Draw the Dark

by Ilsa J. Bick

Overview

There are things the people of Winter, Wisconsin, would rather forget. The year the Nazis came to town, for one. That fire, for another. But what they'd really like to forget is Christian Cage.

Seventeen-year-old Christian's parents disappeared when he was a little boy. Ever since, he's drawn obsessively: his mother's face...her eyes...and what he calls "the sideways place," where he says his parents are trapped. Christian figures if he can just see through his mother's eyes, maybe he can get there somehow and save them.

But Christian also draws other things. Ugly things. Evil things. Dark things. Things like other people's fears and nightmares. Their pasts. Their destiny.

There's one more thing the people of Winter would like to forget: murder.

But Winter won’t be able to forget the truth, no matter how hard it tries. Not as long as Christian draws the dark...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467731683
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	931,825
Lexile:	790L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ilsa J. Bick is a child psychiatrist, as well as a film scholar, surgeon wannabe, former Air Force major, and an award-winning, best-selling author of short stories, e-books, and novels. She has written extensively in the Star Trek, Battletech, Mechwarrior: Dark Age, and Shadowrun universes. Her original stories have been featured in numerous anthologies, magazines and online venues.  Ilsa's YA paranormal, Draw the Dark, was also a semifinalist for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (as Stalag Winter).  Ilsa currently lives with her family and other furry creatures in rural Wisconsin and across the street from the local Hebrew cemetery. One thing she loves about the neighbors: They're very quiet and come around for sugar only once in a blue moon.

Editorial Reviews

Seventeen-year-old Christian is a loner at school--which is what tends to happen when you live in a small town with a hidden history, your parents have disappeared, you hear voices in your head from "the sideways place," and you can draw people to death. Sometimes Christian's drawings are taken over by the thoughts of those around him, and when he draws their deepest fears, they die. But now something new is happening: Christian is falling into the life of an eight-year-old boy who lived during the 1940s when Winter, Wis., was home to German WWII prisoners who performed labor in town. The boy witnessed an atrocious crime, and Christian gets caught up in the mystery he uncovers. Though the story is at times hard to follow, as Christian moves in and out of his life and tries to understand his connection to the mysterious "sideways place" that plays a pivotal role in the story's climax, Bick builds the gripping supernatural/historical mystery to a satisfying conclusion that demonstrates the evils of the present can be just as terrifying as those of the past. Ages 12–18. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Bick has created a likable teen protagonist whose unique ability is completely believable in the author's skilled hands. The novel brilliantly strikes a compelling balance between fantasy and contemporary fiction. Readers will be on the edge of their seats waiting to find out what happens next and will clamor for a sequel to follow Christian into the sideways place." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Drawing has had unusual repercussions in 17-year-old Christian Cage's life: His mother has vanished to a sideways place he drew, his aunt drowned in a sinking car exactly as he sketched it out and he defaced a barn of the wealthiest man in Winter, Wisc., in his sleep. While he is doing restitution work for the barn incident, Christian has visions of a terrible 1945 murder involving a Jewish union organizer and a German factory owner who imported prisoners of war. Bick's tight plotting drives the action forward, and dream drawing sequences provide tantalizing clues. Characterization is thin, however; the historical characters are more realized than the contemporary ones, and Christian's attempts to deal with his guilt appear genuine but lack emotional impact. Resolving a twisted mystery with a surprising solution, the tense narrative unfortunately loses cohesion in tying up a few minor plot points. These small flaws notwithstanding, this otherwise excellent mystery might bring new life to a neglected genre. (Mystery. YA)

Kirkus Reviews