Mortal Danger

Starred review from July 1, 2014
A girl makes a deal with the devil-or something awfully similar-in this Faustian suspense tale.Seventeen-year-old Edie, the unattractive, nerdy daughter of brilliant physicists and the constant victim of popular bullies in her private high school, finally decides to commit suicide to escape her tormentors. An amazingly handsome young man named Kian stops her and offers her a deal: She will receive three favors over five years if she agrees to stay alive and later provide three favors to his employer. She takes the deal and asks first for beauty. Kian molds her face and body until she is truly beautiful. When she returns to her high school seeking revenge, however, Edie watches in horror as her former tormentors begin to suffer horribly. Meanwhile, a ghastly trio of ghosts threatens her, and she begins to understand that she has become a pawn in a supernatural game. She's also fallen hard for Kian, but she can't be sure he isn't merely doing the bidding of his awful employer. Aguirre has confidence in her audience, never dumbing down her prose while always keeping her readers guessing. Edie makes an impressive heroine as she not only fights the increasingly dreadful baddies, but matures as a person, lifting the book beyond easy thrills. The story has a freshness and intelligence that puts it at the top of the genre.A standout trilogy opener. (Horror. 12-18)

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June 1, 2014

Gr 7 Up-High school sophomore Edie Kramer has decided to end her life on a bridge in New York City. Just as she's about to jump, stunning Kian appears and offers her an alternative-his "company" will offer her three favors now, in exchange for three favors later. After accepting his offer, Edie unwittingly becomes a player in a deadly game. Her first wish to be beautiful is granted, and the teen sets off on a quest for revenge on the prep school bullies who have made her life unbearable. However, she soon realizes that the company she's now indebted to will do anything to manipulate the future, ensuring that Edie will give them what they want later. In fact, these immortals have already been to the future via a physics breakthrough the heroine discovers in her adulthood. Meanwhile, another group of immortals is dead set against Edie ever making it alive that far in time, and any number of alternate futures may occur based on how she reacts to their mental and physical attacks. Despite an interesting premise, Mortal Danger falls prey to the danger of predictable plot points. Readers will not be surprised when the devilish nature of Kian's "company" is revealed, nor with Edie's growing romantic feelings for him. The heroine has the expected reaction to her newfound beauty and its effect on her classmates. Despite some stirring vignettes, the jumps in the time line are awkward and the dialogue is uneven. For teens with a penchant for fantasy/horror mash-ups.-Sunnie Lovelace, Wallingford Public Library, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Edie Kramer, a senior at Boston's exclusive Blackbriar Academy, is homely, brilliant, and bullied by the Teflon crew. So defeated that she's ready to propel herself off a bridge, Edie is rescued by handsome Kian, who saves her life by offering her three favors. Yes, it is the classic three-wishes convention with a twist: she must also return three favors. Suspicious, she still accepts, choosing a more perfect model of herself as her first wish. Her second: use her beauty to pay back the bullies. Thus the stage is set for a complicated paranormal novel that explores the mind's power to conjure our worst fears while also exploring the power, destruction, and sad private lives of the bullies themselves. If that is not enough, Edie and Kian are pitted against two organizations vying for world domination. Both use variations of evil folklore archetypes to carry out their terrors. Aguirre has crafted a sophisticated novel that combines science, horror, and romance amid the realities of high-school cultures. Readers will eagerly anticipate sequels to this frightening, exciting, and erudite celebration of smart teens.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)