Divine!

DIVINERS by Libba Bray. Little Brown, September 2012.

Libba Bray continues to amaze readers as she moves from her hilarious BEAUTY QUEENS (winner of an Audie for her audio narration, BTW), an over the top romp thorugh beauty pageants a la Lost. Now she offers up THE DIVINERS, a tale of a handful of people with extraordinary talents who must come together to face down evil itself. Meet Evie, a teen whose ability to pick up information about a person simply by holkding an object belonging to him or her. Evie is sent to live with her Uncle who curates a museum which the rest of the world deems creepy. It houses items pertaining to folklore and the occult. Evie is a fun loving gal, but she comes face-to-face with the dark side when gruesome murders point to a serial killer. All evidence points to a long-dead killer though. How can it be that he can come back and continue his quest that will surely spell the end of the world?

Bray's ability to tell a story slowly and carefully, to make the reader fall in love the the diviners and fear those who would use their skills for evil gain: that is what pulls in readers and holds them captive, locked into the crazy world of 1920s New York with its speakeasys and Ziegfeld theater and glorious music. This book marks the beginning of a new series for Bray, one that explores the darkness that could easily destroy us all. It is a book to be read slowly (and preferrably in the bright light of day for sanity's sake). Where will Bray take us next? The clues are here in this delicious novel that combines the terror of Stephen King with the devil-may-care frivolity of the Jazz Age with not a little bit of Hitchcockian storytelling as well. <354>