ARC Review – Where The Drowned Girls Go

From Goodreads:

Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you’ve already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company.

There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn’t as friendly as Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. And it isn’t as safe.

When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her Home for Wayward Children, she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn’t save; when Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster.

She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming…

Another excellent instalment from Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. This one follows the pattern of the even numbered stories taking place in the worlds beyond the doors introducing us to new children that have found their doors and their homes, while the odd numbered books in the series take us back to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children and the lives of the children once they have returned from their adventures. This is is book seven in the series.

We are back with Cora after all the heartache and trouble of the events of Come Tumbling Down (book 5) and things are not ok. So much so, that she leaves Eleanor’s safe haven for the other school, Whitethorn.

I loved getting to explore Whitethorn. It was completely and utterly different from West’s school and it made for a great background to meet new people, learn about their worlds, for Cora to recover and we also got to find out what happened to Regan, the protagonist of Across the Green Grass Fields (book 6).

This novella was again packed with emotion, dealing with body image issues and bullying in a concise and understanding way. It again like the rest of the series balances the serious and the whimsy perfectly and leaves you satisfied in both the stories underlying narrative and in the magic as well.