The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell

Title: The Springsweet
Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Harcourt
Release Date: April 17, 2012
Pages: 288 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Amazon Vine-provided ARC

It’s a long way from Baltimore to Oklahoma Territory. But Zora Stewart will go any distance to put the tragic events of her sixteenth summer behind her. So this city girl heads to the tiny frontier town of West Glory to help her young widowed aunt keep her homestead going.

When another Baltimorean shows up in West Glory, Zora couldn’t be more surprised. Theo de la Croix made the long trip out west hoping to court Zora, whom he has long admired from afar.
But Zora has developed an attraction to a rather less respectable fellow: Emerson Birch, a rough-mannered young "sooner" whose fertile land is coveted.

As Zora begins to suspect that there may be more than luck behind Emerson’s good land, she discovers an extraordinary, astonishing power of her own: the ability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a "springsweet" to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden of holding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land.

Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water. Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply surviving and start living.

Review:

After the death of her fiance Thomas and her cousin Amelia, Zora Stewart is ready to get away from Baltimore. All it takes is one unexpected kiss at a party and she's off for the Oklahoma Territory to live with her aunt Birdie and younger cousin Louella until she "comes to her senses." While she is there, she discovers she has the power to sense the location of water, a useful power in such dry lands. In addition to her new gift, two men trouble her. Emerson Birch is regarded by West Glory as bad news, but Zora doesn't see what's wrong with him. Meanwhile, Theo de la Croix has made his way out to West Glory to court Zora, but she isn't interested like everyone wants her to be.

I didn't always like the choices Zora made (surely there was another way to convince her mother to let her go elsewhere), but she wasn't bad as far as YA heroines go. At the very least, she didn't make me want to choke her on a regular basis like some other heroines I've encountered did. Zora's easy adaptation to the constant work in the country after growing up in the city of Baltimore was a little strange; she never struck me in this book or its prequel The Vespertine as the type to easily adapt.

The Springsweet is short and sweet at 288 pages (well, it's short for me) and that challenges it to characterize everyone and get the plot moving more quickly than other novels while still making it feel natural. Does this book meet that challenge? It felt a little bit rushed, like it could have used another fifty pages or so to develop everything. Aunt Birdie's quiet characterization was a high point; my inability to understand what Zora sees in Emerson is on the lower end of the spectrum.

Now then, a quick summary of the novel: A girl leaves home, temporarily moving to another city and taking residence with her aunt and cousin. One of her relatives, who isn't much older than herself, causes the heroine to experience some personal growth, but she discovers something: she has a magical power. The people all love her and her gift at first, but they threaten to turn on her when her gift no longer gives them good fortune. Meanwhile, our heroine is trapped in a love triangle. One man is a good, upstanding man proper society is pushing her toward; the other is a bad boy everyone disapproves of, but she can't stay away from him--and he has a power just like she does.

What I just wrote is an adequate summary of both The Vespertine and The Springsweet. It feels like I've read the same book twice with the names and settings changed and I don't like feeling that way. I expected Zora's narrative voice to be unlike Amelia's because they were such different characters, but I can't tell the difference between them.

The writing remains one of my favorite qualities of the novel. There's something about the way it tosses around metaphors and orders its syntax that makes me have an especially nerdy moment. I wish I had more to say there because of how much I like it, but that suffices and I'm not going to drag it out. Two climactic scenes one after another at the end off the novel ended up having two very different effects on me. One of them had me reading like it would have killed me not to. The other garnered this reaction from me: "Oh. Okay then." Considering that second climax involved someone getting murdered, this is not a good reaction for it to bring out of me.

Fans of The Vespertine will enjoy the return of the lyrical prose and the development of Zora's personal story (not to mention where it looks like the next book might take both her and Amelia), but fans of The Vespertine who do not want to read almost the exact same story with new packaging may not love it as much.

3 stars!

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The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell

Title: The Vespertine
Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Release Date: March 7th, 2011
Pages: 293 pages (hardback)

How I Got the Book: Won it in a Goodreads Firstreads giveaway.

The summer of 1889 is the one between childhood and womanhood for Amelia van den Broek--and thankfully, she's not spending it at home in rural Maine. She's been sent to Baltimore to stay with her stylish cousin, Zora, who will show her all the pleasures of city life and help her find a suitable man to marry.

With diversions ranging from archery in the park to dazzling balls and hints of forbidden romance, Victorian Baltimore is more exciting than Amelia imagined. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset--visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. Newly dubbed "Maine's Own Mystic," Amelia is suddenly quite in demand.

However, her attraction to Nathaniel, an artist who is decidedly outside of Zora's circle, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own--still, Amelia finds herself irrepressible drawn to him. And while she has no trouble seeing the futures of others, she cannot predict whether Nathaniel will remain in hers.

When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia's world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she's not the seer of dark portents, but the cause of them.

Review:

Thrown into 1889 Baltimore for the summer, Amelia van den Broek's given purpose is to find a husband to marry and learn how to be a proper wife and young lady. While staying with her relatives, the Stewart family and their teenage daughter Zora, Amelia is fascinated by all Baltimore has to offer, including an artist named Nathaniel who seems interested in her too. When the sun starts to set, strange visions strike Amelia and eventually, some of them come true. Amelia and Zora's friends, all interested in the realm of the unknown, clamor to have Amelia over so she can have a vision of their future. But these visions may not bode well for Amelia in the end. She doesn't always see happiness in the future and when her bad visions come true, the blame may fall on her.

I loved the prose in this book. Fresh and flowery as a piece of writing might have been in the 1880s, the narrative voice Amelia provides matched her time and entertained me. Some of the turns of phrase are absolutely lovely. I wish I could name one off the top of my head, but I'm pulling a blank right now. Modern language gets a little boring sometimes, especially with narrators who aren't the least bit interesting. Having an itneresting heroine like Amelia with such beautiful language in her head was a good change from my usual reads. The other characters, left with little development, don't hold a candle to Amelia, the free-thinking girl who still worries about her reputation as any girl of her age would. Realistic heroines? Finally!

If you ask me, Amelia isn't in love with Nathaniel. It's a mere infatuation. Think about it: Amelia comes from the small town of Broken Tooth, Maine and she was probably somewhat sheltered or restricted. She's sent to the big city of Baltimore, a place very different from her small town, to find a husband. She's out from under her brother's watchful eye and hanging with her fun-loving cousin Zora. Then Amelia meets Nathaniel, a city man who is "free" from society's strict demands and traditions. Compared to the men in Zora's circle that follow society's rules, this man is more interesting and unlike anyone she's ever met. She is a small town girl infatuated with the mystery and idea of"freedom" from society that Nathaniel represents. Crush? Yes. Infatuation? Yes again. Love? Heavens no.

In addition, that "vision coming true" thing mentioned in the blurb? That doesn't happen until about page 250 of 293. Before then, where was the conflict? I suppose it could be Amelia's decision whether to be a good rule-following girl or a girl who thinks for herself and does as she pleases, but that conflict couldn't keep me reading. What other conflict was there to keep me reading, then? Nathaniel and Amelia's forbidden romance? That didn't cut it, either. Conflicts are beautiful. A good one makes a great book. This book had no conflict until the very end. Until then, the book crawls by as the adventures of Amelia and Zora are detailed. To be frank, I was reminded of Gossip Girl in how it's less about the plot and more about this person's misadventures and love life. There is a good reason I only read one Gossip Girl book.

Once the big thing happens, the plot jumps out from behind the curtain, does a strange dance for the audience, then takes a bow with all the other players. Then it's over, just like that. The climax and the action both happen so quickly that the events at the end of the novel--two characters die, for Pete's sake!--have little time to sink and and take effect on the reader. It's no use killing people if the reaction it's supposed to get out of readers doesn't have time to happen. If given some more page time and had the plot been more present throughout the novel, this would have been a good ending. A little explanation as to why Amelia and Nathaniel had their powers and why Amelia's visions didn't start until she got to Baltimore would have been nice too.

It didn't live up to all of my expectations, but The Vespertine wasn't horrible. It could have been much worse (though never Angel Star bad), but it also could have been much better. I've heard about another book the author wrote called Shadowed Summer and I'll seek that out sometime soon. There will also be a companion to The Vespertine called The Springsweet, which will come out next year. I'll probably buy it. Give The Vespertine a try if you think you'll like it, but be wary if any of the issues I talked about above bother you too.

3 stars!

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