A Touch of Scarlet

Gr 9 Up—This sequel to A Breath of Eyre (Kensington, 2012) finds Emma, 17, returning to boarding school for her junior year after spending a summer with her boyfriend, Gray. He heads to Coast Guard training while she immerses herself in her neglected assigned reading, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Once she is back at school, Emma observes how much many of her friends have changed over the summer and struggles with maintaining a long-distance romance. When she kisses her roommate's boyfriend, Owen, and becomes the recipient of schoolwide scorn, her life begins to echo Hawthorne's novel. The heartbroken teen stumbles upon the world of Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl. She interacts with the characters and then returns to her reality, puzzled by what she has seen. References to the first book let readers know that this experience is not new to Emma; she has been sucked into literary realities before. Her visits into the 19th-century story continue, and she learns things about herself and her friends. This knowledge she needs as she deals with the fallout from kissing Owen, her uncertain relationship with Gray, and the gossip surrounding a girl at school who has discovered she's gay. Mature readers who are familiar with the literary references will have a greater appreciation of the conflicts and resolutions. Enough backstory is revealed to make this a stand-alone read.—Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD