The Rift

The Rift is a fantasy adventure story best suited to competent young adult readers.

Set on the island of Black Water, Rachel Craw introduces the reader to a cast of diverse human characters. And a common cause - this being to protect The Old Herd. The herd of Deer that Rangers of Black Water Island have been bound to protect over many generations.

The story has a complex plot and it took me quite a few chapters before I had sorted out the characters and their sometimes extremely complex relationships.

Underpinning these relationships - between mother and daughter, Cora and Meg

and the somewhat fraught emotional involvement of Meg and Cal - is the aloof and somewhat enigmatic individual, Sargent

Relationships aside, this is also a story of high adventure, mysticism and romance.

Animals play a central theme - good and bad. Real and mystical. Animals as helpful scouts or those with evil intent. Not forgetting the all-important Old Herd.

Woven into the narrative is the uneasy alliance between the rangers and a reprehensible pharmaceutical company. An alliance that has a detrimental impact on the lives of all the Black Water Island community.

Meg and Cal find themselves inexorably drawn into an endeavour to save the imperilled island from menaces, both real and supernatural.

Title: The Rift

Author: Rachel Craw

Publisher: Walker Books Australia

ISBN: 9781760650025

RRP: $22.99

Format: Paperback

Date of Publication: 2018

Ages: 13 and above

Reviewer’s name, job title, school name & region: Melanie Muir, Librarian, Hutt International Boys’ School

How highly are you recommending this book? Recommended

What’s the book’s opening sentence? Cal’s too late.