Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Vassa in the Night
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Porter, Sarah Elizabeth
BIRTHDATE: 11/10/1969bab
WEBSITE: http://sarahporterbooks.com/
CITY: Brooklyn
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Married (husband: Todd); http://www.thebookrat.com/2011/04/interview-with-sarah-porter-author-of.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born November 10, 1969; married; husband’s name Todd.
EDUCATION:City College, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, artist, creative writing instructor.
AVOCATIONS:Drawing, gardening, exploring Brooklyn.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Sarah Porter is a young adult novelist who often blends fantasy and Russian folk tales in her works. The author of the “Lost Voices Trilogy” and the stand-alone novels Vassa in the Night, When I Cast Your Shadow, and Tentacle and Wing, Porter had difficulty breaking into publishing, as she noted in an interview on the online Adventures in YA Publishing: “My road to publication was long and grueling and full of discouragement! Years and years, not to put too fine a point on it. Seriously, it’s an intimidating field to go into; I didn’t get published until my fourth book.”
Porter began writing while still in middle school. When in high school one of her teachers told the young student that she had dreamed of a story Porter had written, so powerful was it. “That was the moment when I decided again that I would write a novel, though it took years before I actually managed it.” In the same interview, Porter offered the following counsel for prospective authors: “Most writing advice I hear just doesn’t apply to anything I would ever do. So I guess I’d say, find your own path.”
Lost Voices
Porter launched her “Lost Voices Trilogy” series with a novel of the same title featuring fourteen-year-old Luce, whose life thus far has been one of continual hardship. Her mother died when she was quite young, and her father has since led a peripatetic, thieving life, dragging his daughter from one dingy hotel to another. Finally, however, the father decides to move to Alaska so he can be near his brother. But this new start also leads to tragedy when the father’s fishing boat is lost at sea. Now she is left in the protective care of her alcoholic uncle, who tries to rape Luce. At wit’s end, Luce wants to end it all in the icy waters of the ocean, but she does not die. Instead, she is transformed into a mermaid, saved by a tribe of mermaids, former lost girls who, like Luce, had gave up on their human lives. Luce is at first happy with this strange new life, but then she discovers there is a dark commitment that comes with it: these mermaids use their voices to enchant seafarers and draw them onto rocks, sinking their ships. Luce, with her fine singing voice, could even become queen of these mermaids, but can she knowingly and willingly help them to commit murder?
A Kirkus Reviews critic found fault with Lost Voices, noting: “The real problem is that Luce takes too long to find her own voice and the tension wears thin. A sudden ending to this slow-paced story will leave readers floundering.” Others had a higher assessment of this debut novel. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented: “Porter’s narrative style suits her oceanic theme; the vivid colors and particularities of life are smoothed away to plain clarity.” Booklist contributor Krista Hutley was also impressed, terming this a “haunting debut” as well as a “captivatingly different story.” Similarly, School Library Journal writer Lauren Newman felt this novel “should be enjoyed by those who dream of becoming someone (or something) else.” Likewise, a Book Smugglers Web site reviewer noted: “Lost Voices is a harrowing, dark work about finding one’s voice, the prickly nature of tangled loyalties and friendships, and the pain of isolation. It’s by no means a light book, and Lost Voices deals with some hefty issues—abuse, neglect, filicide—though the writing is accessible and in tune with its fourteen-year-old protagonist.”
Waking Storms and The Twice Lost
The trilogy continues with Waking Storms, in which Luce has left the mermaid tribe and just wants to live peacefully alone. Then news comes that the mermaid tribe needs her, even though its queen wants her dead. Luce’s life is also threatened by Dorian, a boy she rescued when his boat sank. His family all died, and now he vows vengeance, but when he and Luce meet, it is mutual attraction rather than revenge that ensues. “Porter’s world, where mermaid tribes are fantasy parallels of school-girl cliques, remains interesting,” commented Voice of Youth Advocates contributor Brenna Shanks. Teenreads.com writer Sarah Hannah Gomez also had a high assessment of the novel, noting: “Like any good middle novel in a trilogy, Waking Storms leaves plenty of strings untied to keep you hungry for the final installment. But unlike many weaker series, this book also stands up completely on its own two feet (fins?) and is as deep, dark and magical as Lost Voices.“
The trilogy concludes with The Twice Lost, with Luce and other mermaids now the target of an extinction plan by the government. In San Francisco Bay, Luce discovers hundreds of mermaids who are the Twice Lost: young girls who in despair were turned into mermaids and then who were ostracized from mermaid tribes after breaking mermaid rules. Now Luce becomes their leader–not the queen, but the general–in a life-and-death battle. A Children’s Bookwatch reviewer termed this volume and the entire series a “riveting fantasy saga.” Further praise came from Voice of Youth Advocates reviewer Stacey Hayman, who noted: “The end is suitably tragic for a story full of such extremes.”
Vassa in the Night
Porter’s 2016 young adult novel, Vassa in the Night, was inspired by the Russian folktale “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” in which a young girl, Vasilisa, battles the supernatural Baba Yaga with the help of a tiny, magical, wooden doll given to the girl by her dying mother. Porter moves the action from Russia to contemporary Brooklyn. Vassa lives in a poor neighborhood with her stepmother and mean stepsisters, one of whom sends Vassa out in the middle of the night to buy a light bulb at the store of Babs Yaga. This convenience store owner is notorious for beheading shoplifters and sometimes innocent customers as well. But Vassa has help in her pocket: a wooden doll, Erg, given to her by her dying mother. Vassa hopes that Erg will help her break a witch’s curse that is destroying her Brooklyn neighborhood, but she may be underestimating the malevolent power of Babs.
Booklist reviewer Maggie Reagan had high praise for Vassa in the Night, terming it an “ethereal, almost dreamlike fairy tale that generates a magic all its own.” A Publishers Weekly contributor similarly called this a “feverishly imagined and deliciously surreal adventure,” while a Kirkus Reviews Online critic dubbed it an “enthralling, magic-tinged read about home, family, love, and belonging.” Likewise, School Library Journal writer Emma Carbone felt that this novel is a “must-have for YA urban fantasy collections.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2011, Krista Hutley, review of Lost Voices, p. 56; August 1, 2016, Maggie Reagan, review of Vassa in the Night, p. 80.
Children’s Bookwatch, August, 2013, review of The Twice Lost.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2011, review of Lost Voices; June 15, 2012, review of Waking Storms; June 15, 2013, review of The Twice Lost.
Publishers Weekly, May 23, 2011, review of Lost Voices, p. 46; July 25, 2016, review of Vassa in the Night, p. 78.
School Library Journal, August, 2011, Lauren Newman, review of Lost Voices, p. 117; August, 2016, Emma Carbone, review of Vassa in the Night, p. 115.
Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 2012, Brenna Shanks, review of Waking Storms, p. 386; April, 2013, Stacey Hayman, review of The Twice Lost, p. 680; October, 2016, Erin Segreto, review of Vassa in the Night, p. 78.
ONLINE
Adventures in YA Publishing, http://www.adventuresinyapublishing.com/ (September 24, 2016), author interview.
Bookish Lifestyle, http://evie-bookish.blogspot.com/ (August 1, 2014), Tiffany Holme, review of The Twice Lost.
Book Nerd, http://booknerd.ca/ (December 8, 2016), review of Vassa in the Night.
Book Rat, http://www.thebookrat.com/ (April 28, 2011), author interview.
Book Smugglers, http://thebooksmugglers.com/ (June 8, 2017), review of Lost Voices.
Fantasy Book Review, http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/ (June 8, 2017), Dash Cooray, review of Lost Voices.
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (June 22, 2016), review of Vassa in the Night.
Mermaid Vision Books, https://mermaidvision.wordpress.com/ (July 8, 2012), Angel Cruz, review of Waking Storms.
Sarah Porter Home Page, http://www.sarahporterbooks.com (June 8, 2017).
Teenreads.com, http://www.teenreads.com/ (August 19, 2012), Sarah Hannah Gomez, review of Waking Storms.
Thousand Words, A Million Books, http://athousandwordsamillionbooks.blogspot.com/ (January 29, 2017), author interview.*
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Interview with Sarah Porter, author of Lost Voices
Joining us now we have Bonnie from A Backwards Story interviewing Sarah Porter, author of the 2011 debut Lost Voices.
Check it out!
Sara Porter’s debut novel, Lost Voices, is the first in a trilogy...about MERMAIDS. While not directly re-telling any single tale, Porter weaves together mermaid lore from several places while creating her own world. The most creative twist is the fact that mermaids were once human girls, reincarnated after “dying” and have siren-like tendencies. For a teaser of Lost Voices and to learn more about the novel, please visit A Backwards Story. A full review is scheduled to post on ABS June 21th to celebrate the first day of summer. Lost Voices comes out two weeks later on July 4, 2011, so please add it to Goodreads and your TBR now!
1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I grew up with this old book of Russian fairy tales that someone gave my mom’s dad when he was a kid back in 1911, and I adored them. They were long and dark and complicated and painful, and I think they’re very true to life. A lot of them follow a storyline where the protagonist betrays his or her magical beloved and has to go through a long journey and a series of ordeals to win that lost love back. In fact many of us do have to undertake a long (emotional) journey before we’re ready to truly love.
Those stories are embedded in my mind. I still see life through the lens they revealed to me.
2) What made you decide to write Lost Voices? What brought everything together for you?
It’s hard for me to say where it all came from. One source was a talk I had with a friend on the beach, where we improvised a story about a punk mermaid who lived apart from the others. And I wrote an earlier story in graduate school that used some of the same ideas as Lost Voices. In it, mermaids were orphaned girls who could swim through the earth and steal other girl-children away. When I actually started writing Lost Voices, I was unemployed and stuck on another book, and the story just kind of picked me up and carried me. I wrote a draft in four months.
3) Was it hard coming up with your own lore when you began world-building? How did you bring everything together? The mermaids felt so real!
Thank you. They feel real to me, too. The mermaid lore actually develops a lot more in the second volume of the trilogy, Waking Storms, when my heroine Luce begins to learn about the history of the mermaids and why they’re so driven to kill.
But I wouldn’t say it’s hard to come up with the lore or the world. The hardest part of becoming a writer is getting yourself to the place where the stories come to you by themselves. Once you’re finally there, it’s all a lot easier. I knew from the beginning that the mermaids were the lost girls who’d flowed away to sea.
4) Can you tell us more about your overall goals for the trilogy?
That’s hard to do without giving too much away! But Luce has a long way to go, and things will get much worse for her before they can start to get better. The trilogy is really about a choice we all face: we can stay stuck in our pain and keep repeating the same reactions to that pain, the way the mermaids keep sinking ships. Or we can look for creative ways to break the cycle and move on. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do, but ultimately that’s what Luce has to accomplish.
5) What other ideas are you working on right now?
I only work on one idea at a time, because I can only live in one imaginary world at a time! But I do have a novel for adults sitting around half-finished; it’s sort of a horror novel about sentient objects, called Boudoir, and as soon as I complete The Lost Voices Trilogy, I want to get back to it. And I’m playing with the idea of a young adult novel based on some of those old Russian fairy tales, too.
6) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
Well, it’s not YA at all, but I really love Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina. It starts out seeming realistic and then gets creepier and more fairy-talish as it goes along. The heroine’s boyfriend gives her a hairy black dress that eats into her skin, and that she can’t take it off. And Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was fantastic and really captured the odd logic of the fairy world. That’s a book I think a lot of YA fans would adore! Most of my favorite books have kind of a fairy tale quality about them even if they’re not directly inspired.
7) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
Hmm. Maybe I’d like to be the Frog Princess. She’s such a badass.
In fact I think we all live out fairy tales all the time, whether we want to or not. Not necessarily the happily-ever-after parts, but the struggling-to-make-our-way-through-forces-that-are-bigger-than-we-are parts.
8) What's your favorite Disney rendition of a fairy tale? What makes it so special?
Dumbo doesn’t count, does it? Then I think I’ll go with “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” section of Fantasia. It conveys so much of the feeling of being overwhelmed by magic, caught up in a dream.
9) Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?
Sparrow. I totally identify with little hoppy, dust-colored birds.
about
Sarah Porter Author Photo
I write stories that seem to me to be quite true enough for all practical purposes. Among them are VASSA IN THE NIGHT, THE LOST VOICES TRILOGY, and the forthcoming WHEN I CAST YOUR SHADOW and TENTACLE AND WING. Realism makes little sense to me and I experience more truth in the fantastic. I always have new novels underway, both Young Adult and Grownup/ Literary/ Speculative. When not writing my own weird stuff, I can often be found leading creative writing workshops with amazing young NYC public-school writers via Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Or I might be drawing, or gardening, or wandering wraithlike through the streets. I live in Brooklyn, land of mystery, with my awesome husband Todd and our two cats, Jub Jub and Delphine.
Represented by Kent D. Wolf of the Friedrich Agency.
MEET THE AUTHOR: SARAH PORTER, VASSA IN THE NIGHT - INTERVIEW + GIVEAWAY
8 Comments
Ack! I've been missing posts and I'm so sorry! I had a three hour college mandated aerobics class today and all I wanted to do was SLEEP after. Sigh.
Today I have with me the WONDERFUL Sarah Porter, author of Vassa In The Night! I heard of this book when I saw the September Owlcrate Box on all the beautiful #Unboxing pictures! ALSO, IT'S A MAGICAL REALISM NOVEL steeped in Russian Folklore and also plain bizarre-ness that I AM SO EXCITED FOR!
Please do read the interview with Sarah's AMAZING answers (her fictional crew is so cool!) and enter the awesome giveaway she is hosting!
Stay tuned, and in a few hours, I'll have another author for you to meet.
Welcome to the Blog, Sarah. It's such a joy to have you here.
We'd Love To Get To Know More About You:
1. Which five fictional characters would you have on your crew?
It depends on what we were trying to do. On my crew for saving the world, or just for hanging out?
Charlotte Holmes from A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE by Brittany Cavallaro would keep things snappy either way, and bring cunning and insight and a collection of macabre bric-a-brac with her. Arya Stark, for obvious reasons; I'm a dreamworldy nerd and badassery isn't my strong suit, so Arya would help make up for that. Octavian Nothing from M. T. Anderson's THE POX PARTY, for his unyielding, incisive nobility. Breq from Ann Leckie's IMPERIAL RADCH trilogy, because I love her, and because there's something about her quality of aching reserve that inspires such trust. And, let's see, Arsinoe from THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake; she isn't especially powerful, and she might not actually be that helpful in a save-the-world scenario, but she's also a character who could surprise you.
At the very least, this would make for an incredible dinner party!
2. If you could enter any fictional world, which one would it be and why?
I'd love to go to the world of Phillip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy, because I want a daemon of my own. I was so envious of Lyra and the other characters, each with their own sidekick-soul in animal form. It made our world feel terribly lonely by comparison.
3. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
The ability to explore the deepest parts of the ocean. I'd need to be able to resist the crushing pressure and the cold, as well as breathe underwater. Flying would be awesome, too, but I'd choose the sea over the sky. There's so much to discover!
And Now, Moving On To You Masterpiece:
4. If Vassa In The Night had a theme song, it would be:
Hmm. "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire, since it's about the same kind of emotional struggle that Vassa goes through: to accept unbearable loss, to let her pain transform her instead of fighting and denying it, and then move on.
5. If you could give one piece of advice to each of your main characters, what would it be?
To Vassa: Oh, honey, it gets better! Be brave and keep going. You are loved far more than you can know.
To Night: Remember your own beauty, your billion constellations, the ecstasy of a mind made of stars. Seriously, why would you want to pretend to be human?
To Babs: You lost yourself when you betrayed your best friend, Bea. But Vassa is right; it might not be too late for you to win your redemption. Don't let your chance slip away!
To Erg: I'm not even going to try. It's not like she'd listen to me.
To Chelsea: You don't need my advice. If anything, I should be taking advice from you!
6. What was the hardest scene to write in Vassa In The Night?
It's so hard to answer this without spoilers! But there are two scenes right near the end that made me cry uncontrollably while I was writing them. I sobbed for a few days straight. I hope that anyone who's read the book will know what I'm talking about!
Sarah Porter Author Photo
I write stories that seem to me to be quite true enough for all practical purposes. Among them are VASSA IN THE NIGHT, THE LOST VOICES TRILOGY, and the forthcoming WHEN I CAST YOUR SHADOW and TENTACLE AND WING. Realism makes little sense to me and I experience more truth in the fantastic. I always have new novels underway, both Young Adult and Grownup/ Literary/ Speculative. When not writing my own weird stuff, I can often be found leading creative writing workshops with amazing young NYC public-school writers via Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Or I might be drawing, or gardening, or wandering wraithlike through the streets. I live in Brooklyn, land of mystery, with my awesome husband Todd and our two cats, Jub Jub and Delphine.
Represented by Kent D. Wolf of the Friedrich Agency.
QUOTE:
My road to publication was long and grueling and full of discouragement! Years and years, not to put too fine a point on it. Seriously, it’s an intimidating field to go into; I didn’t get published until my fourth book,
That was the moment when I decided again that I would write a novel, though it took years before I actually managed it.
Most writing advice I hear just doesn’t apply to anything I would ever do. So I guess I’d say, find your own path.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
0Sarah Porter, author of VASSA IN THE NIGHT, on finding your own path
We're pleased to have Sarah Porter with us to give us more info about her novel VASSA IN THE NIGHT.
Sarah, what scene was really hard for you to write and why, and is that the one of which you are most proud? Or is there another scene you particularly love?
There are two scenes right near the end that were devastating for me: the voluntary death of a major character, and a dream-encounter Vassa has with her mother. I wrote those two scenes right on the heels of a heartbreaking event in my own life, and my private emotions got mixed up with the emotions in the story, so that I was pretty much sobbing uncontrollably the whole time I was writing, grieving for my characters and for my own loss at the same time. I still can’t reread that part of the book without crying. And yes, I’m quite proud of those scenes, even if they have painful associations for me.
How long or hard was your road to publication? How many books did you write before this one, and how many never got published?
My road to publication was long and grueling and full of discouragement! Years and years, not to put too fine a point on it. Seriously, it’s an intimidating field to go into; I didn’t get published until my fourth book, LOST VOICES, and I hear stories from other authors who had an even harder time. VASSA IN THE NIGHT is, I think, the eighth novel I’ve written, though it’s easy to lose track. Right now I have six books either published or forthcoming, two more in progress, and four novels that were never published—including, sadly, my favorite thing I ever wrote, called UMBER; it’s not YA, but weird/speculative fiction for adults. Maybe someday!
Was there an AHA! moment along your road to publication where something suddenly sank in and you felt you had the key to writing a novel? What was it?
I first tried to write a novel in fifth grade, though I only got to page fifty or so. It was called THE RAVEN and it was about a teenage maid, living in a vast mansion, who is visited by a sorcerer in the form of a raven; he tells her she has to go on a quest to rescue her father. There was a long lull after that, when I wanted to be an artist or a linguist instead. Then when I was maybe seventeen a creative writing teacher I had told me she’d dreamed about a story I wrote, and that no student had ever affected her mind that way before. That was the moment when I decided again that I would write a novel, though it took years before I actually managed it.
What advice would you most like to pass along to other writers?
Everyone’s writing process is so individual that I don’t really see how advice can make sense. You know, a lot of writers start with huge, messy rough drafts, and then do serious reshaping at the end; I pretty much write the book I’m going to write from the beginning, and revise relatively little. Or they believe completely in outlining in advance, which I can’t stand, or they map out their characters using the Myers-Briggs categories, when I’d rather let my characters grow spontaneously. Most writing advice I hear just doesn’t apply to anything I would ever do. So I guess I’d say, find your own path.
What are you working on now?
I have two books in progress now: one YA called NEVER-CONTENTED THINGS, the story of two foster siblings who are pulled into a creepy, suburban version of Faerie; and one novel for adults, a science and sorcery book set in the early 19th century.
Porter, Sarah. Vassa in the Night
Erin Segreto
Voice of Youth Advocates. 39.4 (Oct. 2016): p78.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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4Q * 4P * J * S
Porter, Sarah. Vassa in the Night. Tor/ Macmillan, 2016. 304p. $17.99. 978-0-76538054-8.
Vassa's Brooklyn is not full of wild parties, late night rendezvous, or designer fashion. Vassa's Brooklyn is dangerous, secretive, and very magical. Between a difficult stepmother and argumentative stepsisters, the last thing Vassa needs is to find herself in the middle of an enchanted predicament with Brooklyn's most notoriously feared citizen, Babs Yaga. But late one night, her stepsister sends her to buy light bulbs from Babs's convenient store, which might result in Vassa's beheading, a policy practiced by Babs for suspected shoplifters. Hidden in her pocket, however, Vassa has a luck charm given to her by her mother--a small wooden doll named Erg who has secrets of her own. The doll has an unusual ability to help Vassa escape life-threatening situations and possibly to help her to free her entire neighborhood from Babs's blood lust.
Modern fairy-tale fans will rejoice in this enchantingly creative story. Porter has crafted an original adventure of which the Grimm brothers would be proud. Inspired by the Russian folktale "Vassilissa the Beautiful" and full of wit and a bizarrely beautiful cast of characters, Vassa in the Night is a smart addition to any modern fairy tale collection. Violence is limited and thoughtfully addressed. Porter leaves readers hungry for more details surrounding certain events, but overall, Vassa in the Night is the perfect grown-up bedtime story for young adults. --Erin Segreto.
QUOTE:
ethereal, almost dreamlike fairy tale that generates a magic all its own
Vassa in the Night
Maggie Reagan
Booklist. 112.22 (Aug. 1, 2016): p80.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
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* Vassa in the Night. By Sarah Porter. Sept. 2016.304p. Tor Teen, $17.99 (9780765380548). Gr. 9-12.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Spring is approaching, but the nights in Brooklyn keep lasting longer. For Vassa (mother dead, father gone, stepmother absent) and her two pseudo half stepsisters, this night-hour curse is just a nuisance, until all the lights in the house burn out. Vassa's sister sends her to buy light bulbs at BYs, a chaotic franchise where the building dances and shoplifters are beheaded. When she accidentally crosses tricky owner Babs Yagg, Vassa finds herself making a deal: if she works (and survives) three nights in the store, Babs will let her live. Witchy Babs might be willing to cheat to win, but Vassa has some magic of her own up her sleeve, literally: a fast-talking, always-eating wooden doll named Erg, a gift from her mother. With a deft hand, lovely prose, and an eye for details, Porter reworks the Russian story of Vasilisa the Beautiful, setting it in an industrial Brooklyn where magic seeps into the mundane. There's plenty of body horror here--Babs' minions are the reanimated hands of corpses, she traps Night in human form, and the heads of shoplifters sit on pikes around the store--but the end result is an ethereal, almost dreamlike fairy tale that generates a magic all its own.--Maggie Reagan
Reagan, Maggie
QUOTE:
feverishly imagined and deliciously surreal adventure.
Vassa in the Night
Publishers Weekly. 263.30 (July 25, 2016): p78.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Vassa in the Night
Sarah Porter. Tor Teen, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7653-8054-8
Porter (the Lost Voices trilogy) delivers a suspenseful reinvention of the Russian fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful," set in a darkly magical version of present-day Brooklyn. "Traps don't get more obvious than this," reflects protagonist Vassa at one point. "And they don't get more irresistible:" The wryness and impulsivity in Vassa's comment are emblematic of her personality, and it's that very mix of qualities that drives her to make a fateful stop at the infamous local bodega, BY's, which sways on chicken legs and advertises its right to behead shoplifters (the head of one of Vassa's classmates hangs outside, as proof). Accusing Vassa of stealing, the proprietress, Babs, forces her to work in indentured servitude for three nights, during which time Vassa discovers that Babs's magic may be connected to the growing imbalance between day and night affecting the city. With help from her talking wooden doll, Erg, Vassa endeavors to bring down the witch. It may take a little effort for some readers to ground themselves in the near-hallucinatory strangeness of Porter's setting, but those who do will be rewarded with a feverishly imagined and deliciously surreal adventure. Ages 13-up. (Sept.)
QUOTE:
riveting fantasy saga
The Twice Lost
Children's Bookwatch. (Aug. 2013):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
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The Twice Lost
Sarah Porter
Harcourt Books
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003
9780547482521, $16.99, www.hmhbooks.com
THE TWICE LOST tells of a war which breaks out between mermaids and humans under San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and closes the 'Lost Voices' trilogy about teen-turned-mermaid Luce. Luce has discovered hundreds of mermaids living in exile in the bay: the Twice Lost, once-human girls lost when they changed, then lost again when they broke mermaid law and were rejected. Luce is their new leader, but it's in a war setting that will change the world in this riveting fantasy saga.
Porter, Sarah: THE TWICE LOST
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2013):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Porter, Sarah THE TWICE LOST Harcourt (Children's Fiction) $16.99 7, 2 ISBN: 978-0-547-48252-1
The final installment of the Lost Voices trilogy continues to drown readers with sluggish details. Porter juggles several storylines that ultimately converge in a conclusion that may dissatisfy many romantics. Luce, on her own now, discovers off San Francisco other outcast mermaids who also broke the mermaid code of honor. Abandoned by both humans from their former lives and their mermaid tribes, these renegade mermaids consider themselves "twice lost" and form the Twice Lost Army with Luce as their general. As they gain strength in numbers, the mermaids wage war against the United States. In the process, they realize that humans are worth saving and begin to hope to bring peace between humans and themselves. Other storylines involve the return of Luce's father after being lost at sea for two years and Dorian's change of heart about finding Luce, helping her cause and, he hopes, rekindling their love. The author attempts to set up suspense through U.S. Secretary of Defense Moreland and his diabolical plan to destroy the country by manipulating Luce's erstwhile mermaid rival, Anais. The impetus for this stereotyped villain's motive is unclear, and the results become increasingly predictable. In the end, it's really about teen girls just trying to get along and face growing up in a sometimes-hostile world but with the extra burden of being mermaids--making it altogether too similar to so much that's already on the market. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
QUOTE:
The end is suitably tragic for a story full of such extremes.
Porter, Sarah. The Twice Lost: The Lost Voices
Stacey Hayman
Voice of Youth Advocates. 36.1 (Apr. 2013): p680.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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2Q * 2P * S
Porter, Sarah. The Twice Lost: The Lost Voices. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 480p. $16.99. 978-9-547-48252-1.
If things had been different, Luce would have the worries of a fifteen-year-old girl instead of being the primary mermaid target of a special ops team. Using high-tech gear to prevent themselves from being mesmerized into submission, human men have begun their war against the sea-girls. Surviving mermaids band together into the Twice Lost Army and begin their own attacks. As the killing escalates, both sides believe they are fully justified in their ruthless attempts to wipe out the enemy. But maybe the hatred is not as deep or complete as it seems--in either camp. After all that has happened, can these groups work together toward a peaceful coexistence? Shifting alliances, secrets between friends, and the unexpected offer of reverting back to a human condition push Luce to make tough choices about her future, if she has one.
Death and destruction consume a large portion of this story, leaving just a small space for the exploration of relationships and personal growth. Hardcore warriors of both groups show little remorse for their ruthless killing, while no one spends much time mourning the general loss of life. Characters have stilted, awkward conversations, making it difficult to connect with their struggles, big or small. The constant use of italic words for emphasis is more distracting than useful. Readers looking for plenty of epic drama and nonstop action may be interested in the The Lost Voices trilogy, but should not read these books out of order. The end is suitably tragic for a story full of such extremes.--Stacey Hayman.
Hayman, Stacey
QUOTE:
Porter's world, where mermaid tribes are fantasy parallels of school-girl cliques, remains interesting.
Porter, Sarah. Waking Storms: The Lost Voices Trilogy
Brenna Shanks
Voice of Youth Advocates. 35.4 (Oct. 2012): p386.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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[3Q] * [3P] * [M] * [J] * [S]
Porter, Sarah. Waking Storms: The Lost Voices Trilogy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. 400p. $16.99. 978-0-547-48251-4.
Following the events of the previous book, Lost Voices (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), Luce is living apart from her mermaid tribe. Dorian, the human boy she broke mermaid law to save, struggles to come to terms with the shipwreck that killed his family and his own strange rescue. Dreaming of revenge, he searches for Luce. Meanwhile, the mermaid tribe chafes under the rule of mean-girl Anais and looks to Luce to save them as well. When she meets up with Dorian, Luce is caught between the human world and mermaid world again. Matters only become more complicated when she rescues a strange mermaid who is old enough to remember the creation of mermaids and who also believes that Luce has a role to play in their future. Luce faces difficult choices as her involvement with Dorian opens the door to a new danger--discovery by the human world at large and a true war between mermaids and humans.
While sometimes awkward and poorly-paced (the lightning-fast relationship between Dorian and Luce strains credulity), Porter's world, where mermaid tribes are fantasy parallels of school-girl cliques, remains interesting. Fans of the last book will want to pick up this installment, and paranormal romance readers looking for a new world to explore may find this a fun read. It helps to read the first book, although many of the events are synopsized in the early part of the novel. Expect a sequel as well, since the plot ends with a cliff-hanger.
Shanks, Brenna
Porter, Sarah: WAKING STORMS
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2012):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Kirkus Media LLC
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Porter, Sarah WAKING STORMS Harcourt (Children's Fiction) $16.99 7, 3 ISBN: 978-0-547-48251-4
The slow ebb and flow of Luce's mermaid world in Lost Voices (2011) resumes in this equally sluggish sequel. Although his entire family was murdered by a savage mermaid shipwreck, Dorian becomes obsessed with finding Luce, the lone mermaid who rescued him. No longer believing in the mermaid honor code, which doesn't permit contact with humans, Luce enters a forbidden romance with Dorian, the only human who can resist a mermaid's deadly song. When not trying to find a way to be with possessive and controlling Dorian, Luce continues to battle cruel mermaid Anais and her followers in this plot-driven novel. Dorian's not the only one compelled to locate Luce. An X-Files-like FBI agent believes that a sudden spike in shipwrecks in the surrounding calm Alaskan waters can be attributed to mermaids and sets out to prove their existence. The introduction of Nausicaa, a wise and ancient mermaid who, according to the book if not to Homer, tried to lure Odysseus with her song, raises some narrative interest with her explanation of the creation of mermaids. Her observations of the deteriorating Earth make Luce (and readers) aware of environmental concerns and cause Luce to wonder if mermaids and humans can work together to save the oceans. These efforts are foiled by a surreal island encounter with unexplained, strange voices and a rushed ending that sets up another conflict--and another sequel. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
QUOTE:
The real problem is that Luce takes too long to find her own voice and the tension wears thin.
A sudden ending to this slow-paced story will leave readers floundering
Porter, Sarah: LOST VOICES
Kirkus Reviews. (June 1, 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Kirkus Media LLC
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Porter, Sarah LOST VOICES Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Adult Fiction) $16.99 7, 4 ISBN: 978-0-547-48250-7
On her 14th birthday, Luce enters a dark world of mermaids in this foreboding yet ultimately uneventful debut.
After a life of thievery on the road, her single dad tried to give her normalcy by settling down and taking a fishing job in an Alaskan coastal village. Since his boat disappeared a year ago, Luce has been living with her violent, alcoholic uncle. When he tries to rape her, Luce liquefies, reforms as a mermaid and is taken in by a group of cliquish mermaids, who were all mistreated girls as humans. Reminiscent of Kevin Brooks, Porter blends lyrical narration with the ever-present threat of sinister violence. Like The Odyssey's Sirens, these mermaids, led by their queen, Catarina, use their voices to lure ships to destruction and their passengers to death. Equally fascinated and repulsed by the process, Luce, a naturally gifted singer bound by the mermaids' code of honor, tries to think of a way to turn their voices from tools of evil into beauty. Adding to her dilemma are Catarina's insecurities and secret compromises to the mermaid code and the arrival of the once-spoiled and wealthy Anais, who tries to usurp Catarina's power. The real problem is that Luce takes too long to find her own voice and the tension wears thin.
A sudden ending to this slow-paced story will leave readers floundering. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
QUOTE:
Porter's narrative style suits her oceanic theme; the vivid colors and particularities of life are smoothed away to plain clarity
Lost Voices
Publishers Weekly. 258.21 (May 23, 2011): p46.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Lost Voices
Sarah Porter. Harcourt, $16.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-547-48250-7
In debut novelist Porter's bleak take on mermaids, first in a trilogy, the creatures are born out of human abuse and neglect. Luce is an unwanted orphan, living with her alcoholic uncle on the Alaska coast. When he tries to rape her, Luce simply gives up and slides away, falling off a cliff. She awakens singing in the ocean, watching strangers drown as a ship sinks. There are other singers nearby, who bully Luce, answer her questions, and welcome her in a way her peers on land never did. A mermaid's life turns out to be even more brutal than the one Luce left, but now the brutality is directed elsewhere--at humankind. Still, Luce's conscience rebels, and she seeks some way to resolve the beauty of a mermaid's song with the horror of a siren's role. Porter's narrative style suits her oceanic theme; the vivid colors and particularities of life are smoothed away to plain clarity. Luce thinks about her world in ways that read much younger than her 14 years, but the simplicity of the style makes the darkness of the story more tolerable. Ages 12-up. (July)
QYOTE:
haunting debut
captivatingly different story.
Lost Voices
Krista Hutley
Booklist. 107.18 (May 15, 2011): p56.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
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Lost Voices.
By Sarah Porter.
July 2011. 304p. Harcourt, $16.99 (9780547482507). Gr. 7-10.
In this haunting debut, Porter reworks mermaid mythology to tell a story of abuse, revenge, and forgiveness. Fourteen-year-old Luce, living in an Alaskan fishing village with her abusive uncle, falls from a cliff and becomes a mermaid. She soon meets other lost girls; also abused by loved ones before transforming into beautiful creatures, they now have an ability to get what they never had in life: vengeance. Each has an irresistible desire to use her enchanted voice, which projects suffering as a siren call, to lure humans to their deaths. Luce feels the same electrifying impulse, but unlike the others, she fights her death song, remembering the mysterious disappearance of her loving father at sea. Porter's writing is expressive and graceful, especially in describing the underwater setting and the emotional nuances of the mermaids' songs, but the plot loses momentum, spending too much time on mercurial mean-girl dynamics in a group of, albeit realistically, emotionally damaged girls. The abrupt ending doesn't set up the sequel so much as require it, but this is still a captivatingly different story.--Krista Hutley
Hutley, Krista
QUOTE:
must-have for YA urban fantasy coIlections
Porter, Sarah. Vassa in the Night
Emma Carbone
School Library Journal. 62.8 (Aug. 2016): p115.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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* PORTER, Sarah. Vassa in the Night. 304p. ebook available. Tor Teen. Sept. 2016. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780765380548.
Gr 9 Up--Sixteen-year-old Vassa Lisa Lowenstein's mother is dead, and her father is gone. She has a stepmother and two stepsisters. It's an odd living arrangement but no more peculiar than a lot of things in her working-class Brooklyn neighborhood. The nights have been especially strange, growing longer and longer. When her stepsister seirds Vassa out in the middle of the night for lightbulbs, the only store that's still open is the local BYs. Everyone knows about BYs, and its owner Babs Yagg, but people do tend to remember a store that dances around on chicken legs and has a habit of decapitating shoplifters. When things don't go as planned in BYs, it will take all of Vassa's wits and her enchanted wooden doll Erg's cunning to escape the store alive and maybe even break whatever curse has been placed on Brooklyn's nights. This stand-alone urban fantasy is inspired by the Russian fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful." Although Vassa is described as incredibly pale, the rest of the book is populated with characters who are realistically diverse for its urban location. Evocative settings and imagery help bring this bizarre comer of Brooklyn to life. Vassa is a cynical, no-nonsense character who is quick to make jokes and take risks with the delightfully sharp-tongued Erg at her side. A deliberate lack of romantic tension makes this a refreshing read, and elements of traditional horror blend well with high-concept fantasy in this surprising and engaging tale. VERDICT A must-have for YA urban fantasy coIlections.--Emma Carbone, Brooklyn Public Library
Carbone, Emma
QUOTE:
The book should be enjoyed by those who dream of becoming someone (or something) else.
Porter, Sarah. Lost Voices
Lauren Newman
School Library Journal. 57.8 (Aug. 2011): p117.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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PORTER, Sarah. Lost Voices. Bk. 1. 291p. Houghton Harcourt. 2011. Tr $16.99. ISBN978-0-547-48250-7. LC 2011008438.
Gr 6-9--Luce, 14, wants to just disappear. After her swindling father's boat vanishes, she is forced to move in with her abusive, alcoholic uncle in an Alaskan fishing town. One day he attacks her atop a tall cliff. In her desperation to flee, she is sent tumbling down into the ocean below. What surely should have meant death is actually a rebirth, as Luce is magically transformed into a mermaid and taken in by several mermaids residing nearby. Luce, who has never had any real friends, befriends them, learning that the tribe is made up of girls just like her; they have all been abused in some way. After adjusting to her new world, Luce is overwhelmed with the love she feels--until she learns that her friends use their powerful voices to lure passing ships into the rocks, killing everyone onboard. She is appalled but if she doesn't subscribe to their practices and their abhorrence of humans, she may be banished, sent out into the dangerous ocean on her own. When a new mermaid joins the group and grossly shifts the tribe's dynamics, though, Luce's character is truly tested. For the first book in a slated trilogy, Porter does a nice job of painting Luce's emotions and the dynamics within the tribe. The description of how the girls transform is hazy at best and must be overlooked to enjoy the story that takes place under the sea. The book should be enjoyed by those who dream of becoming someone (or something) else.--Lauren Newman, Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School, Columbus, NJ
Newman, Lauren
QUOTE:
enthralling, magic-tinged read about home, family, love, and belonging.
VASSA IN THE NIGHT
by Sarah Porter
Best of 2016
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KIRKUS REVIEW
Brooklyn is an enchanted kingdom where most aspire to arrive—most of it, that is, the exception being Vassa’s working-class neighborhood, where the white teen lives with her stepmother and stepsisters, struggling with the feeling that she does not belong.
In Vassa’s neighborhood, magic is to be avoided, and the nights have mysteriously started lengthening. Baba Yaga owns a local convenience store known for its practice of beheading shoplifting customers, but it seems that even the innocent are susceptible to this fate. One night, after an argument with a stepsister, Vassa goes out on an errand to Baba Yaga’s store—one she knows may be her last. With her magic wooden doll, Erg, a gift from her dead mother, Vassa is equipped with some luck that she will very much need. Erg is clever and brazen, possessing both an insatiable appetite and a proclivity to swipe the property of others. But will Erg’s magic be enough to help free Vassa from Baba Yaga’s clutches and possibly her entire Brooklyn neighborhood from the ever increasing darkness? Vassa’s narration is smart and sassy but capable of wonder, however familiar she’s become with Brooklyn’s magic. In this urban-fantasy take on the Russian folk tale “Vassilissa the Beautiful,” Porter weaves folk motifs into a beautiful and gripping narrative filled with magic, hope, loss, and triumph.
An enthralling, magic-tinged read about home, family, love, and belonging. (Urban fantasy. 14 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 20th, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8054-8
Page count: 304pp
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: June 22nd, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1st, 2016
Review: ‘Vassa in the Night’ by Sarah PorterBy giselle on December 8, 2016@booknerdcanada
I received this book for free from requested from publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Review: ‘Vassa in the Night’ by Sarah PorterVassa in the Night by Sarah Porter
Published by Tor Teen on September 20th, 2016
Genres: Fairy Tales & Folklore, Fantasy & Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 296
Format: ARC
Source: requested from publisher
Goodreads
four-stars
In the enchanted kingdom of Brooklyn, the fashionable people put on cute shoes, go to parties in warehouses, drink on rooftops at sunset, and tell themselves they’ve arrived. A whole lot of Brooklyn is like that now—but not Vassa’s working-class neighborhood.
In Vassa’s neighborhood, where she lives with her stepmother and bickering stepsisters, one might stumble onto magic, but stumbling away again could become an issue. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters—and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. So when Vassa’s stepsister sends her out for light bulbs in the middle of night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission.
But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and a ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair…
Chapters/IndigoThe Book DepositoryAmazon CanadaGood Reads
book review
Two sisters, step-mother, no father and the main character is exceedingly beautiful. At first I was getting Cinderella vibes, but then it changed and upended everything I knew. It was just so different and unique that I can’t ever look at a convenience store the same way again.
Vassa in the Night was one of the most bizarre and well written books I have ever read. I actually don’t even know what I just read, but the imagination and creativity to pull it off was incredible! I’m still confused, but the good kind because I was thoroughly entertained! The quirky characters, the creative magical realism setting, the plot.. They all worked out and what the result was? One charmed reader who will tell others how bizarre and odd it was.
Here’s the one memorable example in the book:
“There is a convenience store on chicken legs. If you’re caught stealing, they behead you and place it on a pike in the parking lot.”
Vassa in the Night will charm reader’s socks off! It definitely charmed me 🙂
Lost Voices by Sarah Porter
Lost Voices book cover
Free preview
Rating
8.9/10
A dark, heart-rending entwinement of the power of music and the ethereal beauty of mermaids.
Lost Voices is a dark, heart-rending entwinement of the power of music and the ethereal beauty of mermaids, fleshed out by the cruel tendencies of a human heart.
If I had to pick one word to describe Sarah Porter’s brilliant creation, it would be, ‘beautiful!’ Painful, yes! Full of the untold darkness that could envelope any of us in our hours of despair, but the beautifully crafted first book of the Lost Voices trilogy is told in such a rich, despairing aqua tinged tone, it leaves you desperate for more.
Lost Voices is the story of Lucette Gray Korchak, a young girl living among the colourless cliffs of Alaska with a deranged uncle who finally goes over the edge and thrusts Luce into a deep, dark pit of despair, and as the girl struggles to save herself she finds that she has been washed into the ocean and changed… into a mermaid!
The previously lone girl now finds herself part of a pack, a whole gaggle of teenage mermaids who welcome her with open arms. The mermaids are ‘ruled’ by the mermaid with the most powerful voice, the icy and mysterious Catarina who plays an almost ‘blonde-prom-queen’ role in the novel until later, when her secrets start tumbling out. The mermaids follow a strict code, like the bushido of the samurai, called the timahk which prevents them from tearing at each other’s faces like normal, human teenage girls do. Luce believes she’s finally come home until she finds that the mermaid’s bitterness towards the humans that made them what they are, isn’t just skin deep. The mermaids have voices, and they use these voices to entice seafaring humans, just like the sirens of old. Luce’s mermaid sisters are involved in the murder of innocents and Luce is the girl with the perfect voice, a voice of power and purpose, a deadly weapon. What will she choose?
Regardless of Luce’s choice Porter has created a masterpiece. It is signature in the despair and darkness that seems to permeate YA literature today. However, such an act can be forgiven since there is a reason for all that darkness, not just because there happens to be a tall, brooding, hunky (insert supernatural being here) hanging around in the shadows!
I am waiting eagerly for the second and third books in this trilogy, eager to know what happens to the sunshiny Luce, survivor and mermaid. This is definitely something to pick up if you haven’t had anything good to read since Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Here’s to Sarah Porter, may you not disappoint!
This Lost Voices book review was written by Dash Cooray
QUOTE:
Lost Voices is a harrowing, dark work about finding one’s voice, the prickly nature of tangled loyalties and friendships, and the pain of isolation. It’s by no means a light book, and Lost Voices deals with some hefty issues – abuse, neglect, filicide – though the writing is accessible and in tune with its fourteen year old protagonist.
BOOK REVIEW: LOST VOICES BY SARAH PORTER
Title: Lost Voices
Author: Sarah Porter
Genre: Speculative Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: June 2011
Hardcover: 304 pages
What happens to the girls nobody sees — the ones who are ignored, mistreated, hidden away? The girls nobody hears when they cry for help?
Fourteen-year-old Luce is one of those lost girls. After her father vanishes in a storm at sea, she is stuck in a grim, gray Alaskan fishing village with her alcoholic uncle. When her uncle crosses an unspeakable line, Luce reaches the depths of despair. Abandoned on the cliffs near her home, she expects to die when she tumbles to the icy, churning waves below. Instead, she undergoes an astonishing transformation and becomes a mermaid. A tribe of mermaids finds Luce and welcomes her in—all of them, like her, lost girls who surrendered their humanity in the darkest moments of their lives. The mermaids are beautiful, free, and ageless, and Luce is thrilled with her new life until she discovers the catch: they feel an uncontrollable desire to drown seafarers, using their enchanted voices to lure ships into the rocks.
Luce’s own talent at singing captures the attention of the tribe’s queen, the fierce and elegant Catarina, and Luce soon finds herself pressured to join in committing mass murder. Luce’s struggle to retain her inner humanity puts her at odds with her friends; even worse, Catarina seems to regard Luce as a potential rival. But the appearance of a devious new mermaid brings a real threat to Catarina’s leadership and endangers the very existence of the tribe. Can Luce find the courage to challenge the newcomer, even at the risk of becoming rejected and alone once again?
Lost Voices is a captivating and wildly original tale about finding a voice, the healing power of friendship, and the strength it takes to forgive.
Stand alone or series: Book 1 of a planned trilogy
How did I get this book: ARC from the Publisher
Why did I read this book: To be honest, I was prejudiced against this book because the cover is so ridiculous – but I read the synopsis and was intrigued by a premise where lonely, abused, mistreated girls could be reborn as vengeful sirens/mermaids. That, plus the author’s impassioned explanation for writing the book, won me over.
Review:
Lucette Gray Korchak’s fourteenth birthday is anything but a day for celebration. With her mother long passed away and her father killed the prior year in a shipwreck, Luce lives with her uncle in the far reaches of Alaska. Invisible to those in her class, quiet and shy, Luce tries to draw as little attention as possible to herself – especially from her uncle, who has a habit of beating her, or worse, when he gets drunk. While walking on the cold, bleak cliffs on the way home on Luce’s birthday, her uncle forces himself on her, much to Luce’s horror. When she’s able to fight her way free, Luce knows that it’s only a matter of time before it happens again – but she has nowhere to go and no one to help her. Desperate, Luce runs away but loses her footing and falls from the stormy, darkened cliffside to the churning water below.
Instead of dying, however, Luce beings to change. Her body is torn apart and reshaped, and she is reborn as a mermaid. In the sea, Luce finds that she is not alone – she is one of the countless many young girls abused, maligned and neglected, born into new flesh in their most desperate and hopeless hour. It is here, in the cold waters off the Alaskan coast that Luce finds a new home with a tribe of mermaids. As a metaskaza, or newly made mermaid, Luce has much to learn. The mermaids live by a strict, unbreakable code called the timahk – and of paramount importance to their code is that a mermaid can never physically harm another of her kind, and they cannot allow humans to know of their existence. To break the timahk is to be exiled forever.
The other thing that mermaids do, as Luce soon learns, is sing their deadly, hungry song, causing ships to crash and their human sailors to die, enrapt by the beauty of their murderers. As all the mermaids are girls that have known misery and pain at the hands of mortals, they take glee in their killing – all, except Luce. Luce doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but to go against her sisters is to risk being alone, forever. Luce must decide whether or not to go against her new family and break the timahk, and follow what she knows is right.
The debut novel by Sarah Porter, Lost Voices is a harrowing, dark work about finding one’s voice, the prickly nature of tangled loyalties and friendships, and the pain of isolation. It’s by no means a light book, and Lost Voices deals with some hefty issues – abuse, neglect, filicide – though the writing is accessible and in tune with its fourteen year old protagonist. The idea of these maligned girls being reborn as mermaids with the ability to sing humans to their deaths, is a fascinating one, although it is a loaded premise. The nature of the mermaids and their natural inclination to kill and hurt is a dangerous proposition, but Sarah Porter handles the subtext with grace and sympathy. There are many questions I have, though, at the end of the novel. I want to know MORE about the mermaid curse – because that’s what it seems like to me, as opposed to a gift. Luce didn’t kill herself and she didn’t die; instead the curse kind of took her over and transformed her into a mermaid. The mermaid natural song also is one of death and destruction, but Luce is able to fight that urge for hate and death and make her own, powerful music. Why is it that only girls are metaskaza? How do they change if they don’t actually die? Who made these rules? While I have more questions than answers at this point, I have no doubt in my mind that these issues will be addressed in the next books (as they are already hinted at in Lost Voices) and I have every confidence in Ms. Porter that this will be handled with both delicacy and gravity.
As for characters, Luce is a strong heroine, and though she tends a little towards Mary Sue early on (especially given that she has one of the best mermaid voices in the entire tribe despite being metaskaza), she grapples with serious, soul searching questions. When she understands what her song can do, and how the other mermaids gleefully take part in sinking ships, she wrestles with her conscience and her desire to belong and be loved. Luce has integrity, and even though she’s scared and alone, she stays true to herself – making her a wonderful heroine worth rooting for. I loved all of the other mermaids too – cruel, capricious, fickle, loving, scared, domineering, confident…this tribe runs the gamut. As many other reviews mention, there is a sort of “mean girls”-esque feel to the tribe as it splinters under the pressure with new mermaid arrivals, but the group behavior and cliques that form are anything but comedic.
People can say terrible things to each other. There’s one passage in particular that is so painful to read, in which one of the girls snidely remarks that Luce must’ve done something to deserve the way her Uncle treated her. That she must have liked it or wanted it in some way. And as nauseating as that accusation is, Luce is able to fight back and recognize just how wrong her clan’s thinking is – because to accept the status quo is to accept that somehow she and the other mermaids ‘got what they deserved.’ And that is NOT true.
After all, she was basically saying that Samantha deserved to be thrown from a moving car, that Jenna deserved to be trapped in a burning house. Luce looked around for support […] No one met Luce’s eyes. After a second Luce understood why. They actually believed what Anais was saying to them. At least they half believed it or they were afraid it was true: that their parents had left them or hurt them because of some deep, secret flaw in their own hearts. It didn’t take much, just the smallest crack of self-doubt, and Anais’s words could insinuate themselves through the gap and then drive it wider. They were all ashamed. Just like Catarina. Even Samantha, who had insisted so loudly that no mermaid should ever allow herself to feel shame for one second. And Luce had never felt so sorry for them. “You shouldn’t listen to her,” Luce whispered. “None of you should.”
I loved that this section was included in the book, and that there is a conscious acknowledgement of guilt and fear, but also forgiveness and understanding. These girls are not at fault – and through Luce, Ms. Porter gives them a voice.
You know what else I loved about this book, most of all? The fact that there isn’t a love story in sight. This is a book about girls, friendships, group dynamics, fear, and hate and the ability to love in spite of all they have been through. And that is just what I needed to read.
Lost Voices is a powerful debut, and the start of a promising new series. I cannot wait to see where Sarah Porter takes Luce, and us, next.
Notable Quotes/Parts: From the official excerpt:
The boat was speeding up now and the mermaids’ song flowed over the sky until every breath of air, every grain of sunlight, was awake and alive. Luce felt the song streaming over and inside her body, and then she heard a single high, tremulous note soaring up above the curls of music. It tore from her chest and peaked somewhere just under the sun, floated there, and then began a long, tumbling descent. The young sailor’s sleepy love changed, heightened into a fever of longing. The song entered into his mind, and Luce suddenly understood him.
Her quivering song felt his thoughts, and it told her how heartbroken he’d been since his mother’s death. They’d been fighting, and he hadn’t gone to see her in the hospital as cancer
ate through her; he’d stayed away, until it was too late.
She had promised she wouldn’t sing, Luce reminded herself. She could still lift her tail up into the sunlight and hold it there until the burning forced her voice to stop. But even then the ship would smash apart. Everyone on it was already doomed. And she couldn’t let the young sailor die, Luce thought, with so much grief still inside him. Her song fell and the note split into a widening chord, and then the young sailor knew that, even as she died, his mother had
forgiven him. She’d thought of him with the purest compassion, with gratitude for the years of joy he’d brought to her life.
At least, that was what Luce’s song told him. It vibrated with a sense of perfect homecoming, and as Luce sang to him everything broken was mended, and everything lost was restored.
Rating: 7 – Very Good
QUOTE:
Like any good middle novel in a trilogy, WAKING STORMS leaves plenty of strings untied to keep you hungry for the final installment. But unlike many weaker series, this book also stands up completely on its own two feet (fins?) and is as deep, dark and magical as LOST VOICES.
Review
Waking Storms
by Sarah Porter
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In LOST VOICES, which kicked off Sarah Porter’s trilogy, Luce broke the timahk when she sang to Dorian and let him live. Mermaids can sing to whomever they want, but only because they then drown the lucky human who gets to hear their songs. However, Luce swam Dorian to safety after her tribe drowned his family, and now she’s alone and tribeless.
Dorian is alone, too, and has to live with relatives and deal with the death of his parents and sister on his own. His new high school is so different from the huge one he left behind in Chicago, and even though he knows he should be trying to make new friends, Dorian can’t get a strange girl’s face out of his head. Since all he can remember from the accident is that the girl was beautiful and otherworldly --- oh, and she had a tail --- he can’t exactly talk about it with just anyone.
"Like any good middle novel in a trilogy, WAKING STORMS leaves plenty of strings untied to keep you hungry for the final installment. But unlike many weaker series, this book also stands up completely on its own two feet (fins?) and is as deep, dark and magical as LOST VOICES."
As coincidence would have it, Luce and Dorian find each other on a beach, and even though Dorian knows he should hate her, they forge a relationship based on their shared feelings of loneliness and being different from everyone else. Luce can’t help feeling like she was right to save Dorian. She senses something in him that says he could almost be the type of lost soul who would turn into a mermaid at an emotional breaking point, except that that only happens to girls. And Dorian is desperate to “save” Luce, if only he can figure out how to turn her back into a human.
At the same time, Luce’s old tribe is fraying under the misguided leadership of its new queen, and the entire Alaskan coast feels different, as if things are on the verge of changing. Humans seem to be purposely avoiding the coves and coasts where the mermaids live, and killer whales are becoming more brazen in their attempts to make the mermaids their lunch. When Luce saves a strange mermaid from a fishing net and finds that she is a centuries-old mermaid originally from Greece, she becomes determined to make some sort of difference, even if she doesn’t know why or how.
LOST VOICES was pitch-perfect, and I was a little worried that its sequel, WAKING STORMS, would be either too similar or too much of a disappointment. Thankfully, it’s neither. Porter has crafted another winner, one that lives up to its predecessor but stands alone as its own compelling story. Whereas LOST VOICES dealt with recovering from abuse through finding strength inside oneself and in community and friendship, WAKING STORMS is about maturing. With a light but not unserious touch, Porter pits Luce against herself, Luce against the elements, Luce against love, and Luce against evil, forcing her to make a series of grown-up decisions that illustrate how no choice is ever entirely free of sacrifices or consequences.
Like any good middle novel in a trilogy, WAKING STORMS leaves plenty of strings untied to keep you hungry for the final installment. But unlike many weaker series, this book also stands up completely on its own two feet (fins?) and is as deep, dark and magical as LOST VOICES. A reader could pick it up not having read the previous title and be fine, while fans of the first novel surely will not be disappointed.
Reviewed by Sarah Hannah Gomez on August 19, 2012
Waking Storms – Sarah Porter
BY ANGEL CRUZ ON JULY 8, 2012 • ( 2 COMMENTS )
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Publisher: Harcourt Children’s Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: ARC received from publisher
After parting ways with her troubled mermaid tribe, Luce just wants to live peacefully on her own. But her tranquility doesn’t last long: she receives news that the tribe is on the verge of collapse and desperately needs her leadership. The tribe’s cruel queen wants Luce dead. Dorian, the boy Luce broke mermaid law to save, is determined to make her pay for her part in the murder of his family. And while the mermaids cling to the idea that humans never suspect their existence, there are suddenly ominous signs to the contrary.
But when Luce and Dorian meet, they start to wonder if love can overpower the hatred they know they should feel for each other. Can Luce fulfill her rightful role as queen of the mermaids without sacrificing her forbidden romance with Dorian?
Tell Me More: In the year or so since I’ve been blogging, I’ve read and reviewed more novels about mermaids than I’ve read in my entire life. They’ve always fascinated me, but I’ve only been able to really savour the richness of their mythology in the last few months. Ethereal and mysterious as they are, it can be difficult to push through the haze and find a story worth telling. Sarah Porter did it once with Lost Voices, and she succeeds again, brilliantly, with Waking Storms.
For quite a while, I caught myself referring to this book as Waking Voices, which was a great connection that my brain drew on its own. Luce is certainly waking up to the loneliness of her existence, and she begins to own her voice and her actions. Despite losing the chance to grow up physically, she learns to grow emotionally–she takes the risk of loving someone besides herself, and she learns to deal with the consequences of her actions in the previous book.
Curiously enough, many readers are bothered by how quickly the relationship between Luce and Dorian develops, but I believe this is one instance where the “insta-love” can be pardoned, at least for this book. It’s important to remember that Luce is 14 years old, and will never have the chance to grow up. She certainly makes leaps and strides in emotional growth, but at heart, she is still a child. She encounters emotions and situations that even adults would be hesitant to experience, and she does her best with what she knows. Those of us past adolescence know how heightened everything becomes, from the slightest insult to the greatest joys. I never excused Luce for her actions, but I can very much understand where they come from, and I appreciated Sarah Porter’s dedication to letting Luce’s characterization expand even as it remains realistic.
…
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Likewise, the plot is one that unfolds slowly and steadily. Luce’s decision to split from her tribe of mermaids was a brave one, and her journey is just as compelling. Early in the story, a beautiful poem by T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is mentioned, and unconscious or not, the story runs parallel to the poem. The last line is particularly chilling to consider in reference to Waking Storms: Luce is surrounded at all sides by human beings who are cruel, reckless and selfish. The very race with whom she wishes to co-exist wants to destroy her. Her tribe has morphed into something she cannot fathom. Sarah Porter’s prose is gut-wrenchingly beautiful, even when it is heavy with sadness.
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
Time and the loss of it is a theme that lies quite heavily on the story. The mermaids’ time seems to be ending, and Luce and Dorian’s relationship is slave to lost time as well. There are mistakes and risks in looking back at the past, and Luce and the mermaids are trapped by their instinct to seek revenge for those experiences. It’s a time for change for each and every character in this book, and that is a truly powerful and creative dynamic to add to the story.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
Luce is the eye of the storm in this trilogy, despite her wish to live a quiet and peaceful life. Like J. Alfred Prufrock, Luce is searching for something she can’t quite name, because of fear and anger and loss. After reading Waking Storms, it’s very obvious that she will have to make some awful choices to get her wish, and she will have to face the things she can’t forgive herself for doing. The Luce that readers will find at the end of this installment is vastly different from the damaged young girl in Lost Voices. She grows into a girl who will be worthy of the battles she has to fight in the next book, whether it’s against her tribe, Dorian or herself. Her inner strength will carry her through, despite the temptation to take the easy road. I look forward to seeing her grow into a formidable and truly beautiful person.
The Final Say: While Lost Voices is captivating and enthralling, Waking Storms is powerful in the raw pain and uncertainty it displays. Sarah Porter raises the stakes, not only for Luce, but for every single character, with writing that is more melodic than a song.
Tiffany Holme
Stunning Conclusion...
The Twice Lost was my favourite book in this series. It was a stunning and action packed finish, that left me reeling and possibly a little heart broken. Sarah Porter pulled everything from the other books and made it into something so much bigger. This is the type of conclusion that fills you when you are done, and you can let go of the series, because you are okay with how it all came to an end. Although it was a long road to get here, this book was everything that I had hoped that this series would be and more.
There was a large amount of action and this showed in the fast pacing. Right from the get go this book was different from the others. It is what the sun is to the other stars we see in the sky, brilliant and consuming. The stakes were higher than ever before and you could feel the tension within the pages. I loved that all of the build up that had happened in the last two books really took on a purpose, that is was all for something. Honestly there was so much forward movement right through until the end, the book itself was spectacular. There was more world building that was vivid and wonderful, and more characters added, that added to the strength of the series and the already standing characters. Overall this was the best book for pacing and really did bring everything together.
Luce really grew in this book. She realized that some things must be done, but she also stuck to her belief that things could change. There are moments that I believed she was risking more than she needed to, but change takes risks and Luce was risking it all. However, to a point there was no real choice. I wanted to celebrate Luce's power and her ability to trust others, but a part of me worried that her trusting nature was going to be the end of everything that she wanted to accomplish. There is something wholly pure about Luce despite the heartbreak she has faced, and the trials that she has faced throughout these books. She is a character that grew in some ways and stayed the same in others but I enjoyed from the start and loved for her choices in the end.
I can't say much about romance for this one without spoiling past books. However, I will say that there is more unexpected romance. It's not right away but when it hit, it shocked the heck right out of me. It was an unexpected twist that I did not see coming and could not have even if I was told it was a possibility. What was also amazing about this book beyond the unexpected, was that there was an addition of amazing characters that fit flawlessly into the story. Normally adding a character that is so important this late in the game is awkward, or they don't fit right. They were each perfectly moulded for their parts, and their different personalities filled holes that I did not even know existed to start with. Between the hints of romance past and romance anew, and the new characters Porter really powered this book up with extras.
The Twice Lost was a phenomenal read and really pulled everything together. To fully appreciate it you will have to read the first two books, but it is worth it. Everything was detailed, tragic, yet beautiful and meaningful. Finishing this book I realize just how much time the author put into building every brick perfectly to get to this point. There was so much going on and action that hadn't been there before. Light was brought to both the bright and dark side of mermaids and humans, showing that neither species is completely good or completely evil. My words can't describe how perfect this trilogy was ended but if you like mermaids I would suggest giving these books a try.