Marysvale
Review by Nancy John Carey hasn’t had the best life. His “gift” isn’t welcomed by a lot of people. They don’t like feeling a headache when they’re around him. But that’s what happens when he tries to sneak into their heads. He’s lived several places and, when they decide to try him for witchcraft in his current home of Syre; he takes his few belongings, his horse Smoke and leaves in the dead of night. Passing through a forest, John and Smoke encounter what they will learn is called a Brean. Big, hairy, MEAN suckers who want nothing more than to have him for lunch. Maybe the horse as an appetizer? He is saved by a woman named Sarah who is living alone in the forest and who has been kicked out of the next town, Marysvale - and told to never return. Sarah seems to know a lot about the Brean and has nothing good to say about Marysvale or the people who control it. A community that lives in fear. Of the Brean, certainly; of the Lord Mayor and his cronies, terror might be a better word. Sara...