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A Necklace of Souls by R.L. Stedman
Release Date: 12/19/14
339 pages
Release Date: 12/19/14
339 pages
Summary from Goodreads:
‘A true dream is when the events I see in my sleep have, or will happen. It’s a talent that runs in my family. I was thirteen when I had my first true dream.’
Will’s Aunt says the Kingdom of the Rose is the most fortunate of lands. But Will hates the place – his uncle and aunt are horrible, and he misses his parents. Oh, how he misses them.
Dana wishes she wasn’t a princess. She’s always being told how to behave, what to wear. There’s a strangeness in the castle – why will no one talk about the Guardian, or the necklace that protects the land? And why does her father look at her with such sorrow? The collier’s cart seems the perfect escape. Only she didn’t realize she’d become so dirty, or so lost. Fortunately this boy, Will, has a sense of direction. And next to the forbidding stranger, N’tombe, he seems
reassuringly normal.
Welcome to A Necklace of Souls: a story of love and loss, of shattered lives and desperate hopes. In the Kingdom of the Rose, bravery is not always measured by strength and magic is real, if only one has the courage to dream.
Shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Award, A Necklace of Souls was awarded the Tessa Duder Award for Young Adult Fiction, Best First Book at the New Zealand Post Children and Young Adult Book Awards and is a Storylines Notable Book.
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Character Introduction - Will:
Will
was twelve years old when the plague began. Winter in North Wales is always a
dreary, damp season, but that year seemed particularly harsh. The winds blew
strong and cold and the people were reluctant to leave their homes. Will’s
parents, the town bakers, still kept their shop open but now customers arrived
singly, and said little while waiting for their bread.
As the plague spread, Will’s
familiar world began to change. First, the school closed. Normally this might
have been something to be celebrated. But not now, not with the town locked in
fear, and no one going in or out. Then the fishing boats at the quayside didn’t
sail, either. Eventually even the church shut its doors. But by then the plague
had spread, growing like a big black cloud, until it seemed to smother all the
light. And in the bakery Will and his parents lay ill, unable to move, unable even
to think, as the world spun slowly about them.
Will didn’t remember much of the
illness, just a vague recall of heat and burning and endless, heaving nausea.
Like seasickness but far, far worse – the sort of seasickness you might feel if
the ship on which you were sailing had suddenly caught alight. For days he
tossed about, thrashing his head on his pillow, calling for Ma. For anyone. But
no one came.
Finally Will woke and lay
blinking at the ceiling. His throat felt thick and tight, as though he’d been
screaming for the longest time. Outside the world sounded eerily quiet; no shop
bells, no wagon wheels creaking. No horse’s hooves, or people calling to one
another across the street. Only the distant wash of the waves and the creaking
of the shop sign in the wind.
All his life, Will remembered the
feeling of waking into silence, the bitter knowledge of his loneliness in a
wide, wide world. Because after the plague, everything had changed.
I hadn’t meant to write something
quite so gloomy. So here’s another lively little piece. There are heaps of side
characters in A
Necklace of Souls. This is Nurse, written
in Nurse’s voice.
Character Introduction – Nurse:
‘You
want to ask me questions? Why would you ever want to do that? Not to say that
there ain’t plenty of things I could tell you about the goings on in this
place, if I had the mind to do, but I don’t. Well then, I haven’t got all day.
Go ahead and ask me your questions, then, if you must.
What’s that? How long have I been
in the Castle? Goodness! Truth be told, I don’t rightly know. ’Tis many a long
day since I arrived, that’s for certain.
My earliest memory? Well now, let
me see. When you’re my age things jumble themselves together, and ’tis hard to
remember anything in particular. I do remember waking from a long nap, and
seeing the light sparkling on the water and thinking how pretty this place was.
That must have been after I’d only just arrived, when everything was
new-looking. The place has certainly changed since then. Things never change
for the better, I reckon, only for the worst. At least, that’s been my
experience anyway.
Take that blamed necklace. Used
to be the simplest thing, only a ruby on a silver chain and never caused anyone
any grief. But I knew it would change. Soon as I saw that little man holding it
in that courtyard I knew it was evil. But them at the top didn’t listen. No,
they thought they knew better than old Nurse, even though I warned them, so I
did.
“Get rid of it,” says I to Her
Majesty – the Queen that was, I mean. “Thing like that, ain’t to be trusted.”
But laughed and told me I was too
gloomy. Me, gloomy? Anyways I was right, because now that necklace chains the Guardians
down, so it does, and takes them young. Oh, ’tis a sad and sorry world, when
people don’t listen to them as knows more than they.
Speak up, speak up! I can’t hear
you. What do I do in my spare time? ’Tis crazy you are, thinking I’ve got such
a thing as spare time. Up early I am,
getting the Princess ready for the day, and like it as not I’m the last to bed
too, cleaning her clothes and so forth. What with her with her fighting and her
knives and her hose, sometimes it takes me hours to get the stains out. For
shame, thinking I’d have “spare time”.
Mind you, I do enjoy working with
wood. Made a whole bedstead once. Princess sleeps in it now, I know she likes
it. Never told her it was me as built it. Strange in a way, ain’t it? I mean,
when you look at me, you’d never imagine in your wildest dreams that I’d be one
for woodwork. But then, you never can tell what folks get up to.
What’s my biggest regret? What
fool of a question is that? You think I’m the sort of person who’s likely to be
going telling that to a total stranger? Me, I don’t have regrets. Save for that
ruby. I wish, well, ’tis crazy for sure, but I wish that they ain’t never found
that thing. I know they all did it for the best. Still, look at the grief it’s
caused.
Now, get along with you. Ain’t
got all day to be standing here gossiping. Yes, lovely to see you, too. And do
drop in again.’
About the Author
My name is Rachel Stedman. I’m a physiotherapist (physical therapist) by background, but now I work as a freelance contractor. I live in the wild and windy place of Dunedin, New Zealand, with my husband and two kids.
I write mostly for children and young adults. In 2012 I won the Tessa Duder Award for an unpublished YA work and my first novel, A Necklace of Souls, was published by HarperCollins in 2013 (available in the United Kingdom and on Book Depository from June 2015). This year, A Necklace of Souls was awarded Best First Book at the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards and won a Notable Book Award from Storylines. Inner Fire is my second novel.
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