When help comes from an unexpected source, she begins to believe that she may survive the Grace Year after all Overall I really enjoyed this book, I loved the concept, and did not mind that there were shades of other books in the story, this felt new enough for me to overlook the influences. When a conflict sees Tierney exiled from the camp she must risk the dangerous poachers, but it also helps her to understand more about what is really happening in the camp, and how she can change it. As the girls spend more time together they start to experience strange happenings which they put down to their magic, the magic they must purge themselves of before returning home. The majority of the book tells the story of Tierney’s time in isolation with the other girls, and in true Mean Girls fashion, a hierarchy soon evolves. Poachers will hunt the girls if they try to leave their camp, and the black market value of the girls and even their body parts is high. As one of several sisters, she has grown up as something of a tomboy, and her father’s favourite, given much more freedom than most girls and taught how to fish and hunt and about nature, she has a good chance of doing more than some girls on the Grace Year, and actually surviving.Īs we learn more about the practice, it becomes apparent that the year is brutal, and that some will come back vastly changed while others will not come back at all, and not just due to illness. While many of the young women are eager to marry and start their families, particularly if their prospective spouse is particularly handsome or high up in the towns hierarchy, this has never been Tierney’s dream.

The grace year author