The Secret of Skara Vhore, by Jennifer M Calder by Margaret Graham
(published by Matador)
‘A great setting and good tension between a real and fantasy world… the loneliness of an unwanted teenager discovering a world where good and evil battles… great concept and world building…’ Felicity Trew. (Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency)
Katie is a lost and troubled teenager who is claimed by distant, unknown relatives and is dispatched to a remote Scottish island. Distrustful of the world, she slowly accepts the friendship of perceptive Morag, mischievous Robbie and the reticent Kirig, a strange boy who lives in the hills. But sinister and ghostly events threaten them as past time spills into the present. Katie struggles to uncover her forgotten history but then is asked to risk the lives of those she loves in order to battle against the forces of chaos and fulfil her destiny. Set in the highlands of Scotland, The Secret of Skara details the battle between good and evil, as well as the loyalty among friends.
Judge’s comments: This Young Adult novel (the first of a trilogy) has a perfect setting – the loneliness of an unwanted teenager discovering a world where good and evil battle. It opens with an anonymous boy stumbling through a moorland landscape with no clue to its time or place. The next chapter gives us an unnamed girl in an all-too-real – and equally desolate – contemporary England town. The origins of these two children, their coming together and its consequences, form a great setting and tension between a real world and fantasy world.
Katie is a troubled teenager with a buried past and Kirig is a strange and almost silent boy. Together with two other children, perceptive Morag and impish Robbie, they must find their way through the confusion of past and present to a new understanding of who they are.
Calder creates both the wilderness of a Scottish island and the equally bleak desert of a run-down English town with a confident use of detail and it is so nearly ‘there’. However, with an eye to any forthcoming novels in the series: sometimes the writing can be quite dialogue heavy which unravels the pace and sometimes the Young Adult voice doesn’t grab and pull in the reader, (essential in this genre). Maybe change the title – it must speak to the audience.
An interesting novel, a great concept and world building. A worthy 3rd place.
About Jennifer M Calder:
Jennifer studied English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University. From childhood she has had a fascination with words and story-writing and during her time as a full-time mother she wrote for her own children.
On returning to the classroom Jennifer taught in inner-city schools in England, where her expertise lay in the field of children’s literacy. Later came a career-change into another area of ‘word work’: copy-editing and proofreading for academic publishers.
But when Jennifer returned to her home in the Scottish highlands – coming back to the sea, heather and hills of the magnificent landscape that inspired The Secret of Skara Vhore – she made the decision that she would concentrate on her own writing.
While teaching Jennifer had met many pupils with chaotic lives who deserved to be rescued from their situations. At least in fiction she could make it happen for one troubled girl.
Happily, the novel has been very well received by reviewers and readers. Although officially aimed at the teenage market the novel is being enjoyed by anyone who is into the dark supernatural.
The Secret of Skara Vhore is Jennifer’s debut novel. She is now working on the second novel in this trilogy.