“You can’t be remarkable without being remarked upon.”
Three months ago, on the night of her sixteenth birthday, Skylar Rousseau fell from the pier and drowned in Blackfin.
But she also didn’t.
Three months later, Sky mysteriously returns to Blackfin with no memory of having died. Someone was pulled from the water. Someone was buried. No one, least of all Sky, is sure how that someone is not her.
No one knows exactly what happened to Sky and no one except Sean, her friend and long-time crush, wants to help her find answers. When impossibly real dreams begin to draw Sky to a strange circus in the woods, Sky knows the truth must be lurking there too.
Secrets are buried and waiting to be uncovered in the strange town of Blackin including truths about Sky and her past that could change everything in Blackfin Sky (2014) by Kat Ellis.
Blackfin Sky is Ellis’ first novel.
Blackfin is a strange town where the weather vane follows people instead of the breeze and church bells chime every hour even though the town has no church. Strange things are always happening in Blackfin. But a girl has never died and returned. Even in Blackfin.
Blackfin Sky begins with this impossible premise and strings it along into a well-realized fantasy filled with marvelously quirky things and not a fair bit of wonder. Sky’s understanding of her place in Blackfin begins to expand and change after her death when she finally realizes she might be more than a fascinating outsider to Blackfin’s locals.
Ellis populates this novel with a myriad cast of well-realized characters including supportive parents for Sky and an admirable sidekick in Sean. Excellent pacing and an action-packed plot move this story from one revelation to the next as Sky begins to uncover long-hidden secrets and learn more about her mysterious death.
Blackfin Sky offers the perfect blend of mystery and the supernatural (with just a bit of humor and romance) to create a story that is as satisfying as it is entertaining. Readers can only hope that Ellis will return to Sky and Blackfin in future novels.
Possible Pairings: Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson, Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby, Harley in the Sky by Akemi Dawn Bowman, The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough, The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, Eventide by Sarah Goodman, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, Dreamology by Lucy Keating, Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough, The Weight of Feathers by Anne-Marie McLemore, The Boneshaker by Kate Milford, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, The Archived by Victoria Schwab, The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein, Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
You can also read my interview with Kat Ellis about this book starting March 12.
Miss Print 