CHIME by Franny Billingsley

Briony knows she is a witch. She knows that she is guilty of hurting her beloved stepmother. She also knows that, now her stepmother is dead, she must look after her beautiful but complicated twin sister, Rose. Then the energetic, electric, golden-haired Eldric arrives in her home town of Swampsea, and everything that Briony thinks she knows about herself and her life is turned magically, dizzyingly, upside down.

This is actually a book that I'd been looking forward to reading for a while. As soon as I picked it up, I was hooked.

Briony is wicked. She's also a witch. She feels more comfortable using her left hand, enjoys spending time in the swamp, knows she's responsible for a lot of the bad things that have happened to her family, and isn't like other girls. To top it all off, she also hurt her beloved stepmother--who passed away--and is responsible for her twin sister's 'condition'.

She tries as hard as she can to keep her secret from everyone in Swampsea because not only did she promise Stepmother that she would, but also agreed to stay away from the swamp.

However, when the interesting Eldric comes to Swampsea, Briony's life is turned upside down. Not only do they become good friends, and even form a bad-boy club, but for a girl who (apparently) doesn't know how to love, she sure develops some strong feelings towards him. But there is someone standing in the way, as well as the secrets Briony is keeping.

When her sister, Rose, gets the dreaded swamp cough, she knows she has to save her and at the same time appease the Boggy Mun. However, in order to do so she'll have to reveal her secret to the village. In a place where they hang witches...

Chime is a wonderful, wickedly fun book that takes the reader on quite an adventure through an atmospheric and swampy place. Briony has a strange, yet totally addictive voice and an even more interesting story to tell. What made it even better was finding out a lot of important, secretive information at the same time as she does. I also loved Eldric, who was an amazing character. And the dark world that exists alongside her seemingly normal one. A world that has Old Ones, a Chime Child, Dark Muses, and witches.

I absolutely loved this book!


Chime, July 2012, ISBN 9781408803844, Bloomsbury