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In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she's forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love - a boy who died in battle - returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?
Featuring haunting archival early-twentieth-century photographs, this is a tense, romantic story set in a past that is eerily like our own time.
"Starred Review. Winters's masterful debut novel is an impressively researched marriage of the tragedies of wartime, the 1918 flu epidemic, the contemporaneous Spiritualism craze, and a chilling love story and mystery." - Publishers Weekly
"More than anything, this is a story of the breaking point between sanity and madness, delivered in a straightforward and welcoming teen voice." - Booklist
"Vintage photographs contribute to the authenticity of the atmospheric and nicely paced storytelling." - Kirkus
This information about In the Shadow of Blackbirds was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cat Winters was born and raised near Disneyland in Southern California. She is the creator of suburbanvampire.blogspot.com, and she runs corsetsandcutlasses.wordpress .com, a group blog featuring authors of YA historical fiction. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.
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