The Cure for Death by Lightning- Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Cover of The Cure for Death by Lightning

Synopsis (from Amazon)

The remote Turtle Valley in British Columbia is home to fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks and a community of eccentric but familiar characters. There, amidst a stunning landscape of purple swallows and green skies, strange and unsettling events occur: children go missing, a girl is mauled by a crazy bear and Beth too is being pursued…The Cure for Death by Lightning is a rich and thrilling novel, as filled with strange deeds and dark fears as with beauty and magic.

Review

For some reason I remembered this book being described to me as a fantasy book. I suppose it does have some fantasy elements, but despite some odd events the story actually feels quite realistic. It did take me a while to get into this story, in fact I was probably about half way through before I really started enjoying it. However by the end I was really enjoying it. I had really got attached to the characters, especially Beth and Billy. Sometimes I thought Beth was being stupid about things but that just made her realistic, and made you want things to turn out right for her even more. Even the characters who I didn’t feel attached to I did feel deeply about (if those are the right words). I hated to father, the mother I thought was a bit of an idiot. I quite liked Dan. Initially I disliked the style of writing, I found it a little old fashioned but by the time I got into the story that didn’t really matter, and it seemed to fit with the setting of the book. I want to read another by her now.

3.5/5