A supernatural love story set in both the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the Aisle of Unearthing.
That one-line description should be enough to get anybody to read The Fetch, especially those who love historical fiction. Even if you don't like historical fiction and even if you don't know anything about the Russian Revolution, that's ok because the story is engaging with the idea of love taking place between those who have already died. Also, the author is Laua Whitcomb, author of A Certain Slant of Light. So, that's reason number two for reading it.
I just finished reading it during Spring Break,and I think anybody who likes to read and is not afraid of reading things that are more well-written than typical mainstream fiction will like it. I will have to admit, thought, I love A Certain Slant of Light way more. A nice touch at the end of the book? A photograph of the Romanov dynasty a few days before their execution.
Summary:
A supernatural love story set in Imperial Russia.
"There's something not right about you," said Ana. She wasn't teasing him. She was concerned about what she detected behind his eyes. This made Calder's skin tingle. "You're not telling me something."
"There's something not right about you," said Ana. She wasn't teasing him. She was concerned about what she detected behind his eyes. This made Calder's skin tingle. "You're not telling me something."
She was uncanny. Calder silently prayed she could not see how he had broken his Vows and upset her world and his own.
"You're lonely," she told him. "It must be hard to pretend all the time."
He felt a wave of sadness, sudden and deep.
"Don't be afraid," she told him. "Everyone has a secret. I'll keep yours."
Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth.
The first to fall in love with a mortal girl.
But when he climbs backward out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.
"You're lonely," she told him. "It must be hard to pretend all the time."
He felt a wave of sadness, sudden and deep.
"Don't be afraid," she told him. "Everyone has a secret. I'll keep yours."
Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth.
The first to fall in love with a mortal girl.
But when he climbs backward out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.
Excerpt:
So, though it was not the first time Calder had seen a beautiful woman, when he first beheld this woman's halo of reddish-gold hair, he was stung with recognition. And although he had seen many women devoted to their children, when he saw the way this woman held her baby in the nest of her white dress and whispered to him words that were not words but tiny prayers and magic charms, he was mesmerized. She sat, gently rocking in the lamplight, like a ghost singing in a forbidden language. She pulled at Calder's heart, almost unfurling the stiff pages of his memory--so familiar, but he knew he had never set eyes on her before. Calder tried to remember if this woman looked like anyone he had seen during his nineteen years on earth, but just as the sorrow of the earthbound is shut on the other side of the Death Door, the memories of earth are drawn away from the dying soul.
