Rachel Starr Thomson

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is a whimsical adventure tale, funny, scary, inhabited by Fangs of Dang, crazy sock men, and genuine recipes for maggotloaf. North! Or Be Eaten, Book 2 of The Wingfeather Saga, is the classic journey story: a book of creatures, encounters, fascinating locales, and of course, coming of age.

But it’s in The Monster in the Hollows that this series steps up and takes its place as a true fantasy epic — still quirky, still definitely located in the world of Aerwiar and not in Middle Earth, but firmly rooted in epic soil. The Monster in the Hollows is a bigger, sadder, older, and more beautiful part of The Wingfeather Saga than we’ve seen before.

(Warning: series spoilers ahead.)

The story begins, as all good sagas do, where the previous book left off: with the Wingfeather family sailing across the Dark Sea of Darkness in search of refuge in the Green Hollows, homeland of Nia Igiby Wingfeather and the last place in all of Aerwiar that is still free. But what begins as a warm welcome for Nia and her children quickly turns sour when the transformation of Kalmar is revealed: the Hollows are still free because its people have vigilantly driven every Fang from their land, and they are not keen to welcome one into their bosom now.

A startling sacrifice from Nia convinces the Hollowsfolk to accept all of her children — but no sacrifice can buy their trust. Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli settle into their new home and school, caught between the delight of being children again, with a home far from Fangs and from fear, and the knowledge that they are outsiders here. Janner struggles to love and protect his brother even as he resents him for estranging them.

But something strange is happening in the Green Hollows. A monster lurks in the shadows, a voice calls to Janner out of eerie visions, and Kalmar, it seems, has a secret . . .

In The Monster in the Hollows, Andrew Peterson once again weaves a tale that rings as true when it’s exploring the firesides of home as it does when it’s delving into the exotic places and peoples of a beautifully rendered fantasy world. As ancient secrets are revealed, revolutions are fostered, and the forces of evil gather for attack, we find ourselves caring just as much — or perhaps more — about the love between brothers, the faith of a mother, and the success of children in school. The forces of good, after all, are not concentrated in some distant castle or far-off king, but in frail human vessels in need of family, forgiveness, and the power of hope.

As before, the story is primarily told through the eyes of twelve-year-old Janner, the oldest of the Igiby children and the Throne Warden of Anniera whether he likes it or not. Much of the saga’s attention hovers, with Janner, at the outer edge of childhood. But the more adult story which readers have been able to glimpse all along through Podo, Nia, and Artham comes into the foreground in a greater way in The Monster in the Hollows, as Nia especially takes on a more central role.

New characters are introduced — including the memorable Head Guildmadam of the Ban Rona school, Olumphia Groundwich — and subplots from previous books carried to their conclusions. (I found the further fate of Sara Cobbler to be particularly interesting, and particularly affecting.) The setting, Ban Rona of the Green Hollows, is likewise more adult: the fearsome toothy cows, bomnubbles, and snickbuzzards of Skree — terrifying as they could be — have faded into the background, replaced by the rotting, misshapen cloven of the Blackwood. Where Glipwood Township was as amusing as it was oppressed, Ban Rona is the stuff of legends. And this book, for the first time in the saga, is entirely devoid of footnotes.

All in all, The Monster in the Hollows is a wonderful read, both entertaining and deep, and an effective launching pad into the fourth and final book in the series. For that, we’ll have all just have to wait, content in the knowledge that it’s likely to be worth waiting for.

I promise that by Wednesday, I will actually write a review of The Monster in the Hollows.

Getting this far has been a journey, let me tell you. First, there have been other Wingfeather Saga tours, which I always missed. I’m not sure why, but I did. Then there were all the glowing reviews, the knowing smiles and inside jokes, the general sound of CSFF “huzzah!”ing that gave me to know I was missing a really good series. I visited the Rabbit Room website, decided to be a fan of Andrew Peterson in general, and grew sadder and sadder inside about so consistently not actually reading his books.

So, this time, when the CSFF was going to feature Andrew Peterson again and I was actually going to be able to participate, I reacted with glee. When the book arrived (a fine and bookish book if ever there was one), I trotted down to the local Christian bookstore and bought his first two books, because by jingo, starting with Book 3 in a series is not right, and I was going to do this right.

That was … last week?

I thought the Monster in the Hollows tour was for October, y’see. Obviously somebody wasn’t paying attention.

So far I have read On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and have stopped just short of the climactic ending of North! Or Be Eaten, and before I go to sleep tonight I intend to be well into the book we are actually touring. I am greatly enjoying the series (except for the gross parts; I’m not a small boy); I’m finding it funny, moving, and quite beautiful at times. It’s also scarier than I expected, but in what might be a kind of commentary on life, underlying much of the scariness is comedy, and so we are assured that this book isn’t really so scary after all, so much as it’s funny. Or else it’s really not so funny after all, so much as it’s scary … or funny. I’m not sure.

Series overview coming tomorrow; review of the Book I’m Supposed to Be Reading on Wednesday, just in time to cap off the tour. In the meantime, check out some websites and the rest of the tour!

The Book I’m Supposed to Be Reading (aka The Monster in the Hollows–published, it would appear, by the author’s own company, which is a switch from the first two books, which were published by WaterBrook. This actually makes me quite happy, for reasons of being independently published myself.)
The Wingfeather Saga (mostly a blog, with illustrations and encyclopedic bits)
The Author’s Website

Aaaand the tour links:

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Jennifer Bogart
Thomas Clayton Booher
Beckie Burnham
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Cynthia Dyer
Amber French
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Shannon McDermott
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirriam Neal
* Eve Nielsen
Joan Nienhuis
Donita K. Paul
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Tammy Shelnut
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Rachel Wyant

“It’s too late . . . I’ve come this far, and I’m not giving up now. Beauty is leading us home.”

“You may find nothing at all. Or else a tyrant who takes away your freedom.”

“And I may find the freedom to choose what is best and go on choosing it. All the time. Free of disappointment. Like kites that fly for their master for the joy of it. Without strings.”

“It saddens me that you cannot imagine life without someone to serve.”

“It saddens me,” said Cal-Raven, “that you think joy comes any other way.”

(from The Ale Boy’s Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet)

During my recent series on The Auralia Thread over at Speculative Faith, I had the privilege of interviewing Jeffrey Overstreet. We talked about art, surprises, questions, and this final book itself. He said he’d immensely enjoyed the interview; it posted on my birthday–so that made it even more fun.

Rachel: Before we even start, let me say thank you for an extraordinary reading experience. In The Ale Boy’s Feast especially, I found myself reading a story that not only enveloped me in its world and characters, but caused me to look at my own life differently. I’ve been challenged to pay more attention to the beauty that surrounds me and think about the realities it might be pointing to—and to stay faithful to the dreams God has given me, knowing that ultimately they will lead me to Him. That might not even be exactly what you were trying to say, but I appreciate the message!

Jeffrey: Thank you so much, Rachel. I wanted to tell the best story I could, given the time and resources available to me.

I knew that my job was to pay attention to the characters, their decisions, the consequences of those decisions, and the textures of the world in which all of this took place. As for any “messages,” well… I wasn’t going to worry about that. I believe that a storyteller should focus on bringing the story to life, and messages will emerge on their own. If the storyteller stops and concerns himself with delivering messages, than the storytelling suffers and becomes heavy-handed.

So I’m delighted to hear that the story meant something to you. I learned a lot from following these characters around, and if readers learn lessons of their own, that’s an extra blessing.

Rachel: The Auralia Thread’s most obvious theme is art, and the power of art to call us beyond ourselves. But it certainly isn’t the only theme. What other themes were in your head when you began, and what themes have arisen in the writing process? Have any surprised you?

Jeffrey: It all started with the question, “Why do most people reach an age where they fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet? Why do most people decide that make-believe is just for kids?”

But later, that led to questions about what leads people to lose their curiosity about the truth, and to set up camp in a particular church denomination or a particular political party or a particular academic discipline and to toss away the lenses that might help them see the truth more fully.

I think that almost any theme I could highlight would be a theme that surprised me. I didn’t go into the story to explore themes. I went into the story because a question inspired a picture in my mind—an intriguing picture of a society that made imagination illegal. I wanted to step through that picture frame, explore that society, and get to know the broken-hearted character who was so grieved by it.

As a result, pretty much all of what transpired surprised me. I didn’t start with an agenda to fulfill or a lesson I wanted to deliver. I was curious about characters whose stories are still teaching me lessons.

Rachel: Speaking of surprises, what other aspects of the series have surprised you?

Jeffrey: Many of the relationships of the characters changed considerably over the course of the series in ways that really surprised me.

Read the rest of the interview here.

So, are you intrigued? Ready to read the series (or finish it)? I have a book to give away, and you can win it here at this blog. But you must do something, because I’m all about reciprocal giving.  In a comment, link to a review you have recently written and posted online. I will pick a commenter at random for the win. Check back here to find out if your name has been drawn!

And thanks for coming along on this tour. It’s good to be back.

He tightened his picker-staff grip, desire rotting into resentment. Most creatures of the ground had vanished from the Expanse, caught by the underground menace or fleeing its clutches. Krawg had pursued that rusty-hinge chirp, compelled by hunger and, even more, by a longing to see feathers lift a mystery into the air, to hear a song take to the sky.

So when a cry pierced the dusk and a solitary shadow winged low over the river–a stark and simple rune written on the sky’s purple scroll–he held his breath.

Beauty.

He glanced about to make sure he was alone, then smeared his tears with his sleeve. It was a bird. A bird with tousled crestfeathers and a ribbon tail gliding northward. In Krawg’ chest a pang rang like an alarm bell. He wanted to join the bird there, suspended.

“Ballyworms, Warney. What’s wrong with me?”

(from The Ale Boy’s Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet)

Quoting from my review at Speculative Faith of The Ale Boy’s Feast (all of which, including a plot synopsis of the whole series, you can read here):

I loved The Ale Boy’s Feast. As the above plot summary indicates, it should not be read apart from the rest of the series—but read within its context, it’s a challenging, moving story that is both a heart-pounding adventure and a heartbreaking song. Jeffrey Overstreet’s writing has only gotten better, as even those characters who appear only for a few scenes are depicted with the detail that makes them human. His prose has all the density and mystery of poetry, demanding that readers pay attention. Not in any way a simplistic allegory, this book nevertheless offers us a lens through which to see ourselves, our world, our stories, and our history; a lens through which to cast aside deception and embrace beauty and truth.

I find myself at a loss, really, to sum up all I experienced as I read this book. I feel that I have read many different stories and could review them all, or I could just rise on a whirlwind of words, images, impressions—of glassworks, kites and kitemakers, golden ale, underground rivers, far northern mountains, toys, wings, love, death, nightmares, tears, men, women, and children. I close the covers and savour the names, the places, the accents, the people.

I can’t really do it all justice. The best I can do is encourage you to read this book, to read all four, and savour the feast with me.

I shall post my recent interview with Jeffrey tomorrow, and give you a chance to win a copy of the book. Until then.

In this, my first CSFF tour in quite some time, I am proud to feature Jeffrey Overstreet’s The Ale Boy’s Feast, easily my favourite novel of the year. In the next two days I’ll be posting my review, and interview with the author, a book giveaway, and quotes from The Auralia Thread itself.

Today, the links:

You can visit author and film critic Jeffrey Overstreet at http://lookingcloser.org/fiction/.

You can buy a copy of this magnificent book here  (this is my associate link).

And you can visit the rest of the tour(ers? ists?) at the links below. My apologies for the relative brevity of this post. I am battling an uncanny number of obstacles to being online at the moment. But even so, I’m glad to be here :).

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Shane Deal
Chris Deane
Cynthia Dyer
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Inae Kyo
Shannon McDermott
Shannon McNear
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
Sarah Sawyer
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler

Recently, Stephen Burnett wrote a post on SpecFaith about how we depict God in our fantasy. Entitled “Fighting man-centered monsters in fiction,” it used the recent Voyage of the Dawn Treader film as a jumping-off point to address man-centeredness in our fiction:

I won’t say names here — partly because, sorry to say, the titles and authors can be forgettable! — but I’ve read a few fantasy books whose authors are trying to Imitate Lewis. But there’s a catch: their Christ-figures, a la Aslan, aren’t much like Aslan, much less so the Biblical Christ. Sure, they have all the loving-humble-helpful parts, but few to none of the sovereign-holy-kill-his-enemies parts. And these Christ-equivalents exist, not with their own missions, but mainly as sidekicks for the real hero of the story, the Self-Doubtful Often-Angsty Gifted protagonist, who is on a Quest.

Well, parts of the above description fit The Wolf of Tebron to a tee (even though Stephen hadn’t read Wolf and wasn’t referring to it, so not surprisingly, Susanne Lakin was one of the commenters. She wrote,

I cringed a bit at your attack on writers (like myself) who write fantasy books where many of the qualities and character of Christ is embodied in a character or animal (like Aslan) to accompany a hero on his journey, or whatever. In my case, I am not trying to make the wolf in The Wolf of Tebron BE Christ. Like Lewis said, he was not trying to teach Christianity, only help others experience it. For me, portraying a wolf with qualities of loyalty, faithfulness, encouragement, fierce protectiveness, kindness was where I could explore some of the facets of God’s nature. Books like this are not meant to belittle or cheapen God, his power, or sovereignty but I believe they are very important in helping a reader be drawn to God.

The whole discussion is well worth reading, and both writers make some fantastic points. These are questions I’ve also wrestled with. How do we depict Christ in our fiction — especially in fantasy fiction, where we are not actually depicting the real world? My own faith has drawn me to two extremes: trying to write any Christ figure in such a way that he becomes an exact representation, doctrinally accurate and characteristically exact, or (once I’ve failed at the first extreme) avoiding writing Christ figures at all. Who could possibly ever depict everything that Jesus is? I’m not even sure the Bible does that!

It was another great fantasy writer, George MacDonald, who helped me find a balance — ironically, not in his fantasy. He also wrote novels about Christians in England and Scotland in his day, but they were exemplary Christians. In their own way, every one was a Christ figure. Michael Phillips, who has edited many of MacDonald’s novels for modern audiences, wrote in a preface that MacDonald’s characters show different facets of Jesus’s character, and if you were to put them all together, you would get a composite of Christ.

Aha, I thought. That’s it.

As a writer, I can’t possibly embody him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” he “who is the brightness of [God's] glory, and the express image of his person” in words and an artificial plot. But I can, like Susanne said, explore facets of who Jesus is. I can take parts of his character and see how they would be expressed in another world, or how another person who possessed them might act. I can take the yearning he provokes in me and transfer it to my characters (that is why yearning is such a major theme in my Seventh World books — almost the first thing Maggie and Virginia learn to do is to long for the King’s presence).

I can sometimes show how the world centers on him. And at other times, I can show he helps others on their quests, not as a sidekick, but as a servant — like Ruyah the Wolf or the Holy Spirit himself.

In the end, the whole argument makes me realize anew that God both invites and defies description. He is holy, entirely “other,” and worth spending all of our talent, strength, and time getting to know.

(This post is reposted from August 12. Before you read it, go back to yesterday’s post and look at that gorgeous cover art again. Just because it’s amazing.)

In the village of Tebron, surrounded by forests and peaceful mountains, Joran works as an apprentice blacksmith because his unusually sharp ability to mindspeak with animals has made forestry, hunting, and fishing too painful an occupation. He is painfully aware of his difference from his brothers, whom he loves but is unlike. Joran is slender, gentle, contemplative, and quietly desperate, wishing above all things to feel true happiness with his beautiful wife Charris, to feel that he belongs.

When Charris betrays Joran, he sends her away in a fit of passionate anger. But then come the dreams, tormenting him night after night: dreams in which he climbs to a sandcastle above the sea where Charris is trapped in ice, and he struggles to free her while sweeping blackness clutches at the back of his neck and the lunatic moon looks on and laughs. And then come the encounters: the great wolf watching him from the fringes of the wood, the crazy old goose woman with her riddles, and finally the most frightening encounter of all — the discovery that Charris, sent home to her relatives, has disappeared into thin air.

Unable to live any longer with himself and without answers, Joran sets off on a journey, joined by the giant wolf Ruyah, that will take him to the ends of the earth — to the Hovel of the Moon, the Palace of the Sun, the Cave of the Wind, and finally the Unimaginable Sea — and to the depths of his own dreams. His is a search for his wife, for the truth, for answers, and for peace. The way is made bearable by Ruyah’s wise, playful, and always caring presence, a presence that means far more than Joran can imagine.

The Wolf of Tebron by C.S. Lakin is being hailed as a modern-day fairy tale, which it certainly is at heart, though its characterization is richer than a typical fairy tale’s. Joran’s struggles with himself are intensely human. In an irony that struck me as particularly true to the Christian life, Joran does not want to be a hero and in fact would not be one were it not for Ruyah pushing, leading, and saving him at every step. Every spark of heroism in him rises in response to the heroism of another. At the same time, he is a likable hero, with pain and struggles that are poignant and relatable.

Not a simple allegory, The Wolf of Tebron nonetheless employs allegory and symbol in great measure, and Ruyah’s wise sayings — “It is said among wolves . . .” — come from sources as varied as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Carl Jung. (Chesterton, I think, would have enjoyed being a wolf.) It’s a book meant to inspire thought. Its story of redemption is thoroughly Christian at heart, though some of the allusions to life as a dream, reality as a matter of the will, and looking inside yourself could be just as easily interpreted through a non-Christian lens. It’s also a thoroughly enjoyable adventure story, with exotic settings, unpredictable turns, a terrifying enemy, and unexpected humour.

Lakin’s work is stylistically beautiful. The exotic locales are vivid, from dark north to burning desert to misty jungle: I found myself looking forward to each leg of Joran’s journey just so I could experience another part of her story world. The Wolf of Tebron is the first in The Gates of Heaven series from Living Ink Books (AMG Publishers). I’m looking forward to The Map Across Time, Book 2 in the series.

After taking December off, I am back in the blog tour! This month, we’re touring C.S. Lakin’s The Wolf of Tebron, Book 1 in The Gates of Heaven series. (that link is my Amazon affiliate link, so thanks for clicking!). I reviewed the book several months back when I first got a chance to read it, so I’m looking forward to revisiting what I thought was an excellent read — and hopefully tackling a semi-controversial topic (that is, the nature of Christ figures in fiction) as well :).

For today, the links:

Susanne Lakin’s website, showing off what an incredibly versatile writer she is, can be found here: http://www.cslakin.com/

She blogs here, on topics ranging from fairy tales to WIPs to writerly advice: http://cslakin.blogspot.com/

And the rest of the blog tour can be found at the links below.

Noah Arsenault
Amy Bissell
Red Bissell
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Nikole Hahn
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Shannon McDermott
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Nissa
John W. Otte
Chawna Schroeder
Tammy Shelnut
Kathleen Smith
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler

Note: I received a gratis copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of review. End note.

In an early scene of The Skin Map, Kit’s expectation of how ley travel should work results in disaster and lands him and several other people in a great deal of trouble. Expectations are funny things, capable of depressing or enhancing a reader’s experience — and sometimes of doing both.

My review of The Skin Map probably made it clear that I had expectations as a reader, some of which were not fulfilled and thus left me slightly dissatisfied. At the same time, it was other (wrong) expectations that made the ending’s plot twists so brilliantly effective.

In the first case, my expectations as a reader were based on my past experience of Lawhead’s work (including his amazing ability to bring historical places to life), on descriptions of the book that were released ahead of it, and of bits and pieces of my own notions from who-knows-where.

In the second case, my wrong expectations were craftily planted by the author, only to be turned upside down at the end by the same skillful hand. What we call “plot twists” are really just the manipulation of readers’ expectations, and as we all know, they are an essential part of memorable storytelling.

Books often lead me to reflect on life, and in this case, The Skin Map has me thinking about expectations outside of fiction. They can, as they do in fiction, depress or enhance our experience of life. They give us the thrill of looking forward, the kick of disappointment, and sometimes the twist of the unexpected, or of the expected turned on its head — of romance sought and then fleeting and then transformed, of self failing and renewed, of Jesus come and then crucified and then coming again.

Some expectations we get from God. Some come from past experience; some from some inexplicable part of our own hearts and minds. The best expectations, I think, are the ones God smiles and winks at and plans to turn upside down. If there’s a lesson I’m learning from all this, it’s to hold loosely to my ideas of where life is going. Because God is sovereign and He is good, in the end, the twists will be better than the plot I thought I foresaw.

Kit Livingstone, like so many heroes of so many stories, is living a vaguely dissatisfying life when we first meet him attempting to navigate the London transit system on his way to meet Wilhelmina Klug, described in book blurbs as Kit’s “unpleasant girlfriend.” But it doesn’t take long for the unexpected to charge in, starting when Kit meets the last person he would have expected to meet even if he’d been entertaining expectations of meeting anyone: his great-grandfather Cosimo, who disappeared two generations ago and has never been seen since.

Cosimo, who is shockingly spry for a man presumed dead for at least a decade or two, wants Kit’s help with something. What, we’re not entirely sure–but it involves navigating ley lines, intersections between times, worlds, and dimensions that only a select few people know exist.

One of those select people is a nasty piece of work called Lord Burleigh, whose men travel armed and keep a prehistoric cave lion on a leash. Burleigh, like Cosimo, is trying to find the pieces of a detailed map of the ley lines–the Skin Map, so called because it was once tattooed on the torso of the most far-ranging traveler of all.

Cosimo’s plans are quick to go awry, and Kit is pulled into an adventure that takes him — and us — across worlds. From London in the 1600s to a crypt in 19th-century Egypt, from a Chinese tattoo parlour to the courts of Bohemia, The Skin Map travels a rich landscape of history and imagination.

My thoughts about this book are as varied as its locales. The beginning of the story (when Kit meets an eccentric old man who teaches him to cross between dimensions) reminded me very much of The Paradise War, though the similarities don’t last long. I found the narrative style entertaining and almost old-fashioned, especially in its use of omniscient POV, so prevalent in older books but used less often now.

Lawhead’s attention to the small setting details — foods, dress, smells, textures, temperatures — is excellent as always. His ability to transport readers to another time and place is on display here, and it’s nice to see him ranging beyond the Celtic worlds to bring places like Egypt and China to life. Locations are drawn with an artist’s eye and a terrific sense of atmosphere (Black Mixen Tump was a highlight of the read for me).

As for the plot itself, it was less bizarre and perhaps less original than I had expected, although the ley lines themselves are fascinating (and I enjoyed the essay at the end that explains where Lawhead got the concept). At times I found the plot inconsistent, and what came as huge revelations to Kit– concepts of time and dimension travel — seemed pretty standard to me. For most of the book, I was more engaged in the side plots — the adventures of Wilhelmina, who has been accidentally sent to 17th-century Prague and becomes a ragingly successful businesswoman there, and of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, the Man Who Is Map — than in Kit’s story.

But just when I wasn’t sure how I felt about the book, a few twists at the end left me eager to read more.

The author says of this series that it is “the most challenging work I’ve ever undertaken,” alternately exhilarating and terrifying. I am not sure it lives up to the hype — yet. The story isn’t over, and while The Skin Map may not be everything it could have been as an opening, I have high hopes that The Bone House, Book 2, will make this story the adventure I’m waiting for.