about the book
It is 1926, and seventeen-year-old, small-town Ohio girl Evie O’Neill has had one too many drinks. She forgets about her power to divine the history of a person simply by touching something that person owns, and in her slurring stupor makes public the sexual exploits of one of the town’s most-respected young men. For that, she is exiled…
To Jazz Age New York City! Why, that isn’t a punishment at all for someone like Evie: she is “pos-i-toot-ly” ecstatic to see all the sights, the speakeasies, the shopping centers, the movies—whole palaces of movie theaters!
There is just one thing wrong with this exile/vacation—she has to stay with her Uncle Will in the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. Evie calls it “The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies.”
And soon Evie’s little trick becomes extremely useful, along with her connection to her knowledgeable Uncle Will. A string of occult-based murders rocks New York City, and Evie is the only one who can tell the authorities how it is the victims died, and why.
As she and her new New York friends are all drawn into the investigation, Evie learns an even more startling truth: the killer is after her and her abilities.
about the author
Libba Bray hates the normal biographical write-ups. She’d rather tell you she loves to do crafts, is a compulsive list maker, and despises doughnuts. Her mother is kin to Davy Crocket, her great-great-great-grandmother was a Pennsylvania Dutch psychic who saw and spoke to the dead, and her dad was a gay minister—which made her one of those dreaded preacher kids!
In ninth grade Libba made everyone call her Bert for no reason, was badly injured at eighteen in a car accident which left her with an artificial left eye and thirteen surgeries to rebuild her face, and sang punk rock on a New York City stage. She gets itchy, cranky, and depressed if she can’t write.
Born Martha E. Bray in Alabama, Libba was raised in Texas, studied theater at the University of Texas, and moved to New York City to be a playwright. She moved to the city with just $600 and a punch bowl. Totally broke, she and her husband eloped to Florence, Italy. Crazy but romantic!
Her husband, children’s book agent Barry Goldblatt, encouraged her to write. After writing three romances under a pen name, Libba’s first “real book” was a New York Times best seller.
Libba lives with her family in New York City. Her given name is Martha Elizabeth Bray, but she prefers if you just call her Libba. Do read her biography on her website. It is absolutely hilarious.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography : Wikipedia
Author video interview
Book trailer: The Diviners
Also by Libba Bray:
Lair of Dreams (Diviners, Book 2). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 2014.
Beauty Queens. Scholastic. 2011.
Going Bovine. Delacorte. 2009.
The Sweet Far Thing (Gemma Doyle, Book 3). Delacorte. 2007.
Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, Book 2). Delacorte. 2005.
A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Book 1). Delacorte. 2003.
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