The Girl in the Green Silk Gown
The Ghost Roads series, Book 2
Seanan McGuire
DAW
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Rose Marshall died when she was sixteen, killed by the monstrous Bobby Cross on Sparrow Hill Road, but she's far from gone. For sixty years, she has wandered the ghost roads of North America, the legendary "Phantom Prom Queen" of truck stops and roadside diners. She's gathered her share of allies among the shades and mages, living and dead and other - but also her share of enemies, none worse than Bobby Cross himself. His crossroad bargain for immortality demands a steady supply of ghosts to fuel his demonic muscle car, and Rose Marshall still vexes him as the one who got away... but now, he may have finally cornered the wandering hitcher. Through a series of betrayals, Rose Marshall finds herself separated from the twilight roads and her friends, and imprisoned once more in a living body, leaving her vulnerable when Bobby Cross comes gunning for her again. Her only way out will involve trusting a woman who once vowed to destroy her, and a journey from which almost none - living or dead - have returned.
REVIEW: The first Ghost Roads story was a collection of short tales that built to a larger narrative about Rose Marshall and the "truth" behind the urban legend of the Phantom Prom Queen, the teen girl in the green silk dress forever hitching rides across the country. This book is a single arc, starting not long after the first book ended and the changes it wrought in Rose's situation. She remains a stubborn, gutsy heroine, seasoned traveler of the ghost roads, but finds herself wrenched out of her element and poured back into living flesh - a horrifying prison to one who has literally been dead far longer than she ever was alive, and one that may threaten to separate her forever from her friends and her home in the twilight America should she die in the wrong way... especially if she dies under the wheels of Bobby Cross's ever-hungry demonic car. Even as she rebels against the limitations of physical existence, with its revolting natural needs and processes, some small part of her wonders what it might be like to no longer be forever sixteen, to live a life she never had a chance at, for all the impracticalities and betrayals to loved ones that would entail. She fights against herself at least as much as against Bobby Cross, who remains a devious and relentless enemy who will stop at nothing, violate any sacred oath or hallowed ground or honored tradition of the twilight Americas, in pursuit of Rose Marshall... but she is no fainting damsel in need of protection or rescue, and is as relentless as he is when it comes to saving her friends and getting what she wants. Like the first book, this is a fast paced and haunting tale of magic and mortality and the unseen phantoms of history that endure beneath the mundane surface of the world. I enjoyed the ride, and look forward to the third book.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
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Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
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