It’s June of 1921 and best friends Mae, Lark, Brigid, and Claret have plans for the perfect summer. Between riding their bikes to the enchanted lake and decorating their fort for its resident ghost, the girls are a busy bunch. But when they discover a door in the forest floor that leads to an alternate world with purple skies and fearsome creatures, everything takes a turn for the worse.
Someone else has already been through that door, and it’s triggered something incredibly dangerous. Maybe deadly.
Back in Blight Harbor, strange disappearances are taking place. The most worrisome being that of Brigid’s cousin, who has been spending an awful lot of time with the unusual and untrustworthy John Jeffrey Pope. As the girls uncover the eerie world that lives right beneath their feet, will they find their missing friend, or will the most treacherous man in Blight Harbor get to them first?
Sometimes the universe works in some pretty weird ways. The VERY SAME DAY that I sat down to start writing my review for Lora Senf’s PENNIES, the first prequel novel set in her BLIGHT HARBOR world, the cover for DEAR DESDEMONA (another prequel novel!) was revealed! I’m not sure whether that will be the last book set in this world, but I know I’ll always be reading anything Lora Senf writes!
THE CLACKITY will always have a really special spot in my heart, as it’s one of three middle grade horror books (along with Ally Russell’s IT CAME FROM THE TREES and Daniel Kraus’s THEY THREW US AWAY) that really sparked my interest in the genre. I absolutely adored all three books in the BLIGHT HARBOR trilogy, and while I don’t necessarily want to play favorites…I think somehow PENNIES might be my favorite book set in this world so far!
One of my very favorite little subgenres of horror is the kids on bikes one. I know “kids on bikes” isn’t exactly a subgenre unto itself like “slasher” or “haunted house,” but I don’t care, it’s one of my favorite things. Stranger Things pops immediately to mind, as well as IT and SUMMER OF NIGHT. But it certainly seems like the kids on bikes stories tend to skew quite heavily towards boys. Yes, there’s Bev in IT, and Eleven in Stranger Things.
But what about a kids on bikes horror novel where the cast is made up mostly of girls?
It’s right here. It’s PENNIES. It’s a new-to-me all-time classic in the kids on bikes subgenre! I could not have possibly loved this any more.
Like I did with THE LONELIEST PLACE (book three in the BLIGHT HARBOR trilogy), I listened to PENNIES entirely on audiobook and I am so glad I did. Kimberly Woods is back as the narrator and I think she is as good as it gets, full stop. Her voice carries so much emotion, and she has this uncanny way of just slightly shifting her accent or cadence, and you know which character is speaking. And then there are moments where Woods just lets loose with some of the most fun & unhinged voices imaginable! Her voice & the world of Blight Harbor will be forever linked in my mind & I think that’s the mark of a really special audiobook narrator!
Now, I’m usually a big stickler for publication order when it comes to a series I love, but I’d enthusiastically say PENNIES could be someone’s first foray into this world! The experience will of course be different from mine if someone goes that route, but this is definitely that rare time when I’d say you could read this before reading the trilogy! That being said, I will be mentioning/comparing some things from the trilogy, but nothing terribly spoilery!
The story is set in June of 1921, in the extremely haunted & magical town of Blight Harbor. It’s narrated by twelve-year-old Mae Von Rathe, and chronicles what was supposed to be the perfect summer for Mae and her best friends, Lark, Brigid, and Claret.
They plan to make the most of every day, riding bikes around town, swimming in the town’s enchanted lake, and making sure their fort is better & harder to find than any of the local boys’ forts (it is). Their fort also comes with its own ghost, a really sweet & soulful boy named Graham. Mae is working on her ability to communicate with Graham, as she’s inherited the ability to occasionally hear ghosts from her father. But it’s a bit hit or miss for her a lot of the time.
At this point in Blight Harbor, the Dark Sun Side hasn’t been explored all that much, and the girls are forbidden from entering any magical doors, should they happen to find one. You get the sense that this gnaws at Mae a lot; she has an adventurous spirit, and she wants to explore as much of the world (and the world under her world) as possible.
Things take a really dark turn in Blight Harbor when people begin to go missing, including Brigid’s cousin, Emilia.
All signs point to John Jeffrey Pope, Emilia’s on-again-off-again boyfriend as a potential suspect. But Johnny is a good boy.
At least, that’s what everyone is saying.
Which is extra weird because in the past, everyone thought of John Jeffrey Pope as shifty & unreliable. Huh.
Something stranger than normal is going on in Blight Harbor. Something sinister. Looks like Mae is going to get her wish to explore the Dark Sun Side, but at what cost? All manner of monsters, both supernatural and very human are waiting for Mae and her friends.
I was having a really interesting conversation with someone the other day about middle grade horror and what the limits are in terms of content. There doesn’t seem to be a written/preset list of rules per se, but it does feel like there’s almost an unspoken agreement between middle grade horror authors and their readers (or especially their readers’ parents!) about what is or isn’t acceptable.
And I think what Lora Senf does with this dynamic in PENNIES is wildly creative, thoughtful, and shows a deep sensitivity toward the audience. To put an extremely fine point on it, in a lot of ways, PENNIES is a serial killer origin story. Those of us familiar with the BLIGHT HARBOR trilogy know exactly what type of person John Jeffrey Pope is, and this story presents him at his most dangerous and malicious. This is a chilling middle grade horror villain, probably the creepiest that I can think of off the top of my head.
But there’s almost like a cool author trick that Lora Senf uses (I’m trying to be a bit vague!) to protect the reader from the most ghastly aspects of John Jeffrey Pope’s crimes, and I was really wowed by it.
This group of kids totally captivated me. Each of the girls is so unique (Claret is part vampire and almost has a 1920’s goth vibe!) and so full of personality. And the way they all love each other so fiercely just leaps off the page. This is about as tight-knit a group of friends as I’ve ever met in a book & I was so thrilled to get to know them all! There is very real, life-threatening danger for these girls in this book, but they have each other’s backs, always.
One small touch about PENNIES that I appreciated was how Senf really made it feel like a period piece in a way. Just slight things with the dialogue and slang, or a bit of commentary on social issues and affordability of certain things…it was like watching the Blight Harbor I’ve come to know and love take a spin in the way-back machine, and it was really neat!
The world of Blight Harbor is for sure one of my favorite fictional places! I think Lora Senf is one of the best middle grade authors & all four of her books that I’ve read have been so special. PENNIES is one of my favorite reads of the year!!
