Title: The Well's End
Author: Seth Fishman (Twitter)
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Publish Date: February 25, 2014
Genre: YA, Sci-Fi, Mystery
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher

Sixteen-year-old Mia Kish has always been afraid of the dark. After all, she’s baby Mia, the one who fell down a well. That was years ago, though the darkness still haunts her. But when her classmates and teachers at ritzy Westbrook Academy start dying of old age from a bizarre and frightening virus that ages its victims years in a matter of hours, Mia becomes haunted by a lot more than the dark. Their deaths are gruesome and Mia worries she and her friends may be next. In order to survive, Mia and her small crew must break quarantine and outrun armed soldiers in hazmat suits who shoot first and ask questions later.

And there’s only one place to go—the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia knows it’s somehow connected and hopes her dad, Director of Fenton Electronics, who has always been strangely secretive about his work, has the answers she needs, and more importantly a cure to save everyone before the whole town succumbs to the mysterious virus. Unfortunately, it’s not answers Mia discovers, but something far more treacherous and impossible than even the virus itself.

The Well's End is the type of story that readers will undoubtedly read long after dark, riveted and unable to put the book down until it's been finished in a single sitting. I knew from the start that this would be a book for me, blending the most powerful aspects of horror, mystery and cinematic-style adventure into a novel that is  both gripping and alluring in its darkness. Author, Seth Fishman, doesn't shy away from the drama, but rather embraces and draws you in with a novel that is so full of action, drama and adventure that it is fairly impossible to simply stop in the middle of the novel to put the book down.

The setup of The Well's End, while exciting, didn't sound entirely original to me, immediately bringing to mind thoughts of Contagion or other such mystery stories, but I was surprised to see that while, yes, the story embraces that concept, it also goes far beyond it. The quarantine and mystery elements of the story are the bones and framework of the novel, but the characters and the deeper, more sinister mystery in the background are the meat and muscle of the novel, pumping a vibrant and electric life into the book from start to finish. This isn't the type of novel that you can read for pure escapism. Rather, The Well's End pulls you into a mystery so very multifaceted that its nearly impossible to extract yourself and find the source of it all until the third act illuminates it all and leaves us reeling. 

Mia was an excellent main character for a reader like me. To create an avid swimmer, the author definitely did his due diligence in researching swimming terms, practice methods, equipment and drills. As a child, Mia fell down a well and was trapped for days, leading to a deep-rooted and inherent fear of darkness and cold. Swimming, however, embraces both of these things, and Mr. Fishman's use of two polar opposites cements a sort of vulnerable power in our main character, making her both appealing and relatable. The supporting cast of characters including Jo, Odessa, Jimmy, Rob and Brayden were quite solid, as well, each playing their part to their fullest potential. That said, it must be noted that I did feel the romantic setup in the novel was a touch too convenient, and I think if the characters had been given more of a chance to evolve together, it would have been more believable. The only character I felt lacked a bit of true depth in the first half of the novel was our antagonist, Blake Sutton. We know that he's bad, and we understand there is more to him than meets the eye, but we're kept in the dark for much of the novel until the big reveal. 

The true beauty of The Well's End, however, is most definitely the whirlwind plot, which simply doesn't stop. While I felt that, at times, the characters weren't entirely rooted in reality, the plot takes center stage. For example, when I though the mystery was brought to light and we were going to understand the root cause of the virus and The Cave, Mr. Fishman throws readers a curveball. Thrusting us headlong into a town that's riddled with mystery and darkness, we're helpless but to watch and hope as the events unfold with painstaking care. It's exciting to see an author take such care in setting up surprising elements to a story that might have otherwise fallen quite flat. Furthermore, the author has an incredibly easy tone that makes it fun and engaging to follow, and he embraces the modernity of language, which brings our teenage cast alive.

In the end, I read The Well's End in one sitting, riveted from start to finish. When I thought the mystery had unfurled by the second act, I was surprised to see more action, adventure and mystery in the third. It's the type of novel that asks you to simply put aside your reservations and plunge in headfirst with abandon...do it. I give it a 4.5 out of 5, and I definitely recommend to fans of YA, especially those who enjoy science fiction, thrillers and mysteries. 

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.

Mia Kish is afraid of the dark. And for good reason. When she was a toddler she fell deep into her backyard well only to be rescued to great fanfare and celebrity. In fact, she is small-town Fenton,Colorado’s walking claim to fame. Not like that helps her status at Westbrook Academy, the nearby uber-ritzy boarding school she attends. A townie is a townie. Being nationally ranked as a swimmer doesn’t matter a lick. But even the rarefied world of Westbrook is threated when emergency sirens start blaring and the school is put on lockdown, quarantined and surrounded by soldiers who seem to shoot first and ask questions later. Only when confronted by a frightening virus that ages its victims to death in a manner of hours does Mia realize she may only just be beginning to discover what makes Fenton special.

The answer is behind the walls of the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia’s dad, the director of Fenton Electronics, has always been secretive about his work. But unless Mia is willing to let her classmates succumb to the strange illness, she and her friends have got to break quarantine, escape the school grounds, and outsmart armed soldiers to uncover the truth about where the virus comes from and what happened down that well. The answers they find just might be more impossible than the virus they are fleeing.

Guys, I am so excited today to feature The Well's End, an upcoming novel by Seth Fishman from Putnam Juvenile! This awesome new addition to the world of YA is set to release on February 25, 2014 (one day apres my birthday, mind you), and it promises a whole lot of mystery, thrilling adventure and maybe just a touch of terror to make you think twice about those things that go bump in the night. Seth dropped by to answer a few of my questions today....and there's even a giveaway for all of you lovelies, so stick around to the end! 

1. What inspired you to set The Well's End in Fenton, Colorado?

Hi Melissa! First of all, thanks to you and your kind readers for their time. I hope this is something interesting to you, and that I provide some vague form of entertainment for your day! This is a good question, with a fairly nebulous answer. I'm from West Texas, which means that if we wanted to go skiing, we went to New Mexico and Colorado on these long trips, so I've been there a number of times in snow and in summer, and feel a sense of teenage familiarity with the area. I made up the town, of course, but I also needed mountains, snow, and the ritz of places like Aspen and Vail nearby. So, it all came together.

2. You have an MC that's a swimmer! This speaks to me (ie: the blog title)...of all the sports in all the world, why swimming?

I'm kinda terrified that you'll read the book and be like, 'no way, swimmers don't do that...' But I made Mia Kish a swimmer for a number of reasons. One is that she fell down this well, which means she was in the dark and in/around water. So she swims to conquer her fear. Another reason is that I wanted her to swim under the ice of a frozen lake, and she has to be good to be able to do that. I interviewed my friend, Matt Block, who used to be nationally ranked in college, about swimming and learned all sorts of things I never knew, like drag suits and how you sweat tons in a pool but never realize. I hope it all works realistically!

3. Mia is terrified of the dark, and it sounds as though The Well's End might be just creepy enough to terrify your readers. What do you think might be the scariest aspect of this book for us?

Great question. I think I made a number of scenes scary (at least, to write, ha), and I hope that comes through. But specific moments aside, I wanted to tackle the idea of trauma defining a person, and how everything they do will be seen through the lens of that trauma. Creepy death, icy cold water, these things, in the book, are more than just plot points, but efforts to make Mia confront herself and her past. Getting lost in the memory of her childhood fall feels so scary to me.

4. Kate Beaton, an incredible artist, has created some brilliant illustrations for The Well's End, including fantastic sketches of your main characters. Do you think she captured their likenesses and personalities in these images? Why, or why not?

She is amazing isn't she? Sadly, there will be no interior art in the book, so these are just one offs, but I think Kate did an awesome job capturing the feel of the characters. To do so, I sent her very long descriptors of each character and we went over them a few times, her asking really smart questions and working really hard to get it right (she went way above and beyond). The physical descriptors of these characters are all spot on, but I love how she has the mood too. Mia, standing at the edge of the icy lake, is just so inside herself. It's perfect!

5. The Well's End releases from Putnam Juvenile on February 25, 2014. What about this book do you think will capture readers and get them dying for a copy as the release date approaches?

Ooh, tough to answer this without sounding to self-congratulatory! But, I'd say that I read lots of YA and I tried to write something that's a bit different. The goal, for me, was to feel realistic, to have characters you recognize and connect with, but then, suddenly, pull you out of your comfort zone and into a new place, so that by the end, you're not sure how you got there. It's a book that's hard to define via genre/category, and I think this is something that's really appealing when I read books. So there's that. But it's also fast-paced and fun and mysterious, which I hope hits you for an entirely different reason!

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And now, the giveaway! Thanks to the extreme generosity of Putnam Juvenile, one lucky winner will receive an advance e-galley of The Well's End, as well as a piece of original art from Kate Beaton. Be sure to check out more of her character work for the book HERE. This giveaway is open to US/Canada only...simply fill out the Rafflecopter to enter!

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