The Warnings

by Margaret Buffie

When Rachel moves in with her great aunt, she begins to understand the evil reasons behind her premonitions that something bad is going to happen and the strange voices that she hears. Reprint.

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Fantasy, Paranormal, Canada, Teen, Fiction

245 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Award winning author, Margaret Buffie, was born and grew up in the west end of Winnipeg, attended various schools - graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba. An artist for many years, Margaret decided to write a YA novel and Who Is Frances Rain? was published by Kids Can Press. It quickly became a bestseller after appearing in bookstores in 1987. Since then Margaret has published nine more YA books. She works at her home in Winnipeg during the winter and on the veranda of her cottage in Northwestern Ontario in the summer months. Margaret's books have been published in the United States, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, China and other countries. Margaret is the recipient of the prestigious Vicky Metcalf Award for Body of Work (For writing inspirational to Canadian Youth); The Young Adult Canadian Book Award; is a two time winner of the McNally Robinson Book for Young People award and has been shortlisted for many other awards and honours.

Here are a few reviews of my first novel and most recent novel. To see more reviews for my other books go to http://margaretbuffie.com and click on each title.

WHO IS FRANCES RAIN?

REVIEW: Who is Frances Rain? is as distinctly Canadian as the intoxicating lure of silent woods and wind-whipped lakes. The textures of the narrative and the well-rounded characters are just as haunting as the ghosts Lizzie finds on Rain Island. It’s a ghost story with much to reveal to the thoughtful reader about the turbulent emotions at work within families. It’s a novel that makes us grateful for a strong new voice in Canadian literature for young people, a voice we’ll want to hear again soon. QUILL AND QUIRE

REVIEW:Who is Frances Rain? will probably be devoured by its young adult readers in one sitting. It deserves to be; this is an excellent book. TORONTO STAR

REVIEW:Buffie’s story is moody and atmospheric – the lake and the island are pungently, perfectly evoked. Lizzie’s encounters with ghosts are beautifully handled, with just the right balance of eerie and emotional moments. PUBLISHERS WEELY

WINTER SHADOWS

REVIEW:Vicky Metcalf Award-Winner MargaretBuffie returns with a breathtaking novel that is part realism, part time-travel fantasy,
and part coming of age tale. Winter
Shadows focuses on two young women who
live in the same Manitoba home a century and a half apart.....
This communication across time obviouslydraws on the conventions of fantasy, but these elements
arenever forced or implausible, and there is plenty of suspense and energy to sustain the two alternating narratives." QUILL AND QUIRE, DECEMBER 2010:

REVIEW: Buffie is a master of the ghost story, carefully allowing Cass and Beatrice to drift in and out of each other's lives in convincing fashion. The convention of the diary allows Cass to connect the dots and learn more about her ancestors. The dialogue both in past and present is authentic, revealing character and moving the action along. CANADIAN MATERIALS

REVIEW: The alternating narratives are gripping, and the characters are drawn with rich complexity; even the stepmothers are finally humanized. Readers will be pulled in by the searing history of bigotry as well as the universals of family conflict, love, and friendship. Grades 7-10.
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOC. BOOKLIST: January 2011

THE DARK GARDEN

REVIEW: a first rate blend of ghost story and problem novel about Thea, 16, struggling to recover from traumatic amnesia after a bike accident. Buffie creates a tightly knit, evocatively written, and lushly (but chastely) romantic thriller. The protagonists - living and dead - are distinctly characterized; a once beautiful, now weed-choked garden is simultaneously setting and symbol of lost happiness. vivid sensory writing makes the fluctuations in Thea’s state of consciousness perfectly convincing. KIRKUS

Reviews

[C. (Comment, never msg). · Rating 4 out of 5]

* I work hard on these pieces and dislike empty like button clicks. Comments from friends and readers are my reward. :) *

I am grateful that a thrill occurs often for me: picking-up intriguing books at a bargain and confirming that they are treasures! In high school in 1989, I do not know how Margaret Buffie got past my youth mystery radar but feel proud that my discovery is an authoress from my home city! I bought this début hardcover recently, “The Guardian Circle”, tucked into it, and confirmed that it is wonderfully unique before going charity shopping again. Seeing two of her other novels this time, I doubled up to give a set to my Kiwi friend! This novel comprises my favourite genre, paranormal mystery but blends into urban fantasy, which is a cool thing to depict in Winnipeg!

A girl named Rachel takes time for readers to understand, as it takes her awhile to trust her elderly hosts. Her Dad sold their rural Manitoba property after her Mom left, putting Rachel into a city school with an Aunt Irene. Justifiably angry with her Dad for taking a trucking job, this story warms up when Rachel makes a friend, who helps her investigate bizarre things. She reveals psychic capabilities to readers and ideally for her, Will helps her identify them. Her household should tell her what is afoot and how she pertains to whatever they are privately worried about. Maybe her Dad knows, too.

It is satisfying when things are explained but more exciting, when the young pair made their own discoveries. It should garner interest to highlight something the synopsis does not: there is Celtic and Eastern Canadian lore. I gave four stars because I love original adventures! Angst is discussed a lot before things become mysterious. The lore is told more than it is experienced and the culminating action finishes too quickly. However, I am keenly Margaret’s new fan.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 3 out of 5]

"While other teenagers were watching a Tom Hanks movie or were eating pizza with their friends, I was creeping up and down the halls of a crumbling house, listening at each and every door to make sure the oddball tenants behind them were asleep, so that an oddball boy and me (ditto) could talk to a ghost with a ouija board. Truly insane."

This was a blast from my odd past. I remember reading this as a kid but didn't remember much about the story. What I most remembered about this was that the cover freaked me out when I was a lot younger. Like the girl on the cover was looking at my soul and knew all my secrets.

This was quite enjoyable and perfect for fans of old school scholastic horror.

[Kerri (Book Hoarder) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhhhh!!! I have been searching for this book for over a year - I could remember the cover but not much else!! I will need to re-read it because it was one of my faves :)

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel MacCaw is fifteen when she's sent by her father to live with her aunt and a bunch of strange old people. She's incredibly angry at the world because her mother abandoned her and now her father abandoned her to stay with these weird strangers. They're creepy and mysterious, following her around, giving her strange medicine, asking weird questions, etc. Her new home is even haunted and there's a strange boy who may or may not be a cat.

This is one of those books I wish I'd read when I was younger because I would have loved it even more, especially when I was an incredibly angry kid myself dealing with the same feelings around parental abandonment. I was also obsessed with the paranormal as a kid so this would have been right up my alley.

I loved the writing style- it's concise, fun and delightfully descriptive. There's just enough description so that you get a vivid picture of everything without being slowed down by paragraphs and paragraphs of unnecessary descriptions.

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~]

DNF pg. 140

Just not feeling the plot or the characters of this one. Cool cover, though.

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an eerie feeling as you read through The Warnings that would make you think that this was all taking place in a time that is not the late 1980s/early 1990s. An atmosphere that speaks more of New England or even some city in Britain and not Canada.

It meanders through some drama at first and presents us with characters we aren't even sure if we should like them or not. After awhile, we earn some sympathy and get some laughs to worry about the fate of these characters.

At least, the ones we are suppose to be rooting for...

Rachel MacCaw is almost sixteen and dropped off at the home of her great Aunt Irene by her father in his eighteen wheeler. This is now his new job to earn money to find a new place for them to live after selling their Manitoba farm and Rachel is not happy.

It isn't the first time she has felt abandoned by a parent if you really want to call "Joanna" her mother...she never let Rachel call her that. An artist who decided to go off to Toronto with all of her bohemian art friends while her husband wanted to be a farmer now instead of the same talented man she met in art school.

That's what happens when you have children but Rachel doesn't see that yet...just her dad going off to find something else with her left behind.

The house is something out of a horror movie, all run down and covered in weeds, but Rachel prays that all of this ugliness is just on the outside. As far back as she can remember, Rachel has heard voices and seen things that are not there. Rachel has been able to smell things like smoke before a fire breaks out and gets weird feelings from things she touches...always bad things.

The Warnings have been a nightmare in the waking world and Rachel has never had anyone to share this with even if she wanted to tell someone despite how they may think she is crazy.

The old woman who welcomes her at the door is not Aunt Irene as Rachel has only met her once but just one of many older people who live here. Mitzi Dubbles and her husband Luther, another woman named Gladys, a man named Mr. Basely as well as his boxer, Max, and for a short time Bridgette, Gladys' granddaughter.

Rachel's room is up in the attic and leaves much to be desired but at dinner, she learns that it is supposed to be haunted. It could just be Bridgette joking to be nasty to Rachel but all of the older people don't say if she is correct. Everyone in the house is hard for Rachel to read and meeting Bridgette's boyfriend Roger after dinner isn't that much fun either.

Not just because Bridgette skips out with Roger to the movies and leaves Rachel with the clean-up but the way his yellow eyes stare at her...like a large jungle cat.

The next day at her first day of her new school, Rachel finds herself sharing a locker with a young man her age and she can't stand the know-it-all look on his face, past his humorous quips or even his dark blue eyes. Tall and wiry with big ears himself, Rachel doesn't know how to handle his comment that her red hair makes her look like an orange chrysanthemum and declares he looks like Bullwinkle.

He is left flabbergasted but others around them hear Rachel enough to laugh. The boy named Will Lennox seems to take it in stride because later, Rachel finds that he has cleared up space in the locker for her. To add to that, Rachel soon finds that Will lives in the house catty-cornered to her Aunt Irene's home.

Over the first week, Rachel avoids running into Will except for the match class they share but finds that going to school and coming home...she is being followed. All of the older people in the house whom Rachel starts to call "The Fossils" are the ones following her and everyone of them looks about as if they are being followed while watching Rachel.

Then she comes home one day to find her attic room ransacked as if someone had been looking for something but no one as old as the Fossils could have tossed a bed around. All of the older people fuss over Rachel later that night when she starts to become ill and trying to get her upstairs, she hears their conversation zoning in and out of an almost sickly haze.

Words like "he" and "found" and..."they".

Waking up later that night, Rachel sees a ghost of a man surrounded by bluish-white light but she knows it wasn't a dream or a nightmare. It was another one of her Warnings or else she is starting to go as crazy as the other people in this house but that next afternoon...she gets her answer.

Brainy Will Lennox stays up late to study and he has the perfect view of Rachel's attic window. He has seen the light before Rachel even came to live there and decides to pay a friendly call to his sick neighbor and classmate. Rachel doesn't know why she would even care that Will knows about the ghost but a part of her needs someone to confide in...to trust.

The old people in this house know something they aren't telling Rachel and even if logical Will thinks this ghost stuff is a fun game at first, Rachel knows there is no turning back...

It gets very interesting after that and some things predictable and some things that are not predictable happen. Lots of exposition explained but one of those good against evil battles that lead into a rather open ending...yet enough to keep The Warnings from being a complete dud.

[Alisa Cornell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a ton of times back in high school (mid to late 90's) and hadn't picked it up for years. When I came down with the flu back in April it seemed like a fitting book. It's still an amazing read, the ending was still intense. Wish there was a sequel.

[Katrina Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with the story so much that I can recall checking it out of the library numerous times when I was younger. Such a great story mixed with first love and the paranormal.

[Stephen Fodor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable read by a good Canadian Author.

[Zen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book. A fun little read. It's not an amazing story plot wise, but it gets 4☆'s because of the charactors, all the the charactors, even the minor ones are just a lot of fun. All a bit quirky, but not in a way that gets in the way of the story.

The story is pretty staight forward, if you've seen enough spooky movies, you can kind of guess where it should be going. The clichés are there, but it doesn't matter. The real story is about the charactors.

M. Buffie presents her charactors, when you first meet them, with a few quick descriptions. After this instead of just telling you what they are like, she shows you their personalities through their actions.

For example, our main charactor Rachel starts off sounding like a bitchy crybaby teenager. But during a high point of farce at a dinner sequence, she discovers Max, a boxer dog looking up at her under the table. Greasy Bangs sitting next to her calls it an awful dag, blah! But Rachel reaches down and pats doggie on the head. Later, the next day, Rachel gets a drive to school, and there is Max again sitting in the back seat. So she reaches back and pats Max on the head again. Dispute the two lines of drool hanging out of Max's mouth.

And so we see, Rachel not the spoiled brat she seems to be, she just feeling angry and unloved at the moment. As for Greasy Bangs, she a bitch who smells of armpits.

So read it for a fun quick read and just enjoy the charactors and let the story happened. I actually lol'ed a few times as I read this. Just soon fun, "spooky" fun.

[Rachel Moulton · Rating 2 out of 5]

After nearly a decade of trying to remember enough plot points to find this book, I finally tracked it down and reread it. I remember being enthralled when I first encountered Buffie’s novel back in 5th grade but as an adult it’s lost its charm. The potential is there but it falls apart for me somewhere in the middle of the story. The writing is a bit underdeveloped. I can see why I enjoyed it as an adolescent. I’m glad I finally got to revisit this one but I think once was enough.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a great read, unfortunately. I was actually really frustrated by this. The story idea was there, the characters were there, the protagonist has an interesting backstory and motivation, but the writing style... The writing style was so juvenile and really frustrated me. So although I wanted to enjoy this book, I was frustrated enough by it that I wouldn't re-read it and won't keep it.

[Graisi · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my old favourites from when I was a teen. It must be the 3rd or fourth time I've read it.

Standouts are the quirky yet loveable characters, and the romance which does not in the least bit detract from the overarching story, because it only adds gracefully to it. With rampant instalove destroying current teen novels, I knew I would enjoy going back to an old favourite.

[Mel Flowers · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was great for about 2/3rds of the book. The payoff was not that great. I was really hoping for more out of the ending. It was still entertaining and I don’t regret reading it. Probably would not recommend it though.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those very obscure old books from the 80s that was on my sister's bookshelf when I was little. It's okay enough for a rainy day.

[Breeze]

Found this and loved Margaret Buffie as a kid (who is Frances Rain? is a classic), but this was...not good. Far too many unnecessary characters and plot cul-de-sac's, not her best.

[booknerd27 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay, but it wasn’t my favorite book in the world. I expected more from it since it is classic YA and that genre never disappoints me, but the writing was a little iffy and this book was hard to follow at times, but it was still a good book!

[Rants and Bants · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay book. Not great, but okay. The protagonist was okay, albeit frequently snappish, but at least she's still better than some other red-headed teen girl with a painter for a parent who hides things from them I can think of...*cough* Clary Fray *cough* *cough* I also thought it was interesting how her anger was used as a weakness against her.

I liked the other characters alright. The 'Fossils' were funny. Will was friendly and supportive. The only person I still don't understand is Roger. He's a...cat? And probably the only character I didn't like was Johanna, but we're not really meant to like her.

The plot interested me more toward the beginning than later. I started to get kind of bored by the middle of the book. The ending was okay though, but nothing really kept me hooked. It wasn't that exciting because it all happened kind of quick, and nothing unpredictable happened. It was all just neatly wrapped up.

The dialogue wasn't terrible or cringy, but it just didn't work much for me much either. Maybe it does for others. I just couldn't really imagine it in my head being said by real people.

For what it's worth, it was average for a YA paranormal book. But could've been a lot better and more interesting.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for the first time in grade seven and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for it. I have re-read it several times over the passing years. I read several of Canadian author Margaret Buffie's books that year and this one by far stuck out to me as my favorite. Protagonist teenage Rachel's trucker dad leaves her to live in an old creepy house with her Aunt Irene and several other eccentric roommates. We learn throughout that Rachel hears voices and has visions ("warnings"). It's a fairly quick read and a fun little light thriller that's a great read for a rainy day.

[Frankenoise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly good book. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was 10 years younger, as it is geared towards young adult or teen, but it was a good story. I didn't much like the ending but it was an ending that was different than the norm so that's a plus. Overall I would find myself easily recommending this book to people under 20 for sure. It's a quick read and has some good moments.

[Stacy Simpson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is about a girl shoved off by both her parents to an aunt who she hardly knows. They shove her in an attic bedroom that is haunted. So far it is so lame I am stuck at this point. I would skip it if seeing it in the store!

[Gaurav Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

kinda boring in the begging but i liked it in the end...
the twist in the story after Rachel's kiss got me more curious to read ahead...
not bad...

[Rants and Bants · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review

[Sam - Spines in a Line · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margaret Buffie is a great author, good place to turn if you're looking for fantasy