It is Summer and Annabelle has walked over the the school house to help her teacher with some cleaning. On the way home there is a huge storm and Annabelle is struck by a bolt of lightning.
"I was standing there, rigid with fear, when suddenly the air fizzed around me, as if I'd been dipped in wasps. In an instant, those wasps stung me all at one, every inch of me, inside and out, and I knew nothing at all except a sizzling pain in my head, a sharp dreadful heat, a sharp emptiness in my chest, and a kind of ending."
As she gains conscientiousness she feels rough hand pushing her chest. Later she feels her father carrying her home and oddly her every sense is heightened. Things smell stronger, noises are louder, her skin feels sensitive to all kinds of touch.
"I could small the rain as I'd never smelled it before: both clean and tarnished, like hot meal and plowed dirt and pond rot all mixed together. ... the smell of the people. Their end-of-the-day sweat. A sweetness that brought to mind my grubby little brothers. A sourness that was, perhaps, the scent of my grandmother, who was unwell."
Even more strangely, Annabelle now seems to have a deeper sense about animals especially dogs. She can sense how they feel. This is important because this is how Annabelle comes to meet her neighbours and helps her find three lost dogs and an old loved dairy cow.
This is a story about healing. Terrible things happened to Annabelle and her friend Toby last year. She rightly blames Betty (but she is gone now) and Andy. Andy still lives nearby. Annabelle wants to hate him forever but somehow he keeps showing up. Perhaps Annabelle needs to stop and listen to Andy with her heart. Bad things are happening to this boy and yes he has done some terrible things but surely there can now be a way to find forgiveness.
My Own Lightning is the sequel to Wolf Hollow and while it will be good for readers to meet Annabelle and have some understanding of the dreadful events in this first book but I am going to say you can read My Own Lightning first and then go back to Wolf Hollow. Reading My Own Lightning first might actually be a good idea because Wolf Hollow is so harrowing (but nevertheless wonderful) if you read My Own Lightning you will experience a resolution to all that pain. Read this review for more plot details of Wolf Hollow.
Lauren Wolk's writing is powerful, honest and profound. Read these exquisite text samples:
"Above us, the branches trimmed the sun so it lay in patterns on the road, a tawny ribbon of soft summer dust and worn-out stone, the whole day so perfect that the birds made up new songs about it as we passed by."
"As I looked at her, I wished I were a painter. Though I would have had to be a good one indeed to capture the look in her eyes. Hard and sweet at the same time."
"I could imagine that hitting Buster (in a truck) must have been an awful thing for them both. And I knew that even the best people sometimes looked for someone to blame when things went wrong."
When an author describes a character it sometimes only takes one word or a short phrase to alert the reader that something is amiss:
"He had a well-trimmed moustache, though no beard - which was unusual in these hills, where the two usually went hand in hand - and green eyes, my favourite kind. A big man, especially across the shoulders, with a barrel chest, like a lumberjack. Except he was dressed more like someone from town, in clean, tidy clothes, his cuffs buttoned, the kids of hat my father wore to church. The word gentleman cam to mind but his eyes were curiously flat, and I had a vague suspicious that he might not be quite what he seemed."
Compare this with Dr Bloom:
"He didn't smell like a flower, either. He smelled far to clean to be anything wild. And he didn't look like a flower either. He had parched brown hair, eyebrows that looked so much like caterpillars that I expected them to crawl off his forehead, and a thick shiny scar that ran down the side of his face. But none of that mattered as much as his kind eyes and soft voice."
I recommend this book for readers aged 11+. If your young reading companion is a dog lover please be aware (spoiler alert) the descriptions of dog fighting in this book and the wounds inflicted on these innocent creatures is quite graphic and disturbing.
We often talk about the first lines in a book but in this book the lines that made me sigh with happiness come right at the end.
AND the food in this book is scrumptious. I loved reading about a family who enjoyed delicious meals prepared with love and care.
"I helped put supper on the table: sliced beets we'd canned the year before, mashed sweet potatoes with butter and cracked pepper, hot buns stuffed with roasted carrots, and thick crusty slices of applewood bacon. ... but save room for dessert. My mother made a strawberry pie with shipped cream."
"Potatoes ... steaming quietly in a bowl in the sink, cooked and soft waiting for someone to peel away their loosed skins. So I did that, dicing them in a second bowl, adding in chopped onion, celery that I had sliced into little green boats, boiled eggs I diced in the palm of my hand, mayonnaise whipped up with cream, salt, pepper, all of it folded carefully together so the potatoes would keep their cut, a bit of Hungarian paprika sprinkled on top. ... (I) added a platter of cold fried chicken, a bowl of dilly beans we'd canned the year before, a basket of warm rolls."
I would like to suggest this very old Australian novel as a companion read (sorry this might be very very had to find). Here are a set of different covers
Here is the US cover for My Own Lightning:
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