1 of 1 copy available
Wren owes everything she has to her hometown, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture-perfect slice of America. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family’s farm. At least, they did. Until five months ago.
That’s when the Quicksilver blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops, thick silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes fogged white, leering from the trees.
Then the blight came for the neighbors.
Wren is among the last locals standing, and the blight has finally come for her, too. Now the only one she can turn to is her ex, Derek, the last person she wants to call. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common: Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only, there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its celebrated miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.
Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Awards
-
Release date
March 15, 2022 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593506363
- File size: 274486 KB
- Duration: 09:31:50
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 680
- Text Difficulty: 3
-
Reviews
-
From the opening of this audiobook, narrator Lauren Ezzo gives an edgy, anxious tension to each word. Wren details how the blight--a quicksilver-like substance that distorts everything it touches--has leapt from farm to farm near Hollow's End, tainting the soil and invading both its animal and human inhabitants, transforming them into zombie-like creatures operating as a single unit. With her ex-boyfriend Derek's help, Wren finally realizes how to correct the sins of their fathers to save their community. Ezzo's deft performance of this dystopian fantasy is crisp. Changes in volume and pacing as Wren and Derek process their situation and deal with threats make this a compelling listen. S.D.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from July 4, 2022
Sixteen-year-old, white-cued Wren Warren is the heir to Rainbow Fields, a farm famously known for its healing, multicolored wheat fields and one of the four founding farms of Hollow’s End. But after 150 years of agricultural success, the small town suffers a moldy, silvery blight whose spores decimate crops, and turn humans and animals alike into zombified, night-wandering versions of themselves. As other founding farms fall to the blight, Wren works to keep the mold at bay in Rainbow Fields, especially when her parents suddenly disappear. She recruits ex-boyfriend Derek, white- and Latinx-cued, to help, but in her haste to hold off the blight, Wren is infected. With her body rapidly decaying, she and Derek race against the clock to find her parents. In their search, they uncover dark and twisted secrets about the founding farms’ history and realize that the blight is a living, conscious disease—and that it’s seeking revenge on Hollow’s End. Intense, gripping, and deeply haunting, Fraistat’s debut, an invigorating take on the zombie genre, is a cautionary tale about greed and sacrifice, illustrating that not every legacy may be worth its price. Ages 12–up. Agent: Christa Heschke, McIntosh & Otis.
-