Looking for a book to while away the long nights of Hallowe’en and the days of the Dead?
May I present to you The Diviners by Libba Bray.
The Diviners is the sort of book that looks daunting when you pick it up, weighing in at 583 pages in length it is no lightweight.
It gave me pause for a few seconds. I used those seconds to gaze in adoration at the cover, I may have stroked it in awe. It is a thing of beauty to behold! Silver raised text on a hard cover of dark and blues with a flapper girl in silhouette against a modern skyline and hovering above it all is the all-seeing eye.
Then I opened the cover and started reading.
Not having been born in the early years of the 20th century I have no idea what it was like to live through the ’20’s but Libba’s prose swept me away. From the first chapter I was caught up in the final party of the season where young men and women were shaken from their lethargy and boredom by the hostess who produced a ouija board to commune with the other side. I was chilled by the the thread of darkness and unease that wormed its way in that even the bright lights of the mightiest city ever built could not dispel.
New York in 1926 is in the grip of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution better known as Prohibition.It is a time of secret gin parties, flappers and good times that will never end. The Great War is becoming a distant memory, with old anguishes and losses dimmed by time the future has never looked brighter.
Into New York comes Evie O’Neill, flapper, party girl and labelled as that wicked O’Neill girl by the residents of the town of Zenith.
She has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York city – and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926 and New York is fileld with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls and rakish pickpockets. the only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will – and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.
If you read only one book this Hallowe’en make sure it is The Diviners by Libba Bray!
The first in a tetralogy, The Diviners will make you ache for the New York of yore while still giving you chills.
