cover image Arclight

Arclight

Josin L. McQuein. Greenwillow, $17.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-213014-3

Marina was pulled from the Dark at the cost of nine lives, and she is paying the price. Ostracized and abused by those whose parents died for her sake, Marina is all but alone in the Arclight, a safe zone where it is never dark. The Fade live in the Dark—chameleons, they steal humans from the light to an unknown fate. Marina dreams of their voices and frets that she has no memory of her life before her rescue. Then, after a short, violent Fade incursion into the Arclight compound, Marina finds a Fade survivor lurking in the hallway—and it recognizes her. Who is Marina, and what are the Fade? If she can establish trust with Tobin, a boy whose father was lost in rescuing her, Marina may find the answers she seeks, though some readers may feel that those answers are a long time coming. Still, McQuein strongly evokes the claustrophobic tyranny of adult authority and institutional spaces, as well as the irrational human faith in the voice of “experience,” in this fine debut. Ages 13–up. (May)