The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Buy The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: For a month in every year, Cara's family are susceptible to accidents. Sometimes, the accidents are fatal. And this season brings everything to a head. Lyrical and mysterious and oblique, this is a story for readers who like meandering paths rather than to know what's coming next.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 288	Date: July 2015
Publisher: Corgi
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 055257130X
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Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2016: Older Fiction

For a month in every year, the month leading up to Halloween, Cara's family are susceptible to accidents. There are cuts and scrapes and bruises. Sometimes there are broken bones. And sometimes, the accidents are even fatal...

... it's a curse, right? What else could it be?

But this accident season is one accident season too many. And it's all coming to a head. Tired of bundling up and hiding away, Cara, Bea, Sam and Alice decide to throw caution to the winds and throw a Halloween party in an abandoned house. But, as the night approaches, and accident season takes hold, all sorts of secrets and lies rise to the surface. All sorts of hopes and dreams. And all sorts of magic.

It took me a while to get into The Accident Season. It didn't grab me from the first page, or even the first chapter. I'm not sure why that is - and I certainly can't point to any fault within the book that made it so. Perhaps I'm too used to diving in at the deep end with YA fiction and it's to Fowley-Doyle's credit that she was not afraid of a slow build-up. And truly, I'm so glad that I persisted. This is a deep, multi-layered story and it's beautifully written.

Layers of plot strands, themes and metaphors all twist and turn together as Cara's world becomes more and more closely intertwined with a strange sort of magic. The complicated relationships between the characters and the secrets they keep all add to the air of mystery and, yes, menace. It's difficult to say much more about any of it without spoiling things because every element of this story is cleverly written into every other element. So you know. That's all you're getting!

If you like thematic depth and good writing, you'll like The Accident Season. If eerie stories are your thing, you'll like The Accident Season. If you're looking for something coming from somewhere in left field, you'll like The Accident Season. I hope I gave you enough to encourage you to read it and avoided giving you enough to spoil it.

Those who enjoy strange stories and ghostly stories and all-things-odd-and-eerie stories, might also like Buried Thunder by Tim Bowler or Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough.

You could get a free audio download of The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle with a 30-day Audible free trial at Amazon.co.uk.

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