“Scintillate” by Tracy Clark

by Tee Tate
Scintillatetracy c
Tracy Clark
Entangled: Teen
ISBN-10: 1622661451

 

A mighty flame follows a tiny spark…

Cora Sandoval’s mother disappeared when she was five and they were living in Ireland. Since then, her dad has been more than overprotective, and Cora is beginning to chafe under his confines. But even more troubling is the colorful light she suddenly sees around people. Everyone, that is, except herself—instead, she glows a brilliant, sparkling silver.

As she realizes the danger associated with these strange auras, Cora is inexplicably drawn to Finn, a gorgeous Irish exchange student who makes her feel safe. Their attraction is instant, magnetic, and primal—but her father disapproves, and Finn’s mother orders him home to Ireland upon hearing he’s fallen in love. After a fight with her father, Cora flees to Ireland, both to follow Finn and to look for her missing mother. There she meets another silver-haloed person and discovers the meaning of her new found powers and their role in a conspiracy spanning centuries—one that could change mankind forever…and end her life.

 

I always love the thrill of discovery, particularly in fiction.  The inclination to uncover the hidden is what keeps me devoted to the series I’ve loved over the years. It’s kept me returning to Hogwarts again and again; it’s kept me jogging alongside Rachel Morgan as she navigates The Hollows in Kim Harrison’s urban fantasy series, and it is what will bring me back to the beautiful world Tracy Clark has created in Scintillate.  

After recovering from an illness she thought might take her out, Cora Sandoval begins to notice things. Light hovers around the people she sees and her instincts are sharper, her reckoning more sensitive. But when she sees one of those peculiar lights around herself, she understands that her life has irrevocably changed and she’s determined to find out why.

Secluded from the world by her father, like every teenager who craves independence, Cora aches for it, wants to be free from her father’s commands. She also wants to uncover the secrets he keeps close to the vest, particularly the truth about what happened to her absent mother twelve years before in Ireland where Cora was born. Those are secrets her father isn’t eager to share.

But then Finn enters Cora’s life and what happens next—the instant attraction she feels and the sudden, overwhelming influx of emotion they share—completely seizes Cora’s life and could lead to a future where the truth may be a vicious weapon that threatens Cora’s survival.

Scintillate has everything lovers of fantasy and YA wish for in a book: there is the heavy tapestry of mystery itching to be shredded, the lush, vivid imagery of the magical, of the surreal, that paints a vibrant picture of Cora’s world, and the bittersweet, pleasurable sting of first love that makes no promises, and refuses to disguise it’s visceral, raw emotion.

The ending will leave you panting for more, eager for Ms. Clark to get on with writing so we, like Cora, can uncover the secrets that will lead her to the truth and the discovery of whether she (or we) will survive it.

Highly, highly recommended.

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