Sweet Unrest

September 22, 2014
When Lucy Aimes’s parents drag her from Chicago to Louisiana, where her
father is curating the historic plantation of Le Ciel Doux, she can’t wait for summer to end so she can return home for senior year at her arts high school. After Lucy’s new friend Chloe takes her to visit Mama Legba, the local Voodoo practitioner, it becomes clear that the plantation’s past and Lucy’s present are linked, and that her recurring dreams about drowning recall the ominous fates of Armantine Lyon, a mixed-race photographer in antebellum New Orleans, and Alexandre Jourdain, the French brother-in-law of Le Ciel Doux’s owner. More than a ghost, Alexandre now haunts the grounds, and it may take more than Lucy’s past life to free him. The too-common theme of a white “chosen one” superseding a non-white friend within her own tradition strikes a sour note, which is not sweetened by the villainy of a spiteful, ex-slave, Voodoo-practicing “witch.” But Maxwell’s debut proves her to be a talented wordsmith, and the sweet ache of lost-and-found love will appeal to many readers. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

August 15, 2014
History has a way of repeating itself in this atmospheric Southern gothic ghost story. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Aimes moves with her parents and little brother, T.J., to the Le Ciel Doux plantation in Louisiana for the summer, but she hopes to be back in Chicago by the start of the school year. Aside from her new friend and fellow intern, Chloe Sabourin, Lucy seems destined to spend the summer alone until she meets the mysterious Alexandre. Long haunted by a nightmare of drowning, Lucy soon starts to dream of Armantine Lyon, a photographer's assistant, and her forbidden romance with the very same Alexandre Jourdain in the antebellum era. A film-and-darkroom photographer, Lucy provides a visually driven narration while remaining separated from other characters until she becomes a key player in Alexandre's fate. Bouncing between dreams and reality, past and present, Lucy gets swept up in voodoo, human sacrifices and two romances. The melange of black magic, voodoo and tarot-embodied by the mysticism-spouting, tradition-mixing character Mama Legba (an unacknowledged reference to the loa Papa Legba)-feels ad hoc and uninformed, if not irreligious. However, debut author Maxwell tackles slavery, segregation and racial tensions admirably and offers a time-transcending romance. A tale of magic, murder and romance in the steamy South. (Paranormal romance. 12-18)

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August 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-A romantic ghost story, voodoo spells, and the humid-drenched Southern locale all combine for a satisfying mix of contemporary and historical fiction in Sweet Unrest. When Lucy Aimes's family moves to an old plantation near New Orleans for her history professor father's work, she becomes plagued with vivid dreams featuring the handsome Alex and surprisingly familiar Armantine. Lucy soon learns, with the assistance of a local mystic, that the dreams are much more than they seem. Readers will be enthralled by the heady descriptions of New Orleans and mysticism. Intertwining a bit of voodoo lore with an enjoyable mystery, Maxwell produces a well-written, spellbinding, and informative story that teen readers (and adults) are sure to snap up.-Amanda C. Buschmann, Atascocita Middle School, Humble, TX

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Grades 7-10 Lucy, a teenage photographer and artist, is pulled into living history when her parents uproot her from the Midwest and move to a spooky old house in New Orleans. She would like nothing more than to return to Chicago, so she is determined to spend her summer giving her new home an earnest chance in exchange for living with her aunt in the Windy City for her senior year. But when she starts having vivid, terrifying dreams, she finds herself drawn into the Louisiana voodoo scene with her new friend Chloe, and she learns a lot about the history of her new home and voodooand her past lives. When her dreams soon turn into visions of a vibrant past where she is in love with handsome Alex, she is intrigued and confused. Are the ghosts of her past real? And what will happen when she faces up to them? With chapters alternating between Lucy's dreams and her real life, Maxwell's debut feels a little disjointed, but that only adds to the creepy undertones of the unexplained.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)