Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Publisher – Tor

Published – Out Now

Price – £15.30 Hardcover £8.81 Kindle eBook

When Jack left Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister – whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice – back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn’t always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West’s ‘No Quests’ rule is about to be broken.

Again.

We are all told we must learn to find ourselves as we grow up (and to be fair ever after). We are all different and that should be embraced. The harder lesson for us less often told is that we should actually also be able to accept that someone’s choices are going to be different to our own and we should be happy that those choices make our friend’s happy - we don’t need to convert them. In the latest very satisfying instalment of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series – Come Tumbling Down, we return to the story of Jack and Jill two sisters who went for a time to a perfect gothic world of mad scientists and vampires finding out who they wanted to be; and how far they wished to go to do that leading to murder, heartbreak and love. But can you ever really return home again?

A quiet moment for Christopher at the school is shattered by a lightning bolt through his dormitory eventually creating a door and the return of Jill (last seen dead and responsible for several deaths at the school) holding another woman’s dead body. But it soon appears that Jill’s body here is actually containing the spirit of her twin Jack (an ever-learning young mad scientist last seen taking a dead Jill back to their former gothic portal world known as The Moors). The dead woman (Alexis – Jack’s girlfriend also murdered by Jill) just needs to be recharged. Something terrible has happened on the Moors as Jill’s former Vampire Master has acted rashly to get his precious Jill alive and able to become a vampire – swapping the twin’s bodies. Jack now needs to return and restore balance to the world and face down their sister one last time after sundown. But this time their friends from the school will be there to help.

I loved this very inventive gothic quest. Everything in this story is very (and a think deliberately) tangled to suit this world’s natural narrative. We have swapped bodies; the resurrected dead and vampires being stacked by people with torches and pitchforks because the gothic world of the Moor demands that level of story. McGuire however importantly doesn’t fall into parody it’s just high stakes but still feels terribly real and as the children realise once they follow Jack pretty much everything here can be dangerous even their friends. It is a world with some stunning new elements delivered not previously seen – the strange coast-based community that worships the terrible things in the sea and its strange leader. Oh, and wait until you see the horses…. just brilliant… and all this is being delivered at a fast turning pace pulling you along this night’s adventure. McGuire really gets to enjoy unnerving the reader, so you never know what is around the darkened corner.

What I found really fascinating here is how the other children start to react to Jack and her world. For Jack fighting vampires, resurrecting the dead and plotting attacks is normal. But to the outsiders she is acting coldly, weirdly and scarily. Jack is desperate to return to their normal body and in particular Jack’s OCD about cleanliness and order is sensitively and well handled but the impressive moment is when the kids start to accept that Jack actually is allowed to love this world and be who they are. Yes, they will poke her when she crosses a moral line but here, they are supporting not persuading her back.

We also see some further development in the children from other tales themselves. Christopher who longs to return to his world of Bone is actually the one taking this most calmly in their stride and is Jack’s true friend and happy to scold when needed. The now resurrected Sumi from a nonsense world however in this world almost seems the most scarily practical character to match Jack’s desire to just do what they must do rather than the wacky weird kid we had come to know. And this time we see Cora the mermaid and Kade the one-day future school leader both take some further steps to taking more of a lead. What I continue to love about this series is McGuire even when it’s not a particular character’s main story still ensure everyone is getting developed and each is markedly different to the others and we understand their worldviews. The key heart of the message throughout the series.

This is a deliciously eerie trip into the night on one of those portal worlds you shouldn’t be out after dark in – but where is the fun in that? I think this wouldn’t be the ideal starting place for a newcomer to the series (I recommend Every Heart A Doorway or reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones first in particular here) but it’s a wonderfully told, unusual story that reminds us our friends are our friends and we should just accept that. As always, I can’t wait to read the next story already.