You May Now Kill The Bride

You May Now Kill The Bride

YA fiction
"Holding Rebecca like a baby, Peter lowered his face to hers and
kissed her lips. And as they kissed, he walked to the edge of the
mesa. He held the kiss for another few seconds. Then he raised her
in his arms and tossed her over the side of the cliff."
That's not what you expect a groom who has just exchanged vows
to do to his beloved during the wedding...
...unless both are characters in an R. L. Stine novel. Stine
and I go way back. His Goosebumps books were favorites of my
daughters, especially the choose your own ending ones. I spent so
many lovely rainy days and spooky evenings reading them out loud.
Until one day I was reading Stephen King out loud, assuming, in view
of Amber and Katie's increased sophistication in horror fare, I was
parting company with Stine. Only I was so wrong. Recently I
discovered that the man has moved on up to YA series. You May Now
Kill The Bride, part of the Return to Fear Street series, will be a
hit with his target demographics and well beyond.
The year is 1923. The wealthy Fear family has its dark secrets,
secrets centered in a musty, dark attic room equipped with black
candles and ancient spell books passed down through generations along
with a potent curse based on a bloody feud with another family.
Ruth-Ann has grown up in the shadow of her beautiful, vivacious
sister, Rebecca, the obvious family favorite. Finally she has a
boyfriend, Peter, who, unlike the rest of the world, doesn't make the
feel lesser than...
...until the night he doesn't show up for a date and she
discovers him slow dancing with Rebecca in a club.
"Peter was mine. I worked so hard to get him. I had to use so
much magic, cast so many frightening spells to make him mine.
Now Rebecca waltzes off with him. She thinks she's entitled to
everything."
The next day Rebecca and Peter announce their engagement at the
Fear family supper. Rather than side with jilted Ruth-Ann, her father
tells her to control herself. When Ruth-Ann declares that she will
make sure that the wedding never takes place a scornful Rebecca asks
her if she's going to cast a spell.
You'd better believe it!
The decades pass. Now another Fear wedding is about to take
place on the same mesa. A wedding where a younger sister resents the
bride. A younger sister who knows magic and isn't afraid to practice
it.
Is history about to repeat itself?
You need to read the book to see.
And I need to find more of Stine's YA offerings. Us grad
students just gotta have fun, you know.
On a purrrsonal note, I've been having an excellent week so far,
mostly school and work and homework and loving my Tobago kitty. It's
been snowing all day today. There's supposed to be more tomorrow. A
big topic of conversation in Wells Dining Commons was whether Friday
classes will be cancelled. I have to go to Bangor--2 buses each way--
no matter how the weather turns out. I have to get the ingredients
for Eugene's Valentines Day molasses cake and chocolate chip cookies.
I also have to get cereal high in iron because I ran out today and I'm
scheduled to donate blood next week. While I'm in that area I might
as well check out Goodwill for the first time since renovations--see
if there are any cat shirts, leggings, pajamas... that need to be
liberated. I'll tell you if I accomplish all my missions and find any
good stuff.
Right now Eugene is sleeping, resting up to go plow. Tobago is
napping in her loft. And the white stuff keeps coming down.
A great big shout out goes out to all who will be plowing to enable us
to drive and walk in safety, sweet little Tobago, and Joey who was a
wonderful blizzard companion in the 16 years he was with me.
jules hathaway


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