Editor’s Pick: The Call by Peadar O’Guilin

A thousand years ago, the Irish banished the twisted faerie race to the Grey Lands. A millennium later, the faeries have enacted their revenge. Before they turn seventeen, every child in Ireland will be spirited away to the Grey Lands, to try their best to survive a day against the Sidhe. In the real world, only three minutes will pass. Three minutes, and then they return, dead and mutilated or alive but forever changed.

The Call was just the right amount of suspenseful and creepy for me. Strong characters, rich world-building, enough fantasy in the mix that I wasn’t jumping at shadows. Nessa, the main protagonist, is such an amazing powerhouse. Crippled by polio in a world where strength and speed will be necessary to survival, Nessa is determined to prove wrong everyone who thinks she will be among the 90% of children who die at the hands of the Sidhe. She works twice as hard to be among the best of them, regardless of the enemies she makes along the way. But cold and impartial and aloof as she seems to everyone around her, through the narrative, we get to see her softness, her hesitations, her struggles.

And it’s not just Nessa’s voice we hear. I have a love/hate relationship with multiple perspectives, but O’Guilin handles them beautifully. Every time one of Nessa’s peers is taken to the Grey Lands, we see their experience, and not only is that a beautiful way to round out this diverse and varied cast, it’s also a brilliant way to show us the Grey Lands and the cruelty of the Sidhe.

Every moment of The Call is used meticulously. And while a lot of readers might find the end unsatisfying, I’m glad O’Guilin took the route he did. I won’t say more because you should read it for yourself, but it was a strong choice, and the right one. Pick this up for yourself. You won’t regret it.

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]I have a love/hate relationship with multiple perspectives, but O’Guilin handles them beautifully.[/pullquote]