Extasia

**One of BuzzFeed's Great LGBTQ+ YA novels to Warm up Your Winter * A Kid's Feb/March IndieNext pick**
From New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand comes a new, bone-chilling YA horror novel about a girl who joins a coven to root out a vicious evil that’s stalking her village. Perfect for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Grace Year.
Her name is unimportant.
All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.
She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.
Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?
This searing and lyrically written novel by the critically acclaimed author of Sawkill Girls beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it.\nFrom School Library Journal\nGr 9 Up-The day the fourth saint is anointed, the preternatural killings plaguing Haven, the last town on Earth, are supposed to cease. But Saint Amity's induction is marred by another body, white-eyed beasts, gray wispy women, and newfound secrets of her saintly sisters. Haunted also by the legacy of her mother's shame, Amity reluctantly approaches the other saints so that she may learn how to save Haven, only to discover rebellion, witches, and more power than she ever knew a woman could wield. Alongside the gory, insistent violence wrought by the town and the coven, Legrand's lush and uniquely evocative prose keeps tensions high throughout Amity's struggle with her magic, fury, and conscience. Gradual worldbuilding of the claustrophobic and purposefully homogenous village and the mountain beyond bookends a faster middle half, and while background characters fade somewhat, Amity's relationships with those closest to her are the foundation for her most personal and profound revelations. VERDICT Slow-burn horror meets a queer coming-of-age story, with compassionately explored themes of feminism, grief, trauma, faith, and abuse. A YA fantasy complement to Naomi Alderman's The Power; fans of Legrand will find this an interesting new approach, as will readers of Rory Power and House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland.-Madeline Newquistα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.