Starley’s Rust. (The Embodied Trilogy, Book 2). J. B. Dutton. n.p. , www.JohnBDutton.wordpress.com, 2015. 206 pp., trade pbk., $11.93. ISBN 978-1-50284392-0. Grades 8 and up / Ages 13 and up. Review by Ronald Hore. *** /4

excerpt:

Memory #16: As a girl, I had an enormous collection of My Little Pony’s. But I never wanted the unicorn ponies. I was scared of them and didn’t know why.

Why didn’t I cry? Last New Year’s Eve, I’d lost my Mom and yet I didn’t shed a tear. Maybe that was the thing. I’d lost her but deep down inside I didn’t believe she was dead. Her memorial service back in Wisconsin had been totally surreal. Saint Jude’s was half-filled with Mom’s friends and several Lancaster no-lifers who I half-recognized. I could feel their sympathetic eyes on my poor little orphan’s back as I stood beside Gran and Pops and listened to the preacher. Well, I didn’t really listen. I did hear him talk about what a beloved mother and daughter she was. What he was saying was true but he was using the past tense when he should have been speaking in the present. The woman who had jumped off the George Washington Bridge wasn’t Mom, and I refused to believe that my real mother was dead.

Kari Marriner is a teenage girl who moved from Wisconsin to New York City with her mother, and now she is desperately searching for her in this continuation of the urban fantasy trilogy. She is pursed by beings from the Dark Universe known as the Embodied who are not human but can take our human form. Kari has feelings for two boys, Cruz who is human, and Noon who is one of the Embodied and who has disappeared. While at her mother’s wake, Kari learns there is a mystery surrounding her father’s death in a car accident?

      Kari meets an intriguing artist, Starley, who creates pictures that include Embodied imagery, and together they take off on a trip to Paris to create an incident with the object of drawing the Embodied out into the open. The introduction of Starley allows for the weaving of the artist Vincent Van Gogh into the tale. A new creature is pursuing Kari, a monstrous black unicorn from her nightmares. Many factions appear to be involved, with both Kari’s fate, and the fate of our universe hanging in the balance. With a taste of mystery, jealousy, love and death, there should be something to catch the reader’s interest. This volume closes with a dubious offer from one of the Embodied to help Kari contact her missing mother, but first she must assist them.

      Told from Kari’s point-of-view, Starley’s Rust consists of title page, copyright notes, dedication, acknowledgements and index of contents. There are 206 pages broken into eleven chapters; each chapter headed by one of Kari’s memories or dreams. The final two pages contain information about the author. The trilogy should continue to appeal to readers who enjoy teenage mysteries.

Recommended.

Ronald Hore, involved with writer’s groups for several years, dabbles in writing fantasy in Winnipeg, MB.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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