(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Thomas Taylor. Scarlett Hart, the feisty orphaned daughter of monster hunters, and her butler sidekick successfully track down a ghost-dog, zombies, and other terrifying creatures for bounty money. The trouble is, Scarlett is an underage hunter--which her rival, the villainous Count Stankovic, capitalizes on. Story-line and panel-to-panel transitions are occasionally bumpy, but the nonstop action and gloomy, steampunk-lite London setting make for an engaging page-turner.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(2) YA Sedgwick offers a timely look at teens across the border in his Doctor Faustus–inspired novel about former best friends forced to help each other when one is in debt to a Mexican gangster. Though the use of Spanish punctuation in English sentences might distract some readers, Saint Death presents a compelling interior story of resilience, poverty, loyalty, and the value of life.

Reviewer: Sarah Hannah Gomez | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2017

(2) YA British author Arthur Ransome was also a Russian correspondent throughout the Revolution and a suspected Bolshevik sympathizer and double agent. Sedgwick fictionalizes his story into a romance and Bildungsroman, a fairy tale and novel of politics and suspense, pulling them together with an authoritative narrative voice. This stylized account evokes a historical moment even as it celebrates the complicated past of a classic children's author.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2016

(2) YA Four related stories range chronologically from the prehistoric past, to Britain at the end of the witch hunts, to an early-twentieth-century Long Island insane asylum, and finally to a spacecraft in the distant future. In each, the image of a spiral is associated with violence and horror. Satisfyingly brain-teasing conceptual elements help compensate for the distant narrative voice and stiff characters.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2015

(2) YA Laureth is sixteen, smart, blind, and on a desperate trip from London to New York to find her missing famous writer father. The unfolding of the mystery is compelling until it ultimately fizzles out, but Laureth, with her determination to fight the tendency of sighted people to treat blind people as stupid or deaf or, most insidiously, invisible, is worth the journey.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2014

(1) YA Sedgwick takes us backwards through time in seven short stories set on a remote island. Each begins with love and ends with death--of young lovers, parents and children, or brothers and sisters. It's only in reading through all seven that we begin to understand the ritual that brings bloody death and forbidden love to "Blessed Island." Sedgwick's prose is taut, careful, and chilling.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2013

(2) YA Rebecca and her father move to the dilapidated cliff-top village of Winterfold. Lonely Rebecca is befriended by morbid and manipulative Ferelith, and the two begin an escalating series of dares. Sedgwick skillfully weaves Ferelith's confessional first-person narrative with Rebecca's reserved, third-person perspective--and the chilling journal entries of a long-ago minister. The atmospheric story presents thoughtful (if disturbing) explorations of betrayal and redemption.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2011

(1) YA His family's Arctic Circle cabin is Sig Andersson's entire world--a secure one until the day his father dies and the menacing Gunther Wolff arrives, demanding the gold Sig's father owes him from the Alaska Gold Rush. Tight plotting and a wealth of moral concerns make this a memorable novel, with appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen, Jack London, and even Cormac McCarthy.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2010

(3) YA Drawing its emotional power from a rocky but sporadically tender father-son relationship, Sedgwick's folkloric thriller tells the story of steadfast Peter; his drunk, haunted father Tomas; and the winter epidemic of undead "hostages" that overtakes their small village. The spareness of setting, character, and threat heightens the dreamlike atmosphere, and chill-seekers will not be disappointed.

Reviewer: Claire E. Gross

(2) YA In the last five days of a late-medieval year, magician Valerian strives to elude the consequences of a Faustian bargain. "Boy," his stage assistant, can't divine what drives his harsh master. Events move swiftly; the brooding atmosphere is palpable. Sedgwick's dark thriller reaches a satisfactory denouement, but his last words are "End of Book One," leaving much unresolved for a sequel.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2004

(2) YA Setting: prehistoric, mythic, bleak. Characters: the members of two tribes--the "Storn," settled in their village and their ways, and the fierce, nomadic "Dark Horse." Central to the action are the Storn boy Sigurd, whose account alternates with that of an omniscient narrator, and his adopted sister, "Mouse." The alternating point of view is effective, and the events are gripping: they'll hold readers to the end of this grim adventure.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2003

(2) 4-6 Britain's East Anglia is awash--a consequence of global warming. Searching for her missing parents, Zoe makes her way to the town of Ely in a salvaged rowboat, but Ely is no haven: the vicious teenaged Dooby terrorizes his gang and dispatches newcomers without mercy. This first novel is sufficiently taut, accessible, and swift moving to make it an effective cautionary tale. Sedgwick's wood engravings enhance the format.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2001

(3) 4-6 After he fails to save his baby sister in a house fire, Jamie is sent to live with his aunt and cousin in the English village of Crownhill. A series of nightmares involving a menacing elderly woman and a community project of restoring a hill carving lead Jamie to uncover Crownhill's history of witchcraft trials. Effectively controlled suspense builds to a satisfying surprise ending.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta