Ashes on the Waves
On the day he was born with one useless arm, Liam MacGregor was labeled a demon by the villagers of his island. In Lindsey’s take on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “Annabel Lee,” bad girl Annabel Leighton arrives to visit her family home, thereby turning Liam’s whole existence upside down. Dóchas is a place out of time, foreboding and full of gothic sensibilities, and Otherworlders—fantastical creatures of Celtic lore—take an active and horrible role in twisting the course of Liam and Anna’s love, setting up an appealing juxtaposition of modern and historical. Lyrical language infuses the story with a haunting melancholy and palpable sense of urgency. Liam’s first-person point of view contrasts sharply with that of selkie Muireann’s third-person point of view, which reveals not only the star-crossed couple but also everyone working to keep them apart. Liam and Anna experience the depths of true love’s despair and the bittersweet bliss of self-sacrifice in this vibrant, character-rich tale of love that truly lives beyond death. Grades 7-12. --Charli Osborne