The Registry saved the country from collapse. But stability has come at a price. In this patriotic new America, girls are raised to be brides, sold at auction to the highest bidder. Boys are raised to be soldiers, trained by the state to fight to their death.

Nearly eighteen, beautiful Mia Morrissey excitedly awaits the beginning of her auction year. But a warning from her married older sister raises dangerous thoughts. Now, instead of going up on the block, Mia is going to escape to Mexico—and the promise of freedom.

All Mia wants is to control her own destiny—a brave and daring choice that will transform her into an enemy of the state, pursued by powerful government agents, ruthless bounty hunters, and a cunning man determined to own her . . . a man who will stop at nothing to get her back.

Paperback, 336 pages  Published June 11th 2013 by William Morrow Paperbacks (first published May 28th 2013)

On Mia’s wedding day, her sister makes a sudden appearance back home, begging her family to help protect her from her husband. She says that the training Mia is going through now is all a lie. Mia’s parents continue to tell her that being married is the best thing for young women and her sister is overreacting. But later, Mia is notified that her sister has died. She panics and decides to run.

Mia and her best friend Whitney disguise themselves as boys and steal the car, only to run into a local boy who is heading the same way. They decide to travel together. With his help they are able to travel a fair distance. However, the man who has been optioned to marry Mia decides to go through with the arraignment despite her absence and he begins to pursue her in her travels. The trip soon becomes very deadly and a bounty is issued for anybody that brings her home.

The car doesn’t get them very far, and they end up hitch-hiking to Mexico. For a girl who is running from all she has learned about men, and a forced marriage, Mia doesn’t keep them out of her mind. The people she turns to for help become romantic interests as well.

Whitney who changes her mind and decides she wants to go home, is the smartest of the group. Women are not encouraged to go to school and Mia has little education that goes beyond housekeeping. But Whitney has been raised otherwise and soaks up knowledge like a sponge. We learn most about the world and how it became this way through Whitney’s stories, as well as through some of the strangers they meet in their travels. With our main character a naive, fearful and uneducated girl, Whitney is the shining light that helps the world-building and plot, pushing the narrative to being more than just a survival story.

Joelene interviews new Australia author Jonathon K. Benton about his novel A Wicked Kind of Dark

1. One of the most striking aspects of your novel is the rich inter-textuality. You allude to a diverse array of writers from Wordsworth to Lewis Carroll and Tolkien. Were these the writers who have influenced you? Or is it your way of introducing young readers to some of the literary greats?

The Lord of the Rings transported me to Middle-earth and kept me there for all of its 1000 + pages. Part of me remains there still. That’s what a great book should do. The literary giants I allude to in A Wicked Kind of Dark inspired and influenced me, both as a writer, and a person. However, if a young person picks up The Lord of the Rings because they’ve read my book, and embarks on the same magical journey that I once went on … that is special too.

 2. You have travelled extensively in Fiji, New Zealand, the UK and Australia. What is it that prompted you to set A Wicked Kind of Dark in the UK? Did something about its atmosphere speak to you?

When I was growing up in New Zealand, I used to dream about travelling to the UK to explore the old castles, and hopefully spot a ghost or two. I might not have met any ghosts when I finally made it there, but I remember lying on the grass about one hundred metres back from Stonehenge and watching the clouds rush across the tops of the ancient monoliths. The past merged with the present. I could almost see the druids performing their bloody rituals.

 3. When writing your debut novel, what did you find the most challenging and why?

A Wicked Kind of Dark began with a ‘what if’, which is the name I use for the powerful idea that inspires the major theme, and drives the plot. I wrote the first draft consumed by the ‘what if’. This led to massive structural issues that needed a lot of care and attention. A bit of planning can save loads of time. I got it right in the end though!

 4.      Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

Luthien. Like the fiery autumn colours that I use to introduce her, Luthien burns brightest in my mind. There’s the old playground saying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’. This is true of Luthien. She’s only small, but she oozes personality, and radiates strength.  I am looking forward to further developing her character in books 2 and 3.

 Read our review of Jonathon’s book here.

Seven years ago Robert lost his parents in a fire that was caused by a freak storm. He also lost the entire winter that went with that storm. At seventeen, a mysterious phone call mentioning the blood moon and the name Luthien liberates something in his fractured memory bringing events of that forgotten winter back. Soon he is searching for Luthien, the girl he once loved. And across the city graffito begins to show up, warning of the coming blood moon.

As he tries to unlock the secrets of his past, Robert finds unlikely allies in an artist, an entrepreneur and a homeless girl. In a dual world, the enemy is gathering its forces as well, and Robert will need all of his friends to survive the coming battle.

There’s a lot of charm in A Wicked Kind of Dark. It is full of lush intertextuality, giving younger readers a myriad of other books to add to their reading lists (it’s also good to read a book about a character who is a reader and actually knows about books). In atmosphere, I’m reminded of a lot of other books. Enid Blyton comes to mind as the children are thrown into worlds full of adventurous possibility. The vividly realized description is evocative of Tolkien. Not that A Wicked Kind of Dark is derivative; it just nods to a lot of the classics that I grew up with, making me kind of nostalgic.

Despite the novel’s old-school atmosphere, A Wicked Kind of Dark explores some gritty and very modern settings. A doorway to the dual world exists in the London Underground and Robert’s allies, having previously been homeless, run a soup kitchen. Merging the fantastic with the mundane does more than create gripping urban fantasy here. It puts forth the homeless and addicted as heroes in their own right, something that is not done frequently enough.

One thing that made me sad was that, while familial love was portrayed as a bond that was near impossible to break, it is still trumped by romantic love. This is my gripe with pretty much every book, ever, but here it was more poignant because there were some amazing family members around Robert and Luthien. Robert’s brother, Gabriel, and Luthien’s mother, Lady Buchanan, are two of the strongest and most faceted characters in the novel, and I would have loved to have had more page time with them.

Young fantasy readers will love this imaginative new series. Its exploration of modern teenage issues like depression and isolation works well within its classical literature framework, making it a lyrical and significant read.

 A Wicked Kind of Dark – Jonathan K. Benton

 Odyssey Books (September 3, 2013)

ISBN: 9781922200068

Joelene reviews City of Bones and recovers from her casting doubts to find she loves it more than the book.

For those of us who have read Cassandra Clare’s New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series, the City of Bones movie was either much anticipated or much dreaded. After seeing the assembled cast, I threw my lot in with those of low expectations. I mean the action and special effects looked great in the trailer, but Clary was meant to have hair the colour of hell’s flames and Jace was meant to be the most stunningly attractive boy to ever grace God’s good earth or something. I felt cheated.

Which is precisely why I need to tell myself more regularly not to be shallow! The movie was amazing.

For anyone out there who hasn’t read the books, City of Bones follows the story of Clary, a normal teenage girl who begins seeing things that other people can’t. At first it’s just symbols but one night she and her best friend, Simon, head into a local night-club and she witnesses three teens killing someone. An occurrence that the rest of the club is oblivious to.

From there events snowball out of her control, dragging her and everyone that she loves along with them. If she has any hope of surviving she has to cast her lot in with Jace, a Shadowhunter, who has dedicated his life to keeping demons and other creatures from killing the innocent.

The casting that I had been so dismissive of at first won me over a few minutes into the film. Jamie Campbell Bower plays a sweeter Jace than the literary one, with the same casual confidence that secured fans of the novel. Godfrey Gao is obviously beautiful and the perfect Magnus. The movie adaptations of Clary and her mother, Jocelyn, were the ones that really shone though. Lena Headey plays a far more formidable Jocelyn than the novels showed. She’s smart, capable and determined; all traits that Lily Collin’s Clary is shown to have in abundance.

In many ways the movie surpasses the novel. It moves away from Clary’s perspective when necessary, while the first novel mostly stayed with her. This means that we not only get to see more of the other characters without reference to Clary, but we see scenes upon which she could only speculate. I don’t recall there being any indication that Jocelyn fought back when attacked in the novel. In the film she does so spectacularly, making it obvious where Clary gets her resourcefulness from.

While the characters translate well to film, the events are a little more tricky. The first half works brilliantly, while the ending is messier than in the novels. There’s so much back-story in the series that fitting it in was always going to pose problems, and in this case it disrupts the pacing somewhat.

Overall, I still really enjoyed the City of Bones movie and am looking forward to seeing how the next two go. This is one of the very few times that I can honestly say that I preferred the movie to the book. So, for anyone who hasn’t yet, go see the movie!

Joelene says: When we were younger most of my family lived in Finland for a few years. It’s a gorgeous country with even more gorgeous food. This is one of the easiest recipes that my mother learnt there. It has the traditional Finnish flavours in the spices and is a favourite with all of my siblings.

Note: Most of the recipes I’ve seen call for almond extract, but it’s not something I’ve ever added. I do go heavy on the spices though; generally recipes only use half what I have here (and usually I add even more than a spoon of each).

You’ll need a Bundt or tube pan for this one.

Method:

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups sour cream

2 cups sugar

3 cups sifted white flour

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cardamom

Directions:

Combine the eggs, sour cream and sugar.

Sift the flour with soda, salt, cinnamon and cardamom, add gradually to eggs mixture. Beat until smooth.

 Butter tube pan and dust it with raw sugar. Pour cake batter in and bake at 180 degrees for 1 hour. Cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Serve un-iced with tea or coffee.