Every would-be writer knows about story beginnings - those ideas that sit in our computers, middleless, endless, going nowhere. Somehow, although we know just how to start the tale, we're not quite sure where to go from there. And so, a potential story sits and sits, perhaps wholly forgotten, perhaps lingering somewhere in the back of its creator's mind. But, imagine if there was a place - a magical place somewhere between reality and fantasy - where these story fragments got a chance at life, where your abandoned characters decided their own fates. How would their stories end? How would yours?

The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin Kladstrup starts with the mysterious disappearance of 14-year-old Oscar Martin, who vanishes in the summer of 1914. Although his sister Lavonne insists she saw her brother exit the house, climb into a rowboat, and paddle out to sea, it's obvious that grief is making her hysterical. After all, the Martins' big white house sits smack in the middle of Iowa farm country. No ocean for miles and miles. It's much more likely that the lad, tired of farm chores, has run off to seek his fortune in some more exciting locale. Whatever happened, Oscar's never heard from again. Despite Lavonne's never-ending search for her brother, his fate remains an unsolved mystery.

Nearly a century later, Lucy Martin is fascinated by the old story about her great-uncle's midnight boat ride. Especially since she and her parents will soon be living in the very house from which Oscar disappeared. Lucy's not thrilled about trading her apartment in the city for a farmhouse in the country, but her family needs a change, especially since her father's just been denied tenure at the city college where he teaches. Her mother's constantly worried about money - inheriting a house will go a long way toward easing the family's financial burdens. Luckily, The Brick, which has been in the Martin Family for years, turns out to be a more interesting home than Lucy ever imagined. While her mother's locked in her office working, and her father's in the attic trying to turn lead into gold, Lucy's left to explore. She discovers a pile of her great-uncle's writings. Among his things is an old leather-bound volume called The Book of Story Beginnings. In it, more than one writer has scribbled his ideas. When she comes across this passage, she gasps in recognition:

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a farmhouse high on a hill in the middle of nowhere. Below the hill lay endless fields of corn and more corn, divided by long, dull roads that went on forever before they came to anywhere that was somewhere. The boy liked to imagine that his house was surrounded by the sea and that he could sail forth from his home to find adventure. Such thoughts seemed no more than a dream to him. Then one night, as he sat alone in his room, he had a feeling that something strange had happened outside. When he went to look, he saw that his dream had come true. His house on the hill was surrounded by a great black sea. And in the moonlight, he saw a little boat waiting for him on shore" (58-59).

Not fully understanding what she's found, Lucy decides to start her own story, never imagining that an innocent sentence like "Once upon a time, there was a girl whose father was a magician" (63) could turn out to be so dangerous. Soon, Lucy's in the middle of her own tale, her long-gone uncle by her side, on a perilous journey to find her father. It's a madcap adventure through time and space, a voyage full of magic, mischief and menace. Can Lucy and Oscar navigate their way through the strange world of their fictionalized hopes and dreams well enough to rescue Lucy's father? Can they orchestrate a happy ending for themselves or are they at the mercy of a fairy tale gone awry?

I have one word for The Book of Story Beginnings: Charming. It's a book lover's book, all about the power stories have over us. It's the kind of tale that awakens the deepest fantasies of readers and writers, teasing us with the possibility of traveling inside our favorite fictional worlds, even those that we, ourselves, have created. It's imaginative, enchanting and fun. A timeless adventure story for dreamers of all ages, The Book of Story Beginnings is not to be missed.

Grade: A-

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for fantasy adventure/peril

To the FTC, with love: Another freebie - What can I say? I heart my library.

Maddy Stanton is dead. At least she thinks she is. There's really no other explanation for her current situation: she's suspended in the darkness, alone and confused. She's not hungry or sore or anything, because well, she no longer has a body. She doesn't have much of a memory either - she can't even recall how she died. All she knows is that it's getting awfully boring floating around in this nothingness. Where are the people she loves? What is this place anyway - heaven, Hell or somewhere in between? And what in the world happened to her back on good ole planet Earth?
The Everafter (my ARC is actually titled The After, a name I think is much more interesting) by Amy Huntley, begins with Maddy's mysterious awakening in blackness. She knows that she's not gone, that she still is, but she doesn't know why or how. All she does know is that she wants to go back. Back to her mom, her boyfriend, her sister, her life. Only that doesn't appear to be possible. When she notices a strange series of objects hovering in space - a bracelet, a handbag, a pinecone, etc. - she realizes they represent things she's lost over her lifetime (and as a certified resident of the Land of People Who Misplace Things, that's a lot of stuff). Moving her non-self toward them helps her divebomb back to Earth. Well, kinda. As Maddy "returns" to moments in her life - some pivotal, some ordinary - she makes startling discoveries about her life, her death and what it all means. But only by visiting each object is she able to get a complete picture. With each one, she remembers more. Will the detritus of her life help her figure out how she died? More importantly, can it help her get back to her loving family, her distraught best friend, her devoted boyfriend and her pregnant sister? Or will she be stuck in this lonely void forever?
It's hard to explain this story, because it's unique in a lot of ways. Not that a hundred other books haven't featured characters going back in time somehow to learn from or change their pasts, but The Everafter (which I really, really want to call The After) takes a little bit different approach. Even though it's kinda sorta been done before, I think the premise behind this book is fascinating. I love the idea of all the memories attached to the things we love in life, the thought that these seemingly irrelevant objects retain a little part of us even after we leave them behind. While Huntley's ideas about the Afterlife don't completely gel with mine, I like her vision of enduring relationships and a purposeful eternity.
Still, perhaps the whole meaning of life and death thing is just too big of a subject, because The Everafter feels underdeveloped to me. The characters are more flat than round, the dialogue's more forced than natural, and some of the scenes seem ... extraneous. It's also more lighthearted than I expected, which isn't a bad thing really, just not what I thought. I wanted an atmospheric spine-tingler - what I got was more of an angsty teen romance with a little bit of mystery tossed in. The life/death thing makes it unique, but that's about all that makes it different. Soooo, I guess I'm a little bit ambivalent. I liked The Everafter, I just didn't love it. And, even though it features a few wandering souls, it's not really a Halloween-ish type book. Next year, I'll stick with Stephen King.
Grade: B-
If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language and mild sexual content
To the FTC with love: I got this ARC from Harper Teen.