Fiendish.

Title/Author: Fiendish by Brenna Yovanoff.

Genre: YA, Supernatural.

Publisher: Razorbill.

Source: Purchased.

Synopsis: Clementine DeVore spent ten years trapped in a cellar, pinned down by willow roots, silenced and forgotten.

Now she’s out and determined to uncover who put her in that cellar and why.

When Clementine was a child, dangerous and inexplicable things started happening in New South Bend. The townsfolk blamed the fiendish people out in the Willows and burned their homes to the ground. But magic kept Clementine alive, walled up in the cellar for ten years, until a boy named Fisher sets her free. Back in the world, Clementine sets out to discover what happened all those years ago. But the truth gets muddled in her dangerous attraction to Fisher, the politics of New South Bend, and the Hollow, a fickle and terrifying place that seems increasingly temperamental ever since Clementine reemerged. ~Goodreads.com

Midnyte Musings: Love.  Totally love Brenna Yovanoff.  She writes the way I would want to if I was talented and creative and imaginative.  Fiendish is Southern Gothic and Magical Realism combined and combined at its best.  It includes folklore that is original and unique, but yet has a familiar echo like everything makes sense.  You don't have to try too hard to make sense of the oddly bent rules of this world.

Magic runs through the small, close knit, southern town of New South Bend.  It lives more strongly in certain places and in certain people.  This is not a good thing to the townspeople who fear and loathe the "crooked" folk as they are called.

The story follows Clementine a young teen who has been "binded" like a voodoo doll and hidden in her old burned down house.  She is found and set free by Fisher, who is a mystery himself.  The two are drawn to each other and Clementine tries to unwind his secrets, her own and the town's.  Clementine and Fisher have a shaky romance, due to Fisher's own past, and how he is trying to fit into the norms of New South Bend.  There are several times when I don't like him.  At all.  But in his defense, it makes him a more realistic character.  He is definitely an angry young man, but there are reasons for this.  What I really didn't like was the way he treated Clementine at some points in the story.  Oh sure, he had a good "reason" but I was still angry.  I think Clementine gave him more of a second chance than I would have.

The way he was looking at me seemed too full of secrets.  Like he already knew me. ~Clementine.

The other characters in the book are just as intriguing, compelling and mysterious.  Clem's cousin Shiny, a fierce townie girl with a chip on her shoulder and fire magic in her fingers.  Rae, another friend with psychic gifts and Davenport, the girl who lives down the lane and has to contend with an abusive father.

The stories say they walk in and out of the world through the hollow the way a normal person would go through a door. ~Fisher.

When too much magic seeps into town, the residents blame the "crooked" folk, as they are known, the ones with gifts.  Clem and her friends have to figure out why this is happening again, since last time tragedy struck and they do not want history to repeat itself. 

There were just a few times I felt events were a bit anticlimactic, but overall this is another favorite.  It was easy to read, beautifully written and I loved the story. 


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