Darkhenge

April 10, 2006
Fisher (The Oracle Betrayed
) infuses her haunting tale with the Celtic legend of Taliesin and Ceridwin. The story opens in Avebury near Stonehenge, where young Chloe has been in a coma for three months, the victim of a horseback riding accident. Her older brother, Rob, the principal protagonist, is goofing off with a friend in a field when he stumbles upon a pagan ritual in progress. Rob gets caught up in the rite, and ends up pulling a man named Vetch from a dark ditch in the ground. Vetch speaks in ominous tones: "The word is the reason I've come... the time and the place and the danger.... The word you want is... Darkhenge
." Rob's skills as an artist land him a job working on the group's archaeological dig, which in time uncovers a mysterious tree that is growing upside-down, into the earth, planted 4,000 years ago as "an axis, a pole linking this place and the Unworld." Vetch turns out to be much more powerful than Rob first imagined; a journey to the Unworld below leads to a confrontation with the King that holds Chloe's psyche captive—and not, it seems, entirely against her will. Fisher's story is just dark enough to stand out from the fantasy pack, and positive and exciting enough that it may well send readers scrambling for other texts on Celtic legends. Ages 12-up.

March 1, 2006
Gr 7-10 -Drawing from the ancient Celtic tale of Taliesin and Ceridwen, Fisher crafts a complex and frightening story of family love and jealousy. Rob, an artist of some considerable talent, sees his family disintegrating as his younger sister lies in a coma. Looking for an outlet for both his time and talent, he takes a job with a local archaeological dig near his home in Avebury, England, where a new and mysterious henge has been discovered. Having spent his life surrounded by the mythology of stone circles, Rob initially pays little attention to the bizarre events that surround the dig until he realizes that this new revelation and the mystifying people attracted to it are somehow related to his sister. The novel plays out in a terrifying race against time and primordial evil to free Chloe from the grip of a malevolent force of her own making. While steeped in early myth and fantasy, this is an exploration of the responsibility of families to speak honestly to one another. The venerable tale meshes with Rob and Chloe -s interactions, and readers unfamiliar with the old story will nevertheless be swept up in the mystery and dark magic. Changing perspectives make this a challenging read, but one that is ultimately very satisfying." -Sharon Grover, Arlington County Department of Libraries, VA"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2006
Gr. 6-9. British fantasist Fisher, who has captivated many genre readers with" "her continuing Oracle Prophecies trilogy, here offers a stand-alone novel entwining Celtic lore, fairy-tale archetypes, and family tragedy. While working at a top-secret archaeological dig, Rob learns that the site's buried henge may be a portal to reach his comatose sister's wandering spirit. When he enters the world of Anwyn, he discovers that Chloe's coma is a voluntary withdrawal, springing from years of pent-up grievances toward her brother. As in David Almond's " Skellig "(1999)" , "Fisher conveys complex human emotions through fantasy; teen angst has rarely had such a visceral expression as in the boggy, unpredictable wilderness of Chloe's self-created prison. The sibling rivalry never quite succeeds as the plot's psychological linchpin, and some readers may tire of the numerous folklore elements, many elliptically referring to the somewhat obscure Taliesin legend. Others, though, especially teens who enjoyed the Celtic underpinnings and mystical backdrops of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising novels, will thrill to the magical, atmospheric setting in a "landscape rayed with dreams and visions."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2006
Following her bent for the atmospheric and mythological, Fisher fuels Darkhenge with themes and patterns taken from the Welsh legend cycle the Mabinogian. In modern-day Avebury, England, teenage artist Rob Drew takes a job sketching at a Bronze Age excavation, in part to escape his traumatized family -- his sister Chloe lies in a coma following a riding accident. But mysterious events surround this excavation of an ancient wooden henge. The archaeologist, Clare, seems to be a manifestation of the mythological witch Ceridwen, and her counterpart and rival, the bard Taliesin, appears as a crazy/wise wanderer, Vetch. Vetch tells Rob that Chloe has gone to Annwn, a place between life and death, where she is held prisoner by the King of Annwn. Rob can reach her by passing through the henge, but first he has to get past Clare -- and, as Vetch points out, he must also confront his own rivalry with Chloe, who has long been overshadowed by his artistic talent. Fisher focuses on immediate events with painstaking attention, laying out the bigger picture only slowly, leaving the intrigued reader to fill in details and connections. She blurs together the unseen movements of the subconscious with the psychological underpinnings of myth, evoking myth's ties to pagan nature and creating a dark, enigmatic mise en scne filled with vividly concrete natural imagery. A complex fantasy that resonates with strangeness, mysticism, and magic.

(Copyright 2006 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2006
In modern-day England, while his sister Chloe is still in a coma following an accident, teenage Rob Drew takes a job at a Bronze Age excavation. Rob learns that Chloe has gone to Annwn, a place between life and death. To reach her, Rob must first confront his own rivalry with Chloe. This complex fantasy resonates with strangeness, mysticism, and magic.

(Copyright 2006 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)