What We Harvest

YA chiller 

     "Dad's notes confirmed what Mrs. P had told us, that the stones--the rainbow quartz, the Murphys' geode, the Pewter-Flores' agate, the Harrises' cinnabar--trapped the blight, and somehow the blight inside them gave them the ability to improve our crops.

     But, as I'd also learned from Mrs. P, everyone across the farms--including me--had broken our stones too many times, spread them too thin so we could increase our planting radius, and so the blight overflowed.  Leaked free."

     If a thriller gets too scary for me I don't hesitate to return it to the library from whence it came.  I'd say that happens about once a year.  I thought there was no grey area between what I could and couldn't handle.  Ann Fraistat's What We Harvest showed me the fallacy of that line of thinking.  A couple of nights ago a storm woke me up in the middle of the night.  Usually under those circumstances I tiptoe to my studio to read myself back to drowsiness.  But that book when the blackness outside was only punctuated by lightning flashes.

     No way in Hell!!!

     Four families formed the core of Hollows End, growing and raising too perfect to be true goods on specialized farms passed down through generations.  The Harrises raised exceptional horses and dogs. The Pewter-Flores' ghost melons were the star of the annual summer festival.  The Murphys' crop of choice was golden yams, far more filling and nutritious than their garden variety cousins.  And narrator Wren's family grew wheat in rainbow colors that was believed to have healing powers.  Not only the families, but the surrounding communities thrived on the farms' profitable output.

     But all that is in the past.  A toxic silver mold is wreaking havoc on the crops, reducing them to putrid, slimy, stinking rot.  Government people are supposedly trying to get at the root of the scourge.  But they aren't getting anywhere.

     And the mold doesn't stop with crops.  It also turns animals and humans into a zombie like army of the seemingly living dead.  Every evening as darkness falls they shamble out of the forest to walk the abandoned streets of the formerly prosperous town. 

     Even after she becomes contaminated and experiences increasingly painful symptoms, Wren, accompanied by best friend, Derek, fights against time to find the source and cure.

     Perhaps the mold isn't the only thing rotten in Hollow's End.  Maybe evil's committed by the founding generation have come back to ruin their descendants and their way of life.

     Read this super suspenseful book if you dare, just not during a middle of the night thunderstorm.

     What We Harvest is Fraistat's debut novel.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.  Even if I have to contain reading it to broad daylight.

On a purrrsonal note, I was delighted to see that she grew up reading the work of R. L. Stine and other spooky stories.  So did my older daughter, Amber.  Now she's editing her first book for a publisher.  I'm so looking forward to reviewing her first novel when it comes out in print.  (Jules)

I miss Amber.  I haven't seen her in ages.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our Amber who will someday be giving fellow Mainer Stephen King some home grown competition.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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