Seanan McGuire is one of the most prolific and respected writers in Speculative Fiction today. Her October Daye urban fantasy series is enormously beloved, her dark science fiction under the pen-name Mira Grant push boundaries. What may be McGuires’s magnum opus; however, is her Wayward Children series of short novels/novellas. BE SURE collects the first three, Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and Beneath the Sugar Sky.
Where it all began—the first three books in Seanan McGuire’s multi-Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series.
Join the students of Eleanor West, and jump through doors into worlds both dangerous and extraordinary.
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Meet Nancy, cast out of her world by the Lord of the Dead; Jack and Jill, each adopted by a monster of the Moors; Sumi and her impossible daughter, Rini.
Three worlds, three adventures, three sets of lives destined to intersect.
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations / No Visitors / No Quests
But quests are what these children do best…
In Every Heart a Doorway, McGuire introduces readers to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. Many years ago, Eleanor traveled to another world, returned to the “Real World” and still longs for that other world. Recognizing that she was not alone, she opened the home and in this first installment of the series, the focal character is Nancy, who returned to “the real world” after she was pulled into the Land of the Dead. Like many of her peers who are entered int West’s home, Nancy’s strongest desire is to return to the Land of the Dead. McGuire also introduces Jack (short for Jacqueline) and Jill (short for Jillian) twins who spent time in a world called The Moors; Kade, who spent time in the land of Prism and killed its Goblin King; Lundy, the school therapist who ages backwards, among others. Unfortunately for Eleanor West’s charges, some of them are being murdered. McGuire’s whodunit plot pulled me along quite strongly, but what really made the story stand out were the characters.
Every Heart a Doorway is just that, a doorway into a remarkable world McGuire has created. She weaves some very Important Themes into her story; gender identity, PTSD, identity, growing up, but with a knack for charming, engaging characters and emotional movements that jumped of the page and wrapped themselves around me.
The second novella in the omnibus, Among the Sticks and Bones, is essentially an origin story for Jack (short for Jacqueline) and Jill (short for Jillian), how their status-driven parents (who really had no business being parents) came to be parents and what lead to the twins finding a doorway to the Moors. The Moors aren’t exactly Wonderland or Narnia. This is a dark, grey world with a blood-red moon. Jack finds herself apprenticed to a scientist named Dr. Bleak who tries to reanimate corpses while Jill becomes adopted by the Vampire Lord, known simply as the master. Essentially, McGuire’s story pits Dr. Frankenstein against Dracula in an ideological battle. Along the way, the themes of self-identity, dysfunctional families, love, gender identity, sibling rivalry, dangerous science. It didn’t get past me that the two “adults” at odds with each other were a Doctor and The Master.
The last novella in the omnibus, Beneath the Sugar Sky, Sumi’s daughter Rini comes looking for her. Unfortunately, in twist that could only happen in fantasy novel, Sumi died before she gave birth to Rini. Sugar Sky largely picks up where Every Heart a Doorway left readers. Joining our friends Kade, Nadya, and Nancy from the first book is a new character – Cora, a young girl who was returned to the “Real World” from an aquatic land of mermaids. I wasn’t sure about Cora at first, but I came to like her quite a bit by the end of the novella. The title of the novella alludes to the land from which Rina came – Confection, a world of pink soda, gingerbread castles, candy corn fields, and a Queen of Cakes. Some of the children (Cora, Nancy, Kade, Nadya) journey with Rini to Confection in the hopes of somehow saving Sumi so that Rini can actually exist. Acceptance and kindness are big in this book/novella in the overall saga of the Wayward Children saga.
Seanan McGuire has done it again. She’s hooked me on yet another of her long running series. I’m about a dozen books into her October Daye series, just started her Incryptid series, and loved the Newslfesh saga under her Mira Grant pseudonym. As fun as those series and books are and were, Wayward Children feels like it may be her may be her defining work. It is enthralling, tackles some really important themes (not the she doesn’t in all of her work), and has some of the most endearing characters in her many works. This is a series that will stand the test of time and BE SURE has more than earned a spot on the shelf of my personal Omnibus Hall of Fame.
Highly, Highly Recommended
© 2023 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | 528 pages
July 2023 | Published by Tor.com
https://www.seananmcguire.com/
Excerpt from Every Heart a Doorway: https://www.tor.com/2016/02/08/excerpts-every-heart-a-doorway-seanan-mcguire/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
