There may be all the time a hazard in writing a brand new story round Edgar Allan Poe. His title carries such a particular environment that it’s simple to cut back him to a handful of acquainted photos: a raven, a darkish room, a mysterious loss of life, a gorgeous however doomed lady, and maybe a conveniently sinister-looking black cat. A narrative can sprinkle these components liberally over its pages with out having a lot to do with Poe himself.
Diana Peterfreund’s Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore takes a significantly extra imaginative method. This younger grownup supernatural thriller (revealed by is unmistakably a Poe-inspired journey, however it’s also a surprisingly efficient introduction to the author’s life, work, and peculiar fascination with codes, puzzles, secret messages, and the macabre. Better of all, Peterfreund manages to include all of this into the precise equipment of her thriller slightly than treating Poe’s biography as background ornament.
Sixteen-year-old Ellen Poe Reynolds has grown up with the household custom that she is descended from Edgar Allan Poe. The connection turns into significantly extra attention-grabbing when Ellen strikes to Baltimore to stay along with her aunt Marie, who runs a struggling Poe-themed bed-and-breakfast. The home is full of Poe memorabilia and lore, however Ellen has extra rapid considerations. She has been affected by disturbing nightmares for years, and after arriving in Baltimore, these nightmares start to intrude upon her waking life.
Then she discovers a mysterious journal containing cryptograms, drawings, poems, and different unusual materials. Earlier than lengthy, Edgar Allan Poe himself begins showing to her.
The plain query is whether or not Ellen has by some means launched Poe’s ghost—and, extra importantly, what the ghost desires from her. As Ellen begins following his cryptic clues, she discovers that her reference to Poe could also be extra important than she imagined. Her investigation attracts in her new buddy Gus, her more and more mysterious household historical past, and a sequence of puzzles that lead deeper into Poe’s life and writings.
It is a superb premise for a younger grownup thriller, however what makes The Forgotten Lore notably pleasurable is how totally Peterfreund commits to the Poe materials.
The e book is filled with real Poe lore. His tales and poems aren’t merely talked about for the sake of giving the novel a Gothic taste; they change into a part of the thriller itself. Cryptograms, substitution ciphers, hidden messages, literary clues, and particulars from Poe’s life all contribute to Ellen’s investigation. The outcome typically feels nearly like a literary scavenger hunt, by which figuring out one thing about Poe offers the reader one other piece of the puzzle.
That makes the e book an particularly intelligent introduction to Poe for youthful readers. Somebody who involves The Forgotten Lore figuring out little extra about him than The Raven and The Inform-Story Coronary heart will encounter a a lot fuller image of the author. And since the data is embedded in an journey slightly than offered as a biography lesson, it hardly ever seems like homework. Readers study Poe as a result of Ellen must understand it, and since they wish to resolve the thriller alongside her.
Even readers who already know Poe will discover a lot to understand. Peterfreund’s affection for her topic is clear all through the novel, and she or he clearly understands that Poe was significantly extra attention-grabbing than the gloomy caricature that has typically grown up round him. His fascination with cryptography, particularly, proves a splendidly acceptable basis for the story.
Poe actually was focused on secret writing and puzzles, so turning these pursuits into the mechanisms of a supernatural thriller feels way more satisfying than merely borrowing his title and aesthetic.
One of many e book’s most charming touches is the characterization of Poe’s ghost. Slightly than having a contemporary creator invent a completely new character and put modern dialogue into Poe’s mouth, Peterfreund attracts extensively upon Poe’s personal writing. This provides the ghost an appropriately unusual, literary voice whereas permitting the actual Poe to stay current beneath the fictional conceit. It’s a intelligent method of bringing a nineteenth-century author into a recent YA journey with out making him really feel fully indifferent from the one who truly lived and wrote.
The setting helps significantly as effectively. Baltimore is a perfect location for this type of story, and the Poe-themed bed-and-breakfast gives simply the best combination of eccentricity, historical past, humor, and Gothic environment.
There are cobwebs and ghosts and nightmares, however the novel by no means appears decided to make every thing relentlessly grim. Peterfreund understands {that a} good supernatural thriller might be spooky with out turning into oppressive.
That stability between creepy and playful is likely one of the e book’s strengths. The Forgotten Lore has real darkness at its edges, however it’s finally an adventurous thriller slightly than a horror novel. The puzzles preserve the story transferring, whereas Ellen’s perspective and the supporting characters present heat and humor. The outcome ought to work notably effectively for readers who take pleasure in mysteries with a supernatural component however do not essentially need one thing genuinely terrifying.
Ellen herself is an interesting middle for the story. She is clever and resourceful, however she is just not merely an impossibly competent teenage detective who occurs to own all of the solutions. A lot of the story includes her making an attempt to know experiences that frighten and confuse her, whereas concurrently coping with the peculiar difficulties of being sixteen. Her rising willingness to analyze slightly than merely concern what is going on to her offers the supernatural plot a satisfying private dimension.
The e book additionally understands one of many pleasures of a very good puzzle thriller: the reader ought to have the chance to play alongside. As Ellen begins deciphering clues and connecting items of Poe’s historical past, the story invitations us to marvel what the clues imply and the place they’re main.
The puzzles aren’t merely ornamental references to Poe’s repute as a author focused on cryptography; they’re a part of the journey.
Readers ought to be conscious that The Forgotten Lore could be very a lot a younger grownup novel. Its storytelling is accessible and simple, and a few passages favor rationalization over the kind of subtlety one may anticipate from a extra mature Gothic novel. The story additionally sometimes slows down earlier than gathering momentum once more. These qualities could also be extra noticeable to grownup readers, notably these accustomed to darker or extra psychologically complicated supernatural fiction.
However accessibility is hardly a defect when it’s a part of the e book’s function. Peterfreund is writing a thriller that may introduce a brand new technology to Poe, and she or he has discovered a very entertaining approach to do it. In reality, one of many pleasures of the e book is imagining a younger reader ending it after which deciding to choose up The Raven, The Gold-Bug, The Cask of Amontillado, or considered one of Poe’s different tales to see how the items match collectively.
And that will finally be the best achievement of Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore. It doesn’t merely use Edgar Allan Poe as a handy Gothic mascot. It makes his precise life and literature a part of the enjoyable.
The result’s an enthralling, atmospheric, puzzle-filled supernatural thriller that ought to enchantment each to younger readers discovering Poe for the primary time and to longtime Poe lovers who take pleasure in seeing acquainted materials approached from an surprising course. There are ghosts, nightmares, secret messages, household mysteries, cryptograms, literary clues, and a distinctly Poe-esque sense that the previous has a method of refusing to remain buried.
For readers who take pleasure in Gothic mysteries, historic puzzles, supernatural adventures, or basic literature with a recent twist, Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore presents an unusually profitable mixture. It’s spooky with out being excessively horrifying, literary with out turning into stuffy, academic with out feeling educational, and intelligent with out shedding sight of the straightforward pleasure of fixing a thriller.
Most significantly, it leaves the reader with one thing that the most effective literary variations and homages typically accomplish: a renewed curiosity concerning the authentic. If The Forgotten Lore (which you could find right here, on Amazon or right here, from Bookshop — and you’ll preorder E book Two, Ellen Poe: For Evermore, right here!) sends a younger reader—or an grownup reader, for that matter—again to Edgar Allan Poe’s personal tales with contemporary curiosity, then Peterfreund has carried out significantly greater than write a novel about Poe’s ghost. She has discovered a energetic new approach to invite readers into Poe’s world.
