I’ve always felt that too few writers and filmmakers fully grasped the responsibility of starting a series. A sequel can be a great return to a previously enjoyed world and adding depth to a fantastic story, or it can mean ruining the reputation of the whole series with rushed storytelling or bad artistic choices. The stakes are high, and that’s even if a creative doesn’t up the promises they’re making to their audience with a cliffhanger.
Kate Pearsall’s debut, Bittersweet in the Hollow, was a solid and satisfying novel. With Lies on the Serpent’s Tongue, Pearsall delivers a strong second installment in what I hope will be at least a quartet of enchanting stories.
Rowan has always been the most hot-headed James sister, but the events of the past summer has pushed that quality past even the boundaries she’s comfortable with. At Gran’s suggestion (or insistence), Rowan takes a volunteer position to help ready the nearby forest for fire season. The cabin where she stays is rustic, to say the least, but other than that, she finds the gig much less of a punishment than she anticipated. But strange things are going on in the forest, too: magpies and adders in the woods, thousands of miles away from their native habitats, and threatening voices in the woods. Probably from the ginseng poachers the forest rangers keep trying to thwart. And then there’s the badly beaten hiker—or poacher—without identification or, for that matter, shoes.
Strange things are happening in town, too. People’s memories are disappearing, like they’re losing whole chunks of themselves. Rowan’s ability to sniff out a lie, a gift that’s always been reliable, may be on the fritz. But nothing’s quite as strange as the mysterious reappearance of Hadrian Fitch, whose strange presence on the James farm over the last year was only matched by his sudden vanishing. But helping Hadrian also means learning more about all the odd things Rowan’s noticed lately, as well as a chance to help Gran find her sister, so Rowan agrees. She finds her answers, all right, but also more trouble than she bargained for.
Serpents is more companion novel than a direct sequel; reading Serpents without or before Bittersweet will give some spoilers to Linden’s story, but there’s enough explanation for novices to the world of Caball Hollow. Rowan’s sister Linden, the center of Bittersweet, sits quietly in the back seat for this one, but Rowan has more than enough personality and story to carry this book on her own. Pearsall has managed to craft her voice that is distinct from Linden’s while similar enough to make the two girls, and books, close siblings. And while Linden was thoughtful and sweet, Rowan’s brawler tendencies make her a lot of fun in the driver’s seat.
She’s the sister who says what you wish you had the guts to say, and do what you wish you weren’t too chicken to do. But Pearsall lets her experience natural consequences for that kind of liberty, which can be refreshing in a sea of YA main characters who often see plenty of injustice but very few earned consequences. The very grown-up drama she finds herself brushing up against with ginseng poachers and a too-thin barrier between our world and the supernatural one is nothing that can be solved by a single teenager, though not for lack of trying. And while Rowan’s protective nature covers her family like a hug that might be just a little too tight, it also makes it hard for her to find her own identity. She does a lot of growing up in these pages, and I was rooting for her all the way.
I was both hopeful and a little wary at a sequel to Bittersweet, since I felt it had been so self contained. But Serpents is more than a bonus story set in the same world. Rather, it’s further exploration of a world that goes beyond one character, and I might have liked it even better than the first book—even if it made me a little less hungry. There are still two more sisters in the James family, and I hope Pearsall can let us get to know and love the others just like Rowan and Linden.
Ring Reads 