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The Hollow by Jessica Verday:

When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. Then she meets Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen's funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey's life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he's the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again...but also special.

Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen's betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth that nearly unravels her—one that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.

Summary provided by GoodReads.

Abbey’s in denial. Her best friend has been missing for months, believed to have drowned in the river, but despite the evidence and the funeral service Abbey clings to the idea Kristen might still be alive. The mysterious boy who appears at the memorial offers her something to focus on beyond where Kristen could possibly be. Caspian seems to understand her floundering and shares her love of the Sleepy Hollow cemetery where Washington Irving was buried. And with that understanding comes a possible romance. Good thing something is going her way because her status as the best friend of the girl “who may have committed suicide” has left her ostracized at school, and nightmares keep plaguing her sleep. Caspian, the cemetery and her perfume making are the only things keeping her sane.

Or are they? Because suddenly Caspian’s keeping secrets, a chance discovery of Kristen’s diary reveals her friend’s second life with her own mysterious boy, and there’s a new caretaker at Washington Irving’s grave.

I picked up Jessica Verday’s first book after reading about the Wicked Pretty Things debacle (you can find a round up of links here). I wanted to throw some support behind her and also check out the writer who had started it all. What I found in The Hollow was a very interesting premise, but a story I kept waiting to move faster. Setting her story in the town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, Verday weaves the Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with the tale of Abbey, Caspian, and Kristen. A quote from the original story heads each chapter, and the town as a whole works to make Washington Irving and Sleepy Hollow an acknowledged part of their lives and tourism trade. As the child of City Council members, Abbey relates the various Sleepy Hollow events as she narrates her life in the months of after Kristen’s disappearance. This narrative follows a long, winding path of high school events, Caspian’s courting, and edges the mystery behind Kristen’s death to build up to a cliff hanger of sorts for Abbey’s mental state and Caspian’s secrets.

As the first book in a trilogy The Hollow successfully sets the scene for the rest of the series, and acts as one third of the overall story, but on its own I didn’t feel that it answered enough questions in relation to the many plot thre

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Because every story must start somewhere, Briony, of Franny Billingsley’s Chime, starts hers with this:

If Eldric were to tell the story, he’d likely begin with himself. That’s where proper stories begin, don’t they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?


But this isn’t a proper story, and I’m telling you, I ought to be hanged.

And so begins the story of Briony the Witch, who can hear and see the Old Ones in the swamp; Briony the deceitful, who damaged her sister’s mind and burnt down the library; Briony the poisonous vine, who let her stepmother die.

Just outside of London, Briony lives in Swampsea with her distant Reverend father and her mentally damaged sister. In this fantastical world, the inventions of the early 20th century – railways, motorcars and gaslights – are still trying to find their way into a small town where the swamp is haunted by the Old Ones, and witches are hanged by the neck until they are dead. Bad news for Briony who has been hiding her wicked state and wickeder deeds behind a mask of bland amusement and a soul filled with self hate. Especially now that the railway is coming, along with plans to drain the swamp, something the Old Ones will fight with every weapon they have.

And that weapon happens to be the only girl who can hear them.

With the railway come Eldric, the fidgety boy-man with the lion eyes who sees everything that Briony keeps hidden and asks questions of those things she knows to be facts.

In the town of Swampsea Franny Billingsley creates a lush, decaying world inhabited with one of the barbed characters I have read in a very long time. Briony hates herself for the wrongs she believes she has committed and for being a being she perceives to be sinful, truly hates herself. This is not an emo play for attention; she prides herself on never letting anyone see what is going on, but a deep hatred of self. Yet at the same time, she has this prickly sense of pride and humor that wind their way through her narration. This self loathing that Briony feels will make it hard for some readers to connect with her – I admit that I find it eye opening, and after a few pages momentarily wondered what I’d gotten myself into – but once you do connect, she is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read in quite sometime. Briony is a puzzle – to herself and to others – and it takes Eldric’s arrival and his curiosity to make her question some of the pieces she’s already put in place.

It is because Briony is so inwardly focused on examining the pieces that Eldric may come across as a bit of a cipher. His character is there, but it’s doled out in bits and pieces as he questions and reconstructs our heroine. It is his arrival that allows Briony to escape from the monotony and preconceptions that have clouded her mind. It is his support that allows Briony to tell us the true stories…or at least as true as she can see them.

Chime is making its way on to many “Best of” lists and the awards are well deserved. Franny Billingsley has created a truly unique world filled with mystery and characters that capture you long after you stop reading. With its slightly antiquated language and self loathing main character, though, I know it won’t appeal to all readers. This is not an easy read, but if you stick with it, I believe you’ll find that it is a wonderful one. Highly recommended.

You can purchase Chime from these fine retailers: 4 Comments on Hear the Ghost Lights Chime..., last added: 4/28/2011