The Fetch

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Overview

Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth.The first to fall in love with a mortal girl. But when he climbs backwards out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm, where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.

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More About This Book

Overview

Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth.The first to fall in love with a mortal girl. But when he climbs backwards out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm, where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Whitcomb (A Certain Slant of Light) revisits the hereafter with this ambitious fantasy that dips into Russian history to explain why Princess Anastasia and Prince Alex's remains were not found alongside the rest of the slain Romanov family: they were spirited away by Calder, a Fetch, who attends the dying and escorts souls to heaven. Calder is a hugely empathetic figure, abandoned as a baby and killed at age 19, but he errs, first by falling in love with a Romanov, and then in taking the dying mystic Rasputin's body as his own in order to pursue her, causing a major rupture in the spirit world. To heal the wound, he, Anastasia and Alexei (here called Alexis) travel the globe in search of a lost key. The story, riveting until this point, loses its focus as they begin their trek. Whitcomb's inventive vision of the afterlife almost makes up for the plodding pace of the narrative-it's an ultimately comforting place where souls see their deepest regrets woven into tapestries and their contributions displayed in the form of a garden only they can interpret. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)

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More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
If you have ever wondered why the Russian monk Rasputin was so famously hard to kill (surviving stabbing, poison, and gunshot wounds), Whitcomb has a decidedly fresh take on the issue. In her novel, the Rasputin who cannot be killed is not actually Rasputin at all but a "Fetch" (or death escort) named Calder who has broken his heavenly vows to linger on Earth, inhabiting the dead Rasputin's abandoned body, while Rasputin himself goes off to wreak havoc in the world of the afterlife. Calder's breaking of his sacred vows brings with it terrible, unforeseen consequences, which lead to his having to flee around the globe with the murdered tsar's murdered son Alexis and murdered daughter Ana, trying to escort Alexis and Ana safely to heaven as they are pursued by a legion of Lost Souls unleashed by the mischievous, troublemaking Rasputin. As they race from Russia to Hollywood and on to London, Calder and Ana fall in love: will they be together for immortality or cruelly separated for all of time? The novel is almost 400 pages long, and much of it reads like a lengthy recounting of somebody else's dreams, with Calder slipping in and out of various visions of his long-distant past. But teens seeking a supernatural romance with an intriguing historical setting will find it here. Reviewer: Claudia Mills, Ph.D.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780618891313
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Publication date: 2/2/2009
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 971,823
  • Age range: 12 years
  • Lexile: 890L (what's this?)
  • Product dimensions: 6.50 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

Laura Whitcomb grew up in Pasadena, California where she lived in a mildly haunted house for 12 years. She has taught English in California and Hawaii. The winner of three Kay Snow Writing Awards, she was once runner up in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for the best first sentence of the worst science fiction novel never written. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her dog Maximus.

Read an Excerpt

Part I The Aisle of Unearthing

One Calder was a Fetch, a death escort, and had been since his own death at the age of nineteen. He had been a Fetch for three hundred and thirty years, and so had seen many women in the Death Scenes to which he had been sent. He’d watched women drowning, one with seaweed twisting her gown into a mermaid tail, another in a pond surrounded by lilies that glowed like funeral offerings about her floating hair. He’d seen women lost and broken in ivy- choked woods and in open fields where they lay fallen in the snow, half covered like gravestones. Some died safe in their downy beds, some forgotten in alleys.
He had also seen many women who tended to the dying—this one washing her sister’s face with lilac water, that one praying and weeping with her father. Some had been nursing soldiers, others dreaming beside husbands they did not realize had ceased breathing. For the last three hundred and thirty years Calder had seen thousands upon thousands of mortal women, so he did not understand why, on this day, the sight of this particular woman afflicted him.

On earth it was the winter of 1904. The Death Door had opened onto a nursery, and the dying body was that of a baby boy whose swollen belly was bleeding from the inside. The sight of a dying infant did not shake Calder, for he’d escorted hundreds of them through the Aisle of Unearthing. He had seen babes die alone in their cradles at night, or surrounded by doctors and priests, in dirty huts, in palaces, from cold or from fever, and he had often seen their mothers trying to breathe life back into their small mouths. Calder, like all Fetches, felt sympathy for this pain, but when a human soul—even an infant’s—reaches for its Fetch and slips out of its earthly shell, the cries and shudderings of those left behind are closed on the other side of the Death Door. No mortal terror, sorrow, or anger could ever rattle that portal open again. The Fetch holds the only Key.
So though it was not the first time Calder had seen a beautiful woman, when he first beheld this woman’s halo of reddish-gold hair, he was stung with recognition. And although he had seen many women devoted to their children, when he saw the way this woman held her baby in the nest of her white dress and whispered to him words that were not words but tiny prayers and magic charms, he was mesmerized. She sat, gently rocking in the lamplight, like a ghost singing in a forbidden language. She pulled at Calder’s heart, almost unfurling the stiff pages of his memory—so familiar, but he knew he had never set eyes on her before. Calder tried to remember if this woman looked like anyone he had seen during his nineteen years on earth, but just as the sorrow of the earthbound is shut on the other side of the Death Door, the memories of earth are drawn away from the dying soul. When Calder died and became a Fetch, his old life was eclipsed by his new one—he could remember being human in a distant way, like viewing a painting on a wall through an open door one room removed. Whether the picture of a Fetch’s past life was heavenly or hellish, it appeared serene and remained motionless. Calder’s own painting of his human life was a rich and shadowed thing, deep with color and detail but as still as any canvas mounted on a wall. Before a theatrical arch, under the warm glow of a paper lantern, with his audience of gentlefolk standing or reclining about him, Calder played an ornate drum and sang so sweetly that everyone stopped to listen. At his feet lay a fur cloak, perhaps a gift from his noble patron. What songs he sang and the name of his benefactor were distant to him now in both time and interest. But sometimes as he traversed the Aisle and heard the pulse of music in the Theatre or Feast of the soul in his charge, he would almost recall some snippet of tune or line of poetry that had been known to him on earth. A note that leapt up and hovered, a simple lyric of love unrequited. The memory would flare, then fade before he could repeat it. When this happened, Calder wondered if under this perfect picture of his human life there might not be another painting hiding in pentimento, its darker and forgotten shapes waiting to be drawn to the surface.
Calder tried now to recall women he had known on earth, but he could not remember any sisters or his mother. He imagined what the women might have looked like, those that listened to him sing. Graceful ladies in satin and pearls, nodding with admiration. But none of the feminine visions he could conjure brought him joy like this woman in white. Calder stood still so as not to disturb her, though he couldn’t be seen or heard by most mortals. She must have been the nurseery maid or governess, for she was wearing a simple cotton dress with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, in contrast to the room, which was riiiiichly dressed with brocade curtains, cushioned chairs, and a brass crib filled with lace bedding. Perhaps the baby was only her charge, but it was clear that she loved him as though he was the only child on earth. Calder studied her delicate fingers as she cupped the baby’s head and lifted him to her lips. He watched her heartbeat tap an almost invisible rhythm at her throat. He felt despair pulsing through her, but only the slightest trembling was visible in her shoulders. She was calling all her strength to the task; Calder could feel it as distinctly as he felt his own tremors; she was trying to still her nerves and calm her breathing so that the dying child would sense no fear. Calder watched with a confounding sense of loss. And this was when he did something he had never done before in all his years as a Fetch.
He hoped the child would live. Calder, like all Fetches, was supposed to be indifferent to the outcomes of Death Scenes, and usually that came naturally. Some souls chose to cross over; others chose to stay. And it was not always the sickest who chose death or the one with the slightest wound who chose life. A Fetch was to respect this choice without question and without judgment. Calder had never wished to stop a Death, but when a Death Scene held a single mourner, one human left alone with no relative or friend as comfort, Calder felt an instinct to stay with him, though, of course, he could not.
As Calder gazed down on these two mortals, he could hear men’s voices coming from the corridor—hushed, apprehensive whispers—perhaps doctors, perhaps holy men. This family could afford the best physicians, but some hurts cannot be healed. A gentleman, with dark whiskers and fine clothes, came to stand in the nursery doorway. A woman peered over his shoulder. These were the baby’s parents, perhaps. Calder paid little attention to them, for he was reluctant to turn away from the governess since he would have so little time with her. He knew a good Fetch would not stare this way at a human, but he could not help himself.
Moments later the father and mother had gone, but a child appeared in their place—a girl of no more than four, peeking around the door frame. Calder had no intention of looking at the girl, but she had a strong presence, like a bit of mirror-reflected light flashing in the corner of his vision. Her hair was as reddish-blond as that of the governess, but her face was not angelic—she was like a storybook elf, with pointed chin, a short, round nose, and curious eyes beneath brows arched in a kind of challenge. Calder suspected she was lonely since her governess needed to spend so much time with her baby brother. The girl watched the governess for a moment, then turned to Calder and set her tiny fists on her hips. He regarded her, unruffled. Though Fetches were invisible to most adult humans, very young children could often see them—some animals could, as well. But since the children able to see Fetches were usually too young to describe their visions with any clarity, and since they would forget the incident within a few months, the Order of the Fetch remained a secret. As the elfish child glowered at him, Calder felt a familiar movement in the spectral air, the spirit wind that accompanied a soul’s indecision. The wind circled the nursery, rippling Calder’s hair but leaving everything tangible in the room undisturbed. This was the turning point in a Death Scene, the secret discussion between the body and the spirit. Next a stillness fell over everything, the sign that the decision had been made: The baby would stay. He had chosen life. Calder felt almost sick from the pleasure. He wanted to stay until the governess realized the baby would live, but he knew he could not. She wouldn’t feel the relief of it for hours, but the little girl in the doorway knew something had changed. She dropped her hands to her sides as if any threat Calder had brought with him was now past, then slipped out of sight, the flip of her petticoats flashing like a white rabbit through the dark hole of the doorway. Calder felt the Death Door appear again in the air behind him. Though he longed to, he did not linger. He took his Key from a chain about his neck and unlocked the Door, opening it without another glance back. He couldn’t stay with the governess, but neither could he leave her behind. He set the memory of her in a secret drawer of his mind, like a tiny locket he could open at will, though he did not know her name.

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 3.5
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  • Posted December 3, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Reviewed by Angie Fisher for TeensReadToo.com

    Throw out any notion you have of the scary, scythe-bearing Grim Reaper and replace it with The Fetch.

    A Fetch is a death escort, a comforting guide who waits while the soul chooses whether or not to leave its mortal body. Upon choosing death, and yes, it is often a choice, the soul is led by its Fetch through a door into the afterworld.

    Calder was young for a Fetch, only three-hundred-and-thirty. Had he been doing death scenes a bit longer, say a couple hundred years longer, perhaps he would have recognized the warning signs. As it was, Calder was too preoccupied by the attractive woman he'd left behind on earth during a recent death scene to notice the dangerous path he was embarking upon.

    When Calder can no longer stand to be apart from the woman he's named Glory, he sets in motion a series of events that upsets a delicate balance and the consequences are felt throughout Heaven and Earth.

    Set in the time of the Russian Revolution, the author takes us on a journey literally around the world in search of the one key that can open the door to align the two worlds again. Part historical fiction, part paranormal/fantasy, and part love story, THE FETCH is a beautifully written tale of mistakes made and lessons learned, both in life and in death.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted August 21, 2009

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    Courtesy of Mother Daughter Book Club.com

    Calder left his human life when he was only nineteen, and in the 300+ years since then he has been a Fetch, a being sent to guide humans to the afterworld when they die. Calder enjoys helping people find the peacefulness that comes when their souls move on, and he's never been tempted to alter the decision of a soul teetering between life and death. That changes in the early 1900s when he ends up fascinated by the caregiver at the bedside of a boy. He wills the boy to live for her sake.

    Years later, he ends up at the same bedside, and he decides he must meet the woman who cares for the boy. Calder enters the body of a dying man, trading places with him in the process, and he sets in motion a series of events that threaten to overwhelm the land of the living and unbalance the land of the dead.

    On earth, Calder becomes involved with the lives of Rasputin and the Russian royal family shortly before and after they are taken hostage during the revolution. He realizes he must set the earthly world and the spiritual one back to rights, but first he must discover how.

    In The Fetch, Laura Whitcomb has created an inventive tale that is part supernatural mystery and romance, and part historical fiction. With Calder we travel from the unrest in Russia, to the first Hollywood movie studios, to New York and London. Larger than life historical figures Rasputin, Anastasia and Alexis join Calder on his quest while also searching for their own peaceful afterlife. Can they succeed? The Fetch leaves you guessing right up to the end.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 28, 2009

    good

    keeps you going all the way through!

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  • Posted July 1, 2009

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    Great Premise

    First of all, disregard where it says "a supernatural romance" of the cover. If you go into this novel expecting a romance, you will be disappointed and it might ruin the novel for you. This book is not for everyone. The writing is very dense and it reads like a hazy dream. The plot and pacing of this novel is also very sporadic. However, I absolutely loved the originality of it, and it was very interesting. I managed to finish it in a single rainy afternoon. I recommend this to people who love fantasies with a touch of historical fiction mixed in, but caution I them to have an open mind.

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  • Posted May 11, 2009

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    Not at all what I expected

    I absolutely loved "A certain slant of light" and was excited to read this book. It did not hold my interest...very boring...and I read 150 pages and there was no romance in sight. I wouldn't recommend this book.

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  • Posted May 8, 2009

    Fetch by Laura Whitcomb

    Great story with imaginative insight. Takes the story of Anastatia and puts a twist on the story dealing with a "Fetch" who is sort of like an angel of death who longs to have a day as a human again. He then is trapped in the body he has taken and you have an action packed adventure against the clock to put everything right. The ending was slightly disappointing for me but my daughter loved the way it ended so there you go.

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  • Posted May 5, 2009

    It was alright.

    Not really any romance but it is about the russian..if forgot what its called. I thought the beginning was pretty interesting and thought it would slowly progress.
    It just keeps building. I've got 50 more pages till I'm done but I'm thinking about just quiting it. :|

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  • Posted April 12, 2009

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    Okay here's the thing....

    Yes, i will admit, at first it is a little boring. i always loved Anastasia, and that stuff, and i like to read those kind of 'twists' on stories. so i did enjoy seeing that. but it does take a while to really get into.

    to me it seemed that it's always building to something really epic and big, but it never really got there for me. it just kept building.

    also "supernatural romance" was a wrong choice of words in my opinion. yes there is romance, but this made me think it was A ROMANCE, and it's not really. it's not that big of an element in the book.

    but in the end i did enjoy it very much and i will recommend it to anyone who loves:

    Adventure, SOME romance, Afterlife, or the Russian Revolution/ Anastasia

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  • Posted March 13, 2009

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    Boring!!!

    After reading the back cover I bought this book thinking it would be a good read. I was wrong!! Don't waste your money, if you think you might want to read this book go to your public library and save your money.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 22, 2009

    Eh...

    I really loved Laura Whitcomb's first novel, "A Certain Slant of Light", and I expected to love this one too. But I didn't. I just wasn't into the whole Rasputin thing and I thought the slogan on the front (A Paranormal Romance) was completely misleading. Also, I didn't like the fact that Calder falls in love with the czarina when he'd only seen her once! I just didn't like this book; I was disappointed. But! if you like the Russian revolution era and adventures, then you'll probably like this.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 11, 2009

    I Also Recommend:

    My RRRReview! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

    I loved it. I would spend all night reading it, but the only thing you need to look out for was how she twisted God and Heaven.

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  • Posted January 26, 2009

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    tvandbookaddict.blogspot.com

    I was extremely satisfied with this book, at first I was somewhat skeptical and thought it wasn't going to be that great but man was I wrong! This book made me so sad sometimes but other times it made me so darn happy. I loved the characters, the writing, and the story, oh the story! This book is historical fiction/love story/about the afterlife all wrapped up into this bundle of awesomeness disguised as a book, with a really neat cover. :)
    I'll admit in the beginning I was kinda thinking "hmm get to it already," but then it suddenly grabbed me and I could NOT stop reading it until I finished it (at some point I unfortunately had to take a break to do hw though, but man was I in agony for being taken away from such a great book). I LOVE books about life after death and this one is really really good at giving a unique idea of what it's like up there and about reapers, called fetches, who escort the dead to heave. I also adored the fact that this book was about the Imperial family of Russia, the Romanovs, which include the well known Anastasia.
    The main characters are the awesome fetch, Calder, Anastasia, her little brother Alexei, but in the book his name's different, it's Alexis, I really had an issue with that but I got over it, Rasputin a.k.a Father Grigori. :) They all go through some crazy/neat adventures in order to try and get to heaven. Oh gosh and another thing I really liked about this book was that many of the details about Anastasia, Alexis, and Rasputin are actually facts, some things are really creepy though. You know how there were two bodies missing from the site where the Romanov family had been murdered? Well, this book really gives an incredible explanation for what happened to those bodies and also the reason for many of the crazy myths surrounding Rasputin's life, it's just so darn cool. Oh and another thing, there were many other characters in the book that were actually real people, like for example Rasputin's real life murders, the sailer-guardian of Alexis, the family, and probably some others. I would recommend reading up on Anastasia's life before reading this book (I already knew quite a bit since I read this history book about her life quite a few years ago, but some things I recently found out) because if you do, it will make you go "oh my god! that happened in real life, wow! this book is a really good theory for what happened" :) ..well except for the fact that recently in July, I believe, 2008, two bodies were discovered, one is Alexei's the other either Anastasia's or Maria's (one of the sisters). Either way that doesn't really take much of the "magic" and awesomeness from the book away. :)
    The ending was also something else. I know quite a few people who will get a bit angry with it, but I love the fact that it's not predictable or the same as all these other books, it makes this book different and helps it stand out even more.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2009

    A bit disappointed

    I'm a romantic at heart and the whole "supernatural love story" had me hooked.
    I desperately wanted to love this book. After reading 'A Certain Slant of Light,' I was biting my nails in anticipation of Laura Whitcomb's second novel. The romance in her first sent me on a thrill ride that I was thinking about weeks after finishing the last word, and found myself reading and re-reading my favorite parts more than a few times.
    The Fetch, though beautifully written, did not have the same romantic pull as A Certain Slant of Light. In fact, the romance was a bit dull, despite how much the main character went through to get to the love of his 'life.'
    The scenes were also a bit drawn out, and overall not too engaging. I also didn't fall in love with the character's as much as I had hoped.
    Still, I cannot give her enough praise for having the gift of beautiful discription. Also, I give her credit on the facts and historical knowledge she used.
    Final note: this wasn't my favorite book by far, and I wouldn't go on the cover notes talking about intense supernatural romance, because I just didn't feel that. Otherwise, I will still look forward to her next publications, praying that she digs up that spark again.
    On the record: A Certain Slant of Light IS one of my all time favorite books ever!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 30, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 7, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

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    Posted April 12, 2011

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 17, 2009

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    Posted September 4, 2009

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    Posted February 16, 2009

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 6, 2009

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