Description: "This dark novel combines paranormal creatures and the legend of the drowned City of Ys with the events and characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is told from the point of view of Ophelia Castellan, the teenaged daughter of an Elsinore Academy official who must take pills to prevent her visions of supernatural beings. Ophelia's mother drowned herself years before and is now a morgen, a sirenlike being, who tries to convince Ophelia to come to the drowned city in the lake. Ophelia also sees ghosts, including two different versions of the dead headmaster, Hamlet Danemark. As she struggles to come to terms with her visions, she becomes embroiled in an increasingly abusive and troubled relationship with Dane, the grieving son of the deceased headmaster. The troubled boy sees the angry ghost of his father and swears revenge on his Uncle Claudius. When Dane kills her father, Ophelia finds herself descending into madness; she has to decide whether or not to succumb to her mother's importuning. This novel is a very feminist take on the events of the play as it focuses on Ophelia and incorporates recent critical thinking about the tragic consequences of the limitations and restrictions placed on women. At times, the attempts to paraphrase Shakespeare's poetry seem awkward, particularly when juxtaposed with the author's own haunting and evocative prose. Still, readers familiar with Hamlet will be fascinated with this retelling." --School Library Journal

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