THE PHOENIX

Van Allen’s YA novel tells the tale of troubled siblings who meet a very unusual funeral home director.

It’s summertimeand 16-year-old Callie Valentine must look after her younger brother, Thomas, and sister, Jess. Callie effectively leads the trio, sourcing food, navigating the dangerous neighborhood around their apartment complex, and shielding them all from the worst of their neglectful mother, who has a drinking problem. To survive a tough life, Callie must be just as tough. When things are at their worst, she and her siblings cross paths with Victor Delamorte, a local mortician who’s an odd character. With his support, the kids’ lives begin to change for the better. The funeral home is full of forbidden rooms which Callie can’t help but explore. It turns out that Delamorte, who’s very ill, has a bizarre plan for after he dies, which the skeptical Callie and Thomas can’t bring themselves to believe; however, due to their  affection for him, they decide to help him execute the plan. Elements of the mysterious and the magical are threaded through the narrative. Callie occasionally experiences glimpses of her dead father, and, from the corner of her eye, other shadowy figures. A mysterious beautician at the funeral home raises more questions. As Callie learns to trust others, she also becomes determined to unravel the funeral home’s mysteries. The tension builds throughout the final act, pulling the reader along at a brisk pace. Callie is an engaging, well-developed narrator whose worries and descriptions of what she and her siblings have endured enrich the narrative without slowing it down: “There was a time I believed I had superpowers. Not like flying or mind-reading….No, my special talents were more common abilities, such as running and hiding.” Intriguingly, in the novel’s first half, her descriptive powers emphasize the grimness of the world she inhabits: holes in the wall are likened to open wounds, for instance; later, this gruesomeness is gone, illustrating her emotional transformation, like the titular phoenix, when in a safe, stable environment.

An engaging, multilayered story that finely balances action with introspection and the real with the mystical.