Storey Dalton, aged sixteen, is a girl with an attitude -
but when she picks up a strange pencil she doesn't realise
how dangerous her obsessive doodling will become.
The town of Bankhead is dying as the mine shuts down and
people move, and Storey feels bored and rebellious, though
her charmingly Wiccan mother isn't exactly mainstream. As
Storey sketches she finds herself drawing obsessive
pictures of a doorway, and these DANGEROUS DESIGNS lead to
her crossing to another dimension. The only one who knows
what is happening to her is new kid Eric, who understands
that the pencil is a bespelled stylus and has been sent to
recover it. Yet Eric can't panic the girl so he lets her
out of the abandoned mine she's trapped in, gets to know
her and asks to see her drawings.
Odd long fingers are now making their way past the door -
and Storey is sure she didn't draw them. Eric finally
explains that creatures called Louers are trying to break
through from another dimension and takes Storey to an
interview with Paxton, a scientist in his own dimension.
The girl doesn't like being talked around as if she was an
object, and refuses to give back the stylus - she gives the
assembling scientists attitude instead and drops out of a
drawn doorway. Eric is sent to take her back as she knows
too much, but Storey then finds his world's living spaces
sparse and utilitarian, while she hears different sides of
the argument about the Louers, which are now attacking his
people. Bolting home she discovers that changes have
occurred... her absent father is present and her mother is
a staunch Catholic. How can she undo any damage she's
caused, or is this the result of the Louers breaking
through to her world instead?
Dale Meyer has written an interesting tale for young
adults, which doesn't force adult behaviour on the
protagonists. By the end we understand that slavery makes
enemies and more advanced science doesn't make everyone
using it right. Storey is a tool of the stylus to begin
with but ends up making her own choices and being true to
herself. Girls and boys will enjoy this tale which may
encourage them to reflect on our modern technology.
Drawing is her world...but when her new pencil comes alive, it's his world too.
Her...Storey Dalton is seventeen and now boyfriendless after being dumped via Facebook. Drawing is her escape. It's like as soon as she gets down one image, a dozen more are pressing in on her. Then she realizes her pictures are almost drawing themselves...or is it that her new pencil is alive?
Him...Eric Jordan is a new Ranger and the only son of the Councilman to his world. He's crossed the veil between dimensions to retrieve a lost stylus. But Storey is already experimenting with her new pencil and what her drawings can do – like open portals.
It ... The stylus is a soul–bound intelligence from Eric's dimension on Earth and uses Storey's unsuspecting mind to seek its way home, giving her an unbelievable power. She unwittingly opens a third dimension, one that held a dangerous predatory species banished from Eric's world centuries ago, releasing these animals into both dimensions.
Them... Once in Eric's homeland, Storey is blamed for the calamity sentenced to death. When she escapes, Eric is ordered to bring her back or face that same death penalty. With nothing to lose, can they work together across dimensions to save both their worlds?
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