Meridian

Amber Kizer (author)

Random House, Australia: 2009; 305pp

ISBN: 9781864718782 13+

Genres: adventure, fantasy, gothic

Issues: identity

Meridian has always had an affinity with death. She's been surrounded by it all her young life as multitudinous animals are drawn near her to die. Her early years were filled with funerals - small holes dug in the back yard, filled with dead rats, cats, mice, birds and even the occasional dog.

Meridian's health has also always been an issue - she has constant nausea, headaches, low-grade fevers, dizzy spells and muscle aches. Her parents seem unsurprised by her illness or the dead animals - yet they treat Meridian with wariness and a certain disgust and fear. Accustomed as she is to feeling different, rejected, outcast, Meridian's 16th birthday brings a terrifying revelation. A car crashes in front of her family's house and despite being untouched, Meridian nearly passes out with the pain that explodes through her body. Who is she? What is happening to her? And why are her parents sending her to an aunt she's never met? Half-human, half-angel, it turns out that Meridian has a unique role to play in the world - if she can live long enough to learn how to do her job.

Amber Kizer is a successful writer of teen fiction and in Meridian demonstrates her understanding of her target audience and their reading interests. Meridian - beautiful, frail, uncertain of her identity and outcast from her peers - epitomises all the elements of the tragic, misunderstood heroine that is often so appealing to teens as they struggle to form their own sense of self. A handsome protector who may or may not become a boyfriend - if they can get past their constant petty conflicts - is another character familiar to the gothic romance genre. Meridian's world is full of the darkly paranormal - angels and their opposites, helpers who have that extra sense, her own rare gifts. With these Kizer has created a strong, dramatic narrative that will undoubtedly appeal to readers of Stephanie Meyer.