Category Five

by Ann Dávila Cardinal

Overview

Category Five is a new supernatural YA thriller from Ann Dávila Cardinal, set against the backdrop of a post-hurricane Puerto Rico.

After the hurricane, some see destruction and some smell blood.

The tiny island of Vieques, located just off the northeastern coast of the main island of Puerto Rico, is trying to recover after hurricane Maria, but the already battered island is now half empty. To make matters worse, as on the main island, developers have come in to buy up the land at a fraction of its worth, taking advantage of the island when it is down.

Lupe, Javier, and Marisol are back to investigate a series of murders that follow in the wake of a hurricane and in the shadow of a new supernatural threat.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250296146
Publisher:	Tom Doherty Associates
Publication date:	06/01/2021
Series:	Five Midnights , #2
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	508,322
Product dimensions:	5.45(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a novelist and director of student recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) where she earned her MFA in Writing. She also helped create VCFA’s winter Writing residency in Puerto Rico. She comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including poets Virgilio and José Antonio Dávila, and her cousin, award-winning fiction writer Tere Dávila. Ann lives north of Stowe, Vermont with her husband Doug and son Carlos, and likes to spend her free time cycling, doing fiber arts, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Five Midnights (Tor Teen) was her first solo novel.

Editorial Reviews

A page-turner: part mystery, part ghost story, with touches of romance and social commentary.” —Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Five Midnights
Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
Winner of the 2020 International Latino Book Award
2019 Digital Book World Award Winner for best Suspense/Horror Book
Ladies of Horror Fiction (LoHF) Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Novel

"Ann Dávila Cardinal's inventive Five Midnights is topical, fun, frightening, and flat-out unputdownable. You'll want to follow Lupe and Javier all over Puerto Rico. Do keep an eye out for El Cuco, though. Especially at night, and after you turn off the lights." —Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World

“I looooove. This novel set in Puerto Rico is inspired by a Latinx boogeyman myth.... Lupe and numerous other characters are indeed sassy AF and the narrator gets their attitudes, accents, and inflections so, so right.” —BookRiot

“Five Midnights combines Puerto Rican mythology with a thrilling mystery. The members of your book club will love trying to solve this one as they read.” —Bustle

“Dávila Cardinal brings both the colorful culture as well as the struggles of Puerto Rico to life.... Five Midnights is a thrilling spin on legendary source material as well as a study in identity, community, and connection. A story that lingers in sinister shadows.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Five Midnights is wickedly thrilling.” —William Alexander, National Book Award-winning author of Goblin Secrets

“Between the threat of an enigmatic monster and an escalating murder mystery, Five Midnights is a novel that kept me up late. As much as it is a frightening, fast-paced thriller, it's also a love story. Lupe and Javier are characters I rooted for, at every dark twist and chilling turn.” —Julianna Baggott, Alex Award-winning author of Pure

From the Publisher

2020-04-05
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Lupe returns to Puerto Rico to solve another paranormal mystery in this follow-up to Five Midnights (2019).

Lupe has spent the last year since defeating El Cuco back home with her recovering alcoholic father in Vermont—while worrying about her loved ones back in Puerto Rico as they grapple with their new normal. Marisol has turned her frustrations toward activism, rebuilding homes, and defending land from buyouts by mainland corporations. Javier, meanwhile, is just trying to make ends meet while struggling under a dark cloud of unresolved trauma. When Lupe returns to spend the summer on the island, however, all are quickly wrapped up in a murder mystery with ghostly ties. On the island of Vieques, developers putting in a new resort seem to have raised the dead, and ghostly sightings are being reported amid violent deaths. The pacing is tight as each chapter focuses on the developing plot through the shifting perspectives of the main characters. The climactic moment feels a little cheesy and Scooby-Doo–esque, but there is a tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of the "meddling kids" trope. Though not explored in depth as the mystery unfolds, themes of colonialism, trauma, and recovery are woven throughout. Most of the cast is Puerto Rican; there is also some light romance between two male characters.

A page-turner: part mystery, part ghost story, with touches of romance and social commentary. (Paranormal mystery. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews