Goodreads Synopses:
Every Heart a Doorway:
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.
No matter the cost
Down Among the Sticks and Bones:
Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
This is the story of what happened first…
Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.
Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got.
They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.
They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.
Beneath the Sugar Sky:
When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…
A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.
Warning: May contain nuts
In an Absent Dream:
This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.
When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well
My (very positive) Thoughts:
Alright ya’ll. Here we go. Seanan McGuire. Where do I begin? These books are incredibly short, yet so thorough in their completion that it is very hard for me to find a true complaint about them.
Each tale connects to the first book by giving the back stories of the favorites mentioned from the first, and it explains how they all came to Eleanor’s home for Wayward Children.
Children that are unloved, unwanted, or simply don’t fit, have the capability to find doors to the land where they truly belong. Some lands are nonsense, others are logic, some evil, some kind. Not every land is sunshine and rainbows, some are underworlds with dancing skeletons, but every child finds their true home in a twisted reality.
Jack and Jill by far have my favorite back story. They live in a twisted land of werewolves and vampire, where Dracula, Vanhelsing, and Dr. Frankenstein come to life, yet they thrive.
I am not inclined to spoil these books. They are SUCH SHORT READS. SO JUST READ THEM AND BE ENTHRALLED ALREADY.
SunflowerFiction 