Title: Rae of Hope (The Chronicles of Kerrigan)
Author: W.J. May
Published September 5th 2011 by Mitchell Morris Publishing
Goodreads summary:
How hard do you have to shake a family tree to find out the truth of the past?
Fifteen-year-old Rae Kerrigan has never questioned her family’s history. That is until she accepted a scholarship to Guilder Boarding School in England. Guilder is a very unique, gifted school.
Rae has no idea what she is getting herself into or that her family’s past is going to come back and taunt her. She learns she is part of an unparalleled group of individuals who become marked with a unique tattoo (tatù) on their sixteenth birthday. The tatù enables them to have supernatural powers particular to the shape of their marking.
Both her parents were marked though Rae never knew, as they passed away when she was young and never told her. Learning about her family’s past, her evil father and sacrificial mother, Rae needs to decide if there is a ray of hope for her own life.
Review:
Rae of Hope by W.J. May is exactly the kind of book early teenage years-me would have adored. You’ve gotchyer boarding school, you’ve gotchyer magical powers, you’ve gotchyer swoony boy and yer highly suspect villain.
Plus I have a heart-shaped birthmark that I probably would have convinced myself was secretly a magical tatu. That’s the kind of thing 14 year-old me did. I was awesome like that.
To be honest, even as an adult, it had me a little in its thrall.
Starting off, I wasn’t quite sure that that would be so. The main character, Rae Kerrigan seemed– well… kind of bitchy in the beginning. A little angry at the world and judgmental of everyone around her.
But that fades a great deal as she settles in at Guilder and starts to learn about about what exactly lead to her attending the school. Everyone at Guilder has a unique power given to them through a tatu that forms on their sixteenth birthday. I was fascinated learning all of the different powers everyone had and watching Rae’s develop.
Some elements were very vaguely reminiscent of Harry Potter, which I LOVED– the most obvious being the magical boarding school, but much more focus is on the teenage elements than world-building or a mystery. We see the crush that Rae develops on her tutor Devon, she makes friends with her “roomie,” gets to know herself, that sort of thing.
Though she’s pretty much made up her mind that she likes Devon, it seems like EVERY other boy at school likes Rae, which is not only one of my “push buttons,” but also added to me having some difficulty keeping the guy characters straight in my head. I did know who Devon was the whole time though and it was nice to have a male lead that I respected because of the way he handled his relationships.
Several references felt outdated to me, such as a repeated Macgyver reference. I’m not sure that that show is even aired any more (at least, not where I live), so it felt off for Rae, a modern teen, to make the comparison. That happened with a few other shows she mentioned as well.
W.J. May managed to throw me completely off on who to suspect as “against” Rae, another thing that had me drawing a (slight) Harry Potter parallel. I couldn’t have been more surprised as the book reached its climax and the antagonist was revealed in a truly thrilling conclusion.
Despite a few (small) flaws, I genuinely enjoyed Rae of Hope and think it’s a great novel, most especially for YA readers who are actually teenagers.
Overall rating: 3.5/5. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Rae of Hope. One of the better indie published books that I’ve had the pleasure to read.
