGuire has crafted a fine tale of fantasy and mystery. This is the first book of hers I've read, but I plan on reading more of work. Her prose and imagination are exemplary.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Aug 15, 2018 at 11:55pm • Submit your own review...