From School Library Journal
Grade 7-9. Sarah, 17, has just moved from California to a small Missouri town so that her mother can be near her new boyfriend. The teen reluctantly agrees when handsome, popular Eric asks her to run a fortune-telling booth at the school's Halloween carnival. After her impressive performance, he convinces her to continue telling fortunes off campus. Then Sarah becomes unnerved by the startling visions about other students that she sees in the antique paperweight/crystal ball and begins to have terrifying nightmares. Her classmates, not knowing how to deal with Sarah's unsettling information, label her a witch. Her only friend is another misfit, Charlie. Because both of them are having dreams about the Salem witchcraft trials, Charlie develops a theory that they are living out the results of what happened in past lives in Salem; that many of Sarah's classmates may be former victims of her false accusations seeking revenge. Parts of the plot stretch credibility. That so many students could so easily become convinced that Sarah is a witch seems highly unlikely. Equally hard to accept is the idea that Sarah's mother has been drawn to the town so that Sarah can fulfill some sort of karmic destiny. Charlie's belief in reincarnation causes him to sound like a textbook on Eastern religions. Adult characters merely serve to move the story along. Sarah, however, is an insightful and perceptive character, and readers will identify with her anguish as she tries to deal with the cruelties inflicted on her. Unfortunately, the ending is abrupt and loose ends get tucked in too easily. Despite its weaknesses, this is still an exciting, suspenseful tale that will certainly be welcomed by Duncan's many fans.?Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 6^-9. Sarah Zoltanne is new in town, dragged from California to Missouri by her mom, who is in love with a local teacher. Sarah is miserable, but after she plays a fortune-teller at a school event, popular Eric Garret enlists her to make fortune-telling a side business. When the fortunes start coming true, and Sarah begins having dreams about the Salem Witch Trials, reality becomes frightening and dangerous. This is a mish-mash that works best when it focuses on the effect Sarah's fortune-telling has on a parochial town, but the plot spins out of control when Sarah and the other kids turn out to be reincarnations of people from the witch trials. Despite the flaws (including a narrow portrait of "Christians" and the inaccurate information that most early Christians believed in reincarnation), the book has one important thing going for it--Duncan writes page-turners. Her well-known knack for mixing the sinister and the supernatural compensates for a lot--and it needs to here.
Ilene Cooper
de Lois Duncan
de Lois Duncan
de Lois Duncan
de Lois Duncan
de Lois Duncan
