Emma Hall is a teenager who has had a really terrible year. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was killed and she simply isn't over it. She and her mother are on their own since her father's death when Emma was very young so when she loses Nathan unexpectedly, she just keeps telling people that she's "fine." However, Emma is anything but fine. She and her old dog, Petal, walk to the cemetery every night so she can be close to Nathan's grave. Plus, she likes the silence that she finds there.
Emma is walking Petal just like any other night when she finds that she's got company in the cemetery. It's a boy about her age who tells her his name is Eric. There's a weird looking old woman standing with Eric who comes toward Emma holding a lantern. She kisses Emma, which causes Emma to fall back and hit her head on a tombstone. The next thing she knows is that she's in her own bed with her mother fussing over her.
Against the wishes of her mother, Emma insists on going to school the following day, saying that she feels fine. Her friend Michael turns up right on time at 8:10 to walk with her as they go pick up her best friend, Allison. The three of them have a bit of a ritual in walking both to and from school. While at school, Emma thinks her day is going to go normally but that's pretty far from the truth. At lunch, she sees a new student sitting in a chair at their table. Allison sits down right on top of him and goes through him and Emma's head starts to hurt.
By the end of school that day, she's suffering from one of the worst headaches she's ever had complete with severe nausea. Eric offers to take her to the emergency room along with Allison and Michael. After her mother arrives in the waiting room, she has another very odd experience. She can see her father who died several years ago standing right there among them. He speaks her to and she finds that she can talk to him. Not only that but it seems to be an out of body experience for her because she can see herself still sitting in the waiting room chair. Her other "self" moves to her father and touches him. Everyone else can now see her father even though they know he's dead.
This is the beginning of a very odd journey for Emma as well as her closest friends. Emma is one of those very special people that can communicate with the dead, but she's also so much more than that. As she comes to terms with her powers, she finds that she has much compassion for the lonely dead that wander the earth still without being able to get to that place of peace, comfort, love and light. She wants to help them reach this place.
Michelle Sagara smoothly makes the transition of normal to supernatural among very real and ordinary people. Emma's friends seem to take everything in stride and she has some special ones. From Michael, the highly functional autistic to Allison the smart and plain best friend to Amy, the beautiful and most popular girl in town, Emma's friends rally around to help her do what she needs to do.
SILENCE is the first book in a trilogy called Queen of the Dead. Be sure to do yourself a favor and get in on the ground floor so that you don't miss one moment of this new and exciting supernatural series. It will make you shiver with fear while it also tugging at your heartstrings. Merging many emotions together in a supernatural book isn't easy to do, but Michelle Sagara manages to do that admirably.
Ever since her
boyfriend Nathan had died in a tragic accident, Emma had
been coming to the graveyard at night. During the day she
went through the motions at her prep school, in class, with
her friends, but thatโs all it was. For Emma, life had
stopped with Nathanโs death. But tonight was different.
Tonight Emma and her dog were not alone in the cemetery.
There were two others there--Eric, who had just started at
her school, and an ancient woman who looked as though she
were made of rags. And when they saw Emma there, the old
woman reached out to her with a grip as chilling as
death...
Emma was not quite like others teenagers. It
was true that other girls had experienced grief. Other girls
had also lost their fathers, or had their boyfriends die in
a senseless accident. But though she hadnโt known it till
that night in the graveyard, unlike those other girls, she
could see, touch, and speak with the dead. In fact, Emma
could draw upon the essence of the dead to work magic. That
was what Necromancers did. But Emma had no desire to be a
Necromancer. She just wanted to help the ghosts who walked
the streets of Toronto, unable to escape from the land of
the living. And that was just as well, because had she
chosen the path of the Necromancer, Eric would have had to
kill her.
Instead, Eric and his fellow Necromancer
hunter Chase found themselves violating every rule they were
sworn to follow, becoming part of Emmaโs group, helping her
to stand against those who preyed upon the dead. But whether
Emma and her friends could survive such a battle was
anyoneโs guess. And whether Emma could learn to use the
magic of the dead against her enemies without herself
falling victim to the lure of such power remained to be
seen. Eric seemed to think she could, and her living friends
would never abandon her. But only time would tell what
Emmaโs true destiny was...
No excerpt available.
© 2003-2026