LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
May 2024 Debut of the Month
Eighteen-year-old Ruby Santos spends a lot of time on the BART trains in San Francisco, travelling to jobs as a painter and decorator. Her mother is dead, and she and her father are trying to pay off the large debts incurred for her medical care, so college is on hold. Her father struggles with drug and alcohol addiction too, making life even harder. She’s always suspected something was up but learns that her father has the ability to magically hop trains, leaving one to appear on another, sometimes even across the other side of the world. He’s been working as a mule for the Bartholomews, the city’s most ruthless criminal family, and now as his health deteriorates, Ruby must take over. When she falls, Romeo and Juliet like, for the Bartholomew’s youngest son, also forced to work as a mule, she becomes increasingly determined to find a way out.
This is an unusual, atmospheric fantasy romance sustained by the magic of the rattling trains of the San Francisco metro and the force of personality of its lead characters.
Andrea Reece
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About
The Vanishing Station Synopsis
A lyrical and bold YA debut about an underground magic system in San Francisco—and the lengths one girl is willing to go to protect the ones she loves.
Eighteen-year-old Filipino American Ruby Santos has been unmoored since her mother’s death. She can’t apply to art school like she’s always dreamed, and she and her father have had to move into the basement of their home and rent out the top floor while they work to pay back her mother’s hospital bills.
Then Ruby finds out her father has been living a secret life as a delivery person for a magical underworld—he “jumps” train lines to help deliver packages for a powerful family. Recently, he’s fallen behind on deliveries (and deeper into alcoholism), and if his debts aren’t satisfied, they’re going to take her mother’s house.In an effort to protect her father and save all that remains of her mother, Ruby volunteers to take over her dad’s station and start jumping train lines.
But this is no ordinary job. Ruby soon realizes that the trains are much more than doors to romance and adventure: they’re also doors to trafficking illicit goods and fierce rivalries. As she becomes more entangled with the magical underworld and the mysterious boy who’s helped her to learn magic, she realizes too late that she may be in over her head. Can she free her father and save her mother’s house? Or has she only managed to get herself pulled into the dangerous web her father was trapped in?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781419764226 |
| Publication date: |
9th May 2024 |
| Author: |
Ana Ellickson |
| Publisher: |
Amulet Books an imprint of Abrams |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
368 pages |
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Press Reviews
Ana Ellickson Press Reviews
'San Francisco is flipped upside down when Filipino American Ruby Santos ventures into a magical underworld to save her family. Against this rich, fantastical backdrop, Ellckson captures a complex character in Ruby that many will relate to, whose own dreams are sometimes offset by family burdens placed on young shoulders' - Lilliam Rivera, author of Never Look Back
'A spellbinding thriller full of fantastical feats of imagination and perilous, world-traveling magic. At each breathless stop on the journey of reading this book I was struck by vivid moments of romance, deception, and grave danger as Ruby does all she can to save her father, her home, and herself.' - Nova Ren Suma, New York Times bestselling author
'For those hungry for a unique contemporary fantasy, this book delivers. Prepare yourself for nuanced characterization, aching romance, and a slick underground world that you’ve never seen before . . . just don’t get too close to the tracks.' - Emily J. Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel Magnifique
'Ellickson delivers an ambitious, fast-paced fantasy crackling with complicated family dynamics and forbidden love in this simmering debut.' - Publishers Weekly
[I]t sets up threads that pay off once Ruby’s talent for magic and her growing closeness to Montgomery draw heat from those inside and outside the organization. The story wraps up neatly but leaves room for a sequel. An urban fantasy with an original premise. - Kirkus
Author
About Ana Ellickson
Ana Ellickson writes about fierce girls, family curses, and everyday magic. The Vanishing Station is her debut novel, inspired by daydreams about jumping portals in the San Francisco subway. Roman the Renegade—her graphic novel script about street art and Filipino monsters—was awarded the 2021 New Visions Honor by Lee & Low Books. She lives in sunny Santa Barbara.
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