Reviewed
by: ?wazithinkin
Genre: Urban Fantasy
/ Young Adult
Approximate
word count: 70-75,000 words
Availability
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Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store
Author:
“Shana Hammaker grew up in sunny California, but dreamed
of escaping to cooler climes. She considered Bangor, Maine, possibly because
her favorite author, Stephen King, lives nearby, but instead, ended up in
Tennessee where it is warmer and more humid.”
“… it was in this sultry Southern climate that Shana
realized her destiny: to read and write stories in which weird and frequently
horrible things occur. (Twelve Terrifying
Tales for 2011) And also, on occasion, to write quirky little memoirs.”
Ms. Hammaker is the author of The Cookie Dumpster and Hieroglyphs
along with her set of thriller short stories from Twelve Terrifying Tales for 2011. Feel free to check out Ms.
Hammaker’s other books on her Amazon author page or Goodreads.
Description:
Nowhere is hidden not too far east of Somewhere, just past No Man’s
Land. It is a desolate place with secrets of a hidden past.
Someone is sabotaging the construction of a highway from the happy
hamlet of Somewhere that leads straight to Nowhere. Amarillo Saffron, Mayor
Orange’s secretary for the town of Somewhere, seeks to uncover corporate
corruption and biotech espionage as well as expose the secrets Nowhere is
hiding.
Appraisal:
This is a unique story in that the urban fantasy world sits smack dab
in the middle of our own world. Somewhere’s biotech firm Ardor Labs claims to
have perfected a system to help people live happy stress-free lives. With their
emotion actuator inhaler one can breathe their stress into it at night for a
restful emotionless sleep or inhale hope out of it during the day if you start
feeling down or stressed and a vitamin called Actify! to start each day anew. Inhaling hope out of the actuators
has a drug like quality to it, so when it becomes evident that someone is
stealing hope, officials get concerned.
Meanwhile in Nowhere there is very little hope, it’s a dead little
town with no color that is surrounded by a force field, and No Man’s Land is
downright toxic situated between Nowhere and Somewhere. One of Nowhere’s
biggest secrets are the lost children living hidden from the world inside its
secured border. I felt like I had stepped into one of Tim Burton’s domains here,
I love his style and perspective.
Cerulean, age eighteen, has been living in Nowhere for nine years and
is one of the oldest inhabitants besides Mayor Blue. She does her best to take
care of and protect the young children when they mysteriously appear at
Gruesome Point on the southern edge of Nowhere. Mayor Blue sustains his
life-force with children’s tears and has evil designs for Nowhere.
The characters are colorful and well developed. When a small gang in
Nowhere, who call themselves Outlawz, are given a taste of the stolen hope from
Somewhere, they go to desperate measures to insure they get more, and things go
from bad to worse. When Amarillo Saffron, with the help of investigative
reporter Fern Viridian, looks into Deputy Mayor Scarlet and Ardor Labs,
wondering about their connection to Nowhere, the plot takes clever and
devastating turns. This story has a dystopian feel to it at times as the plot
moves forward and truths are revealed as their society starts to unravel.
Ms. Hammaker does an excellent job painting a picture of the desolate
Nowhere and No Man’s Land world with her prose and uses colorful character
names for the inhabitants of Somewhere, which is a much more hopeful place
until the storm hits… The dialogue is
realistic and convincing even between the children of Nowhere when they decide
to take a stand against Mayor Blue. There are lessons to be learned here in
this clever skillfully told and at times frightening story.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Review is based on an advance reader copy. I am unable to judge the
final book in this area.
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