Masque of the Red Death

by Bethany Griffin

Overview

Everything is in ruins.A devastating plague has decimated the population, and those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles around them.So what does Araby Worth have to live for?Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery makeup . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all.But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club, and Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does.And Araby may find not just something to live for, but something to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062107817
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/24/2012
Series:	Masque of the Red Death Series , #1
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Bethany Griffin is the author of Masque of the Red Death. She is a high school English teacher who prides herself on attracting creative misfits to elective classes like Young Adult Literature, Creative Writing, and Speculative Literature. She lives with her family in Kentucky.

What People are Saying About This

Melissa Marr

“Haunting and beautiful, disturbing and thoughtful, this is a book you’ll be thinking about well after the last page is turned.”

Suzanne Young

“Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death is gorgeous, compelling, and achingly romantic.”

Lauren Destefano

“Luscious, sultry and lingeringly tragic, this story has my heart. I can’t stop thinking about this tale of a broken world held together by corsets and clock gears. Araby’s voice stays with me even now, making me wary of the air I breathe.”

Editorial Reviews

Haunting and beautiful, disturbing and thoughtful, this is a book you’ll be thinking about well after the last page is turned.” — Melissa Marr, New York Times Bestselling Author of Wicked Lovely

“Luscious, sultry and lingeringly tragic, this story has my heart. I can’t stop thinking about this tale of a broken world held together by corsets and clock gears. Araby’s voice stays with me even now, making me wary of the air I breathe.” — Lauren Destefano, author of WITHER

“Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death is gorgeous, compelling, and achingly romantic.” — Suzanne Young, author of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL

From the Publisher

Haunting and beautiful, disturbing and thoughtful, this is a book you’ll be thinking about well after the last page is turned.

Melissa Marr

Luscious, sultry and lingeringly tragic, this story has my heart. I can’t stop thinking about this tale of a broken world held together by corsets and clock gears. Araby’s voice stays with me even now, making me wary of the air I breathe.

Lauren Destefano

Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death is gorgeous, compelling, and achingly romantic.

Suzanne Young

Griffin (Handcuffs, 2008) forsakes realism for sultry dystopia. Araby Worth lives in a tower soaring above a swampy, disease-ridden city. While her scientist father searches for a cure, Araby loses herself in a drugged haze and then finds purpose again joining a rebellion. But nothing is as Araby believes. Multiple factions work at cross-purposes, everyone has a secret agenda and the complex plot only thickens in this riff on Poe's short story. Griffin has taken several hot tropes--dystopic setting, pretty dresses, steampunk, love triangle--and created something that, if not new, at least feels different. The underlying questions about science and religion, which may save or destroy, and Araby's strangely dispassionate understanding of her own depression (despite a remarkable blindness to anything else) give the tale an unexpected psychological tension. Araby's precise, self-absorbed narration overwhelms some details of setting and nuances of character but elicits sympathy nonetheless. The complicated plotting fails to resolve in this volume (it is the first of two), but the inexorable movement towards the party in the prince's palace, where the wealthiest will dance to his sadistic whims while the world crumbles (per the source tale), makes for satisfying reading despite the lack of answers. Formulaic but fantastic, from the eye-catching cover to the growth of a heroine who might save the world. Tailor-made for popular consumption. (Dystopic steampunk. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews