Fire and hemlock

420 pages

English language

Published Jan. 6, 2002 by Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins Publishers.

OCLC Number:
49852862

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (1 review)

At nineteen, Polly has two sets of sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting memories, the real-life ones of school days and her parents' divorce, and the heroic adventure ones that began the day she accidentally gate-crashed a funeral and met the cellist Thomas Lynn.

15 editions

Review of 'Fire and hemlock' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Cons: I'm very skeeved out by the idea that someone the main character thought of as an adult when she was a child ended up as a romantic interest, and that left a very bad taste in my mouth overall. I also found the ending unclear, which was pretty unsatisfying. In general, the writing was quite a bit muddier than DWJ usually is. I found the complete dropping of Polly's dad to be abrupt. What was the power of the opal? What was with the hair in the picture frame? Laurel's powers were often implied, but not explicitly named. I often confused Seb and Leslie. The concept of and access to Nowhere was murky.

Pros: it was neat to see Polly grow up and watch her interests and perceptions change. I also enjoyed the things Tom and Polly wrote together coming true, although I wished there was more of that. …

Subjects

  • Children of divorced parents
  • Juvenile fiction
  • Urns