The Tricksters - Softcover

Margaret Mahy

3.98

825 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007121733 ISBN 13: 9780007121731

Publisher: Harpercollins Childs, 2001

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Reality and the supernatural intertwine in this exciting and chilling novel from an award-winning author As the Hamiltons gather at their holiday beach house, Carnival's Hide, for their Christmas celebrations, the warm, chaotic familty atomosphere is chilled by the unexpected arrival of three sinister brothers. Who are they? Where are they from? Only 17- year-old Harry, the middle daughter, is close to seeing the truth. Are these brothers her own invention, or are they truly descendants of Teddy Carnival who drowned there many years earlier? As the brothers gradually reveal their purpose, long-hidden family secrets are also unfurled. No one emerges unscathed!

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About the Author:

Margaret Mahy was born in New Zealand and has loved telling stories all her life. She has published well over a hundred titles and won several major prizes and awards, including The Order of New Zealand, for her internationally-acclaimed contribution to children's literature. She has twice won the prestigious Carnegie Medal, (The Haunting, 1982, and The Changeover, 1984). Margaret lives in the South Island of New Zealand, in a house which she partially built herself, overlooking Governor's Bay.

From Publishers Weekly:

With the appearance of this haunting, intriguing novel, Mahy (twice a winner of the Carnegie Medal) has written perhaps her best work yet. It begins as a family Christmas story, with Jack and Naomi Hamilton, their five children and assorted guests arriving at their summer home, Carnival's Hide, on the beach in New Zealandfor Christmas is also midsummer. Although Jack and Naomi still love each other, their marriage has been shaken by a past, unmentioned crisis, duly noted by daughter Harry, who at 17 is the family observer. Harry is obsessed with her creation of a torrid, romantic novel. When her obsession collides with the family fascination with the ghost of Teddy Carnival (the young son of the house's first owner, who drowned in an apparent suicide), the supernatural explodes into reality, as three brothersthe Tricksterstake human form. Harry recognizes her own book characters in the brothers, and is determined to keep them from destroying her family. Ultimately, the supernatural and reality merge in one dreadful moment, and it is Harryin her transformation into her real self, Ariadnewho shatters all of the family's illusions. Mahy has combined stunning visuals with intelligent, very accessible characters. The supernatural presence of the Tricksters becomes a maze through which Harry, her family and, finally, the reader, must travel in order to unravel the novel's mysteries. A searing depiction of an entire family's rite of passage, The Tricksters is one of the most intellectually challenging novels written for teenagers in years.
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