Hostage Three

by Nick Lake

Overview

From the author of the Michael L. Printz award–winning novel In Darkness comes a critically-acclaimed, fast-paced thriller that's as dangerous as the seas on which it's set.

The last thing Amy planned to do this summer was sail around the world trapped on a yacht with her father and her stepmother. Really, all she wanted was to fast-forward to October when she'll turn
eighteen and take control of her own life.

Aboard the Daisy May, Amy spends time sunbathing, dolphin watching and forgetting the past as everything floats by . . . until one day in the Gulf of Aden another boat appears. A boat with guns and pirates – the kind that kill.

Immediately, the pirates seize the boat and its human cargo. Hostage One is Amy's father – the most valuable. Hostage Two: her stepmother. And Hostage Three is Amy, who can't believe what's happening. As the ransom brokering plays out, Amy finds herself becoming less afraid, and even
stranger still, drawn to one of her captors, a teenage boy who wants desperately to be more than who he has become. Suddenly it becomes brutally clear that the price of life and its value are two very different things . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619631496
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	11/12/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Nick Lake is the much-acclaimed author of In Darkness, winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, and Hostage Three, which received three starred reviews and was named a Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. He is also the Publishing Director for fiction at HarperCollins Children's Books UK. Nick lives near Oxford, England. Visit him online at www.in-darkness.org and on Twitter at @nicklakeauthor.
Nick Lake was born in Britain but grew up in Luxembourg, where his father worked for the European Parliament. Nick works in publishing by day and writes in every spare moment he can find. In 2012, his powerful and moving novel In Darkness, about the Haitian earthquake, was published for adults and older teenagers, receiving huge acclaim. Hostage Three is his very different but equally powerful new novel for teenagers.

Nick lives near Oxford with his wife and family. His long commute to work gives his imagination time to explore places he's never visited.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/01/2013
Gr 8 Up—Amy Fields walks out of her A Level exams required for entrance into the Royal Academy; she is still grieving over her mother's death and cares little about the future. Her rich father and new stepmother hope that sailing around the world will allow much-needed family bonding, but the idyllic trip ends when Somalian pirates seize their yacht and hold them for ransom. Tension is palpable as the frightened family and crew become pawns in the businesslike negotiations. Although carefully guarded with machine guns, the British teen observes a pecking order among her captors and befriends Farouz, the pirates' handsome translator. They share memories of personal pain that include Amy's mother's suicide, the execution of Farouz's parents, and the political imprisonment of his brother. Their stories are vivid and poignant, adding layers to a rich characterization, especially details of Somalian culture and mythology. Amy falls in love, understanding Farouz's vow to use ransom money to free his brother, but is startled back to reality when he agrees to follow orders to shoot her on command. Circumstances become dire when she learns secrets about her father's business that jeopardize their release, and rival pirates and the navy get involved. The author playfully tells Amy's account of the rescue the way she hoped it would play out, and then again, as it actually happened. The narrative twist is brilliant, taking readers on an emotional ride to the very last page.—Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY

School Library Journal

[Lake] deftly paints the surreal and symbolic clash of worlds as Amy's family and their Somali hijackers settle in for what becomes several weeks of ransom negotiations and maneuverings by the British Navy…Lake's writing is at its most vivid and authentic when describing the young pirate's chilling back story, rendering in unflinching detail the stricken state of Somalia and the desperate circumstances that lead men toward piracy…Farouz's narrative is hard-edged and refreshingly insistent throughout. It may require a luxury yacht, a self-involved banker and his rebellious rich-girl daughter to sail teenage readers into these waters, but we can be glad that they get to make the trip. Lake's novel is a skillfully paced thriller that ends in heart-pounding tragedy, but the real achievement is the offshore glimpse it provides of a misunderstood, war-ravaged country.

The New York Times Book Review - Sara Corbett

★ 09/30/2013
The Somali pirates who seize a British yacht dehumanize their victims by giving them numbers. Thus, millionaire banker James Fields and his new wife become Hostages One and Two. Hostage Three is his 17-year-old daughter, Amy, who narrates this perceptive and harrowing novel from Printz-winner Lake (In Darkness). Despite virtuosic talent with the violin and a posh upbringing, Amy is sullen and adrift when the story opens, having sabotaged her final A-level exam and had her face pierced with multiple bolts—all to get back at her father for remarrying too soon after her mother’s death. Amy initially greets his plan to sail around the world with apathy, but having a gun put to her head awakens her will to live, especially when the gunman is Farouz, the pirates’ interpreter, with whom Amy has secretly developed a romance. Through Farouz, Amy learns about the Somalis’ daily struggle to survive the desert and decades of war (“All our stories are about hunger,” Farouz tells her). An inventive narrative construction (Lake offers alternate endings) plays on the highly unstable situation of this utterly compelling read. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

* Intelligent, empathetic, and eye-opening.” —Booklist, starred review, on Hostage Three

“* Perceptive and harrowing. . . . An inventive narrative construction . . . plays on the highly unstable situation of this utterly compelling read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Hostage Three

“* Vivid and poignant. . . . The narrative twist is brilliant, taking readers on an emotional ride to the very last page.” —School Library Journal, starred review, on Hostage Three

“* This double-helix-of-a-story explores the nature of freedom, humanity, survival and hope. A dark journey well worth taking-engrossing, disturbing, illuminating.” —Kirkus reviews, starred review, on IN DARKNESS

“* A startling but successful feat of literary imagination. . . . Powerful and moving.” —PW, starred review, on IN DARKNESS

“A likely eye-opener for teenage readers. . . . In Darkness works on multiple levels by blurring realities—telescoping across time, between dreams and waking, and . . . between the depiction of Haiti by the artist and Haiti itself. This is what makes the novel so gripping.” —The New York Times, on IN DARKNESS

“Remarkable. . . . Lake's elegant, restrained prose and distinct characters will reward adults and older teenagers able to brave a story with strong language, harrowing scenes of brutality and an almost painful stab of joy at the end.” —Wall Street Journal, on IN DARKNESS

“A bold storytelling move ripe for reader discussion. . . . Provocative, daring, and sure to be polarizing. Lake does not shy from the graphic depiction of life in past or present Haiti. . . . Such grittiness elevates his story above and beyond more typical historical fiction and gives the events an edge not found in classroom social studies lessons. . . . Readers are sure to have a hard time looking away.” —VOYA, on IN DARKNESS

From the Publisher

2013-08-15
A diamond in the rough that, pared down, could be a glittering gem. Amy Fields is a privileged 17-year-old who has had a dose of tragedy--her mother's suicide--to which she reacts with blame and shame. The blame is for her remaining parent, her father; the shame is for her inability to see her mother's suicide coming. Forced by her father and stepmother to accompany them on a round-the-world cruise in her father's posh yacht, she is at first withdrawn and surly. Then, in the Gulf of Aden, Somali pirates capture the yacht, and Amy begins to experience a bit of life outside the bubble as she and her family are held hostage. As the tale unfolds, assumptions about right and wrong, First World and Third World crumble under Amy's (and readers') growing awareness. Things are complicated further when Amy falls in love with one of the pirates and he with her. Printz winner (In Darkness, 2012) Lake's writing is often breathtakingly illuminating, but there is too much of it. Three metaphors are used when one will do, as the rambling first-person narration seemingly disgorges Amy's every thought and forces readers to do their own filtering. Readers will most likely forgive the lack of narrative control, however, as they become caught up in the layered nuances of this original story. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews