Justyce Scales of the Otherly and Obscura

by Norma Rrae

Overview

Ever since Luci started experiencing daymares, she has relied on photography to discern reality from hallucination. That’s why the new camera she receives for her sweet sixteen birthday is perfect for the mother-daughter road trip to the hot spring. Or at least it was perfect until the camera was all she had left. A car accident leaves Luci stranded on a northern highway and her mother missing.

Luci doesn’t understand why her face was on that billboard. She knows that the fog is too thick to see anything, including the cliff edge where the car stopped. Her camera helps her navigate once more, but this time she finds an eerily beautiful woman who propels Luci into a parallel world.

What she thought was the Rocky Mountains is now a strange world made of river sharks, Memegwaans, building-sized flowers, underwater houses, and a labyrinth.

Luci must navigate this new world to find her mother, complete three trials to open the exit and try to understand some darker secret before the foreboding plane of existence, Obscura, and a dehumanized woman dig their claws into Luci.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665722810
Publisher:	Archway Publishing
Publication date:	06/26/2022
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Norma Rrae is a writer, poet, mother, grandmother, puppy-mom, and art lover. She works at the local food bank doing what she does best- being kind. Her roots are in Alberta, she studied pharmacy in Vancouver, and now she lives in the backcountry of northern British Columbia, which is full of inspiration. Stories also stem from the wilderness in her home, composed of her husband, four dogs, a hedgehog, and, the wildest of all, three teenagers. Visit her website at notmewriting.com.

Editorial Reviews

2022-10-19
A YA fantasy novel about a teenage girl who finds herself trapped in a strange place—or maybe just a hallucination of one.

Debut author Rrae’s protagonist, Lucille “Luci” Amberly Flask, has just turned 16, having celebrated her birthday by going on a trip with her mother, Ruth, to Liard Hot Springs. She received a Canon Rebel T3i camera with which she snaps pictures as her mom drives them home. Then she sees something odd on the roadside: a missing person poster on a billboard with her face on it. Soon, a dense fog rolls in and the car crashes. When Luci can’t find her mother, she wonders if this is all really happening or if it’s just a “daymare”—hallucinatory events that she experiences on occasion. Soon, Luci is talking to someone who calls themselves Grentsth, the gatekeeper of “The Otherly,” a parallel world that features magic and talking animals. She’s told she can’t leave The Otherly until she completes three trials, but all she really wants to do is find Ruth and go home to her father, brother, and friends. However, Luci is also informed that her mother is actually someone named Keres, who has history in The Otherly. Rrae has Luci interact with numerous strange beings on her quest, from a man who speaks only in questions to an elephant who wears jewelry and warriors made of sticks and stones. While the querulous man is about as frustrating as one would imagine, the environment in which he and the others live offers readers a seemingly endless supply of surprises, and Luci moves through them all at a swift, consistent pace. Although the main character’s goals seem simple enough at the beginning, events take a truly unexpected turn when Luci is finally reunited with Keres. This plot turn does require an explanation that readers may find a bit lengthy, but it effectively breathes additional life into an already imaginative tale.

A twisty, lively romp through a bizarre world.

Kirkus Reviews