The Diviners

July 30, 2012
Evie O’Neill has a neat-o party trick: she can uncover details about people by holding any object that belongs to them. After one too many tumblers of gin, she uses this skill to out the sexual misadventures of a prominent bachelor in her Ohio hometown, earning her immediate exile to Jazz Age New York City, where her professorial uncle runs a museum devoted to the occult. Naturally, Evie considers this punishment the luckiest break possible, until she realizes she’s arrived just as a demon spirit has been inadvertently released. A spree of grisly murders ensues, eventually necessitating the use of Evie’s special skill. Evie is fighting personal demons, as well, including the ghost of her dead older brother and a penchant for alcohol that gets her into continual trouble. Bray empties a wealth of topics into her complicated narrative—labor reform, a steampunkish robotics experiment, flapper culture, religious zealotry—but her trademark humor is less apparent. The large cast—a pickpocket with a missing mother, a Ziegfeld girl with Hollywood dreams, a Harlem numbers runner who longs to be a poet—ensures there’s plenty to write about in the sequels. Ages 15–up. (Sept.) ■

Starred review from January 28, 2013
After committing a small indiscretion, Evie O’Neill couldn’t be happier when her parents exile her from small-town Ohio to live with her uncle in 1920s New York City. A life of fashion, speakeasies, dancing, and music is exactly what 17-year-old Evie wants. But when her Uncle Will, who manages a museum of occult history and artifacts, is drawn into a police investigation of a bizarre and gruesome series of murders, Evie finds herself involved as well—and this means she may be forced to reveal her supernatural powers. Narrator January LaVoy provides lively, magnetic narration and gives unique voices to the book’s cast of fascinating characters. Listeners both young and old will enjoy this supernatural story and find this audio edition enthralling, irresistible entertainment. Ages 15–up. A Little Brown hardcover.

Starred review from August 1, 2012
1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new trilogy from Printz winner Bray. Irrepressible 17-year-old Evie delights in her banishment to her Uncle Will's care in Manhattan after she drunkenly embarrasses a peer in her Ohio hometown. She envisions glamour, fun and flappers, but she gets a great deal more in the bargain. Her uncle, the curator of a museum of the occult, is soon tapped to help solve a string of grisly murders, and Evie, who has long concealed an ability to read people's pasts while holding an object of their possession, is eager to assist. An impressively wide net is cast here, sprawling to include philosophical Uncle Will and his odd assistant, a numbers runner and poet who dreams of establishing himself among the stars of the Harlem Renaissance, a beautiful and mysterious dancer on the run from her past and her kind musician roommate, a slick-talking pickpocket, and Evie's seemingly demure sidekick, Mabel. Added into the rotation of third-person narrators are the voices of those encountering a vicious, otherworldly serial killer; these are utterly terrifying. Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don't let go. Not to be missed. (Historical/paranormal thriller. 14 & up)

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Starred review from September 1, 2012

Gr 10 Up-Set in 1920s New York City, this literary tour-de-force from Printz Award-winner Bray offers grand themes, complex characters, and suspense. After her secret gift for divining information from objects lands her in trouble, 17-year-old Evangeline O'Neill is sent from Ohio to live with her uncle, who runs a museum specializing in folklore and the occult in Manhattan. Evie is a quintessential flapper: not really bad, but rebellious and yearning to fly free of her Babbitt-like existence. Although she starts out her new life like the party girl she was back home, her pursuits become more serious when her uncle is asked to help solve a series of strange murders. She crosses paths with Memphis Campbell, a black numbers runner in Harlem, whose power to heal by laying on hands failed him when he tried to save his mother. Other characters include a homosexual composer who meets people in dreams, a Ziegfeld girl with a past, a pickpocket searching for his family, and a young research assistant with his own secrets. Bray develops each of these characters and their gifts, gradually bringing them together in a chilling and thrilling battle with Naughty John, a paranormal serial killer. Over the course of the novel, people (mainly good) smoke, drink, and use other illegal substances. These peccadilloes are contrasted with the values of the hellfire-and-brimstone cult that spawned Naughty John. The compelling and dramatic supernatural plot explores self-actualization, predestination, the secrets everyone hides, and, of course, good versus evil. An absolutely terrific read and, thankfully, the first in a planned series.-Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2012
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Here's your headline, boss: Small-Town Dame Lands in Big Apple, Goes Wild, Tries to Stop Resurrection of Antichrist. It'll sell bundles! Indeed it will, as Bray continues her winning streak with this heedlessly sprawling series starter set in Prohibition-era New York. Slang-slinging flapper Evie, 17, is pos-i-tute-ly thrilled to be under the wing of her uncle, who runs the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. Business is slow (i.e., plenty of time for Evie to swill gin at speakeasies!) until the grisly arrival of what the papers dub the Pentacle Killer, who might be the reincarnation of a religious zealot named Naughty John. Even Evie's new palshoofers, numbers runners, and activists, but all swell kidsare drawn into the investigation. It's Marjorie Morningstar meets Silence of the Lambs, and Bray dives into it with the brio of the era, alternating rat-a-rat flirting with cold-blooded killings. Seemingly each teen has a secret ability (one can read an object's history; another can heal), and yet the narrative maintains the flavor of historical fiction rather than fantasy. The rest of the plotwell, how much time do you have? The book is big and wants to be the kind of thing you can lose yourself in. Does it succeed? It's jake, baby. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: One need only peruse Bray's track record (the Gemma Doyle Trilogy; Going Bovine, 2009; Beauty Queens, 2011) to see that the heavy promo plans and author tour are well earned.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
Bray's lavish supernatural thriller plunks a macabre series of occult murders into the grit and gaiety of 1920s New York. Bray switches perspectives among a variety of characters, including her wisecracking, likable heroine Evie, a diviner with a special connection to the spirit world. All signs point to intriguing complications and more malevolent spirits on the rise in succeeding books.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2012
Bray's lavish supernatural thriller plunks a macabre series of occult murders into the grit and gaiety of 1920s New York. Newly arrived in Manhattan, seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill doesn't plan to fade into the woodwork. As she tells friends back home in Ohio, I'm going to be written up in all the papers and get invited to the Fitzgeralds' flat for cocktails. The first half of this prediction comes true, but not in the way she expects. Evie's Uncle Will runs the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, a.k.a. the Museum of Creepy Crawlies. Early on, Miss Addie, Will's eccentric elderly neighbor, recognizes that Evie is a diviner, someone with a special connection to the spirit world. Eventually Evie's more-or-less secret power to access people's memories by touching one of their possessions allows her to help Will track Naughty John, a truly eerie ritual killer who happens to have died fifty years earlier. Bray switches perspectives among a variety of characters, some of whom also have supernatural abilities: a Harlem numbers runner and poet; a world-weary Ziegfeld Follies dancer; the rakish con artist who fleeces Evie and then falls for her. At times the novel feels overstuffed with period detail, as if Bray got a little too giddy about her research. Yet wisecracking Evie is a likable heroine, and all signs point to intriguing complications and more malevolent spirits on the rise in succeeding books. christine m. heppermann

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)