White Midnight

by Dia Calhoun

Companion to Firegold , an ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Rose Chandler, a fifteen-year-old bondgirl who lives on Greengarden Orchard, fears the dark, the moon, other people, and the Dalriadas from the Red Mountains who are at war with the Valley folk. But Rose especially fears the Thing locked in the attic of the Bighouse, home of Mr. Brae, the Master of Greengarden. Rose loves Greengarden and dreams of saving it from Mr. Brae’s neglect. That love gives her the courage to confront her fears one by one, until at last she comes face-to-face with the Thing in the attic. There, when Rose lights a candle in the dark, a nightmare beyond her worst imagining comes true, and she learns Mr. Brae has betrayed her. Then the Thing – and the intensifying war – present Rose
with a terrible dilemma. Will she have to give up the land she loves in order to save it?

Dia Calhoun's mesmerizing new novel is the sometimes mystical story of Rose’s journey from girl to young woman.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Childrens, Middle Grade, Fiction

289 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 2003

About the author

Author, essayist, and poet Dia Calhoun won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature for her novel Aria of the Sea. Three of her eight novels are American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. Calhoun’s contemporary novel Eva of the Farm was a Hornbook Magazine Best Verse Novel. Reviewing Calhoun’s most recent book, After the River the Sun School Library Journal wrote—“Lovers of gaming and Arthurian legends will thoroughly enjoy this one.” Calhoun’s 7:30 BELLS blog essays explore creativity and inspiration.

Calhoun is a cofounder of the literacy social media project, readergirlz, recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prize. Calhoun has taught at Seattle University and the Cornish College of Arts. She currently offers private coaching in writing to kids and adults. Calhoun lives beside the wild Nisqually River in Washington state. Not only does the natural world inspire her writing, it’s also the basis for her new work as a sculptor.

Reviews

[Millicent Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love anything spooky and mysterious and this book had the perfect blend of that. I read this book when I was 14 or 15 when I found it in my school library and I loved it. I was intrigued about the thing in the attic from beginning to end and I really liked the main character Rose. Rose is an ordinary girl with an ordinary life who no one really cares about and one day proves them wrong and shocks all those people who put her down. I liked how Mr.Brae and Joff Will saw her for who she really was and saw how different she was from the other girls. That made me really happy. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery with a little bit of spookiness but not anything too scary. The only reason I rated this four stars was because the ending felt empty to me like something was missing.

[Meridyforgot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Completely disappointing! This book had so much potential. The characters had such potential. This book could have been great and even kept a similar (but more meaningful and admirable) end. I feel completely let down.

*****Spoiler:

I feel like all the characters failed. Especially Rose and Raymont. Rose couldn't get over her land. Raymont couldn't get past his attic. Rose thinks of her child as an abomination, and if she has blue eyes she'll live without him (or her) just so she can stay on her precious piece of ground. To me, that is sick. Raymont turns hateful and revengeful. He accuses Rose of being selfish earlier (and she is) then he turns out to be even more selfish than she is. No one learns anything!! And not only that, they seem to "take a step backwards."

[Emris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Possibly the weirdest thing I've ever read.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Rose........her parents sold her into a horrible marriage so they could have material things. Rose agreed to go into the attic despite her fear. In the dark she began to learn the monster wasn't so bad until she snuck a candle into the attic. When she sees Raymont and realizes he is a Dalraida, her prejudice makes her hate him...........so she is okay to be with a monster but not a Dalraida (people with red/blonde hair). Rose helps Raymont escape to go to the Dalraidas and frankly, he is a horrible person. Even though Raymont's grandfather was horrible to her she goes back to his house to give him a proper burial. The reader never learns whether her baby is going to favor her Valley side so she can keep him or if he will favor Raymont's Dalraida side and will be sent to live with him.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a prequel to Firegold, and I liked it even more. The heroine, Rose, is a shy, scared, asthmatic, unattractive teenager who has to face and conquer her fears, and Calhoun does a brilliant job with her. Also, there's an interesting use of the Eros-Psyche myth, with non-standard consequences. Really, really good stuff.

[Trisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really could have liked this book, but the end sucked.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only way I can describe this book is organized chaos. The characters are hard to relate to, which in turn makes it hard to care about them.

[Kayt O'Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, a book full of incredibly unlikable characters and vague unsatisfying maybe-magic. I mean. I read it because we're weeding it from our library (number of checkouts: zero), so it's not entirely surprising that it's not great, but still. Yeesh.

This book could have been condensed so much. Anything interesting happens in the last half, if not the last third. So please allow me to just summarize everything that happens.

Main character: a timid 15-year-old named Rose, who gets what are essentially panic attacks. Rose loves the land. And farming. Otherwise, she is scared of literally everything. She's an indentured servant and the master, Mr. Brae, is a mean SOB whose grandson is the Thing, a terrible monster no one knows anything about, except it's a monster. He gets Rose to marry the Thing. It's a setup for him to impregnate Rose but she refuses to be sexually coerced. Brae remains an abusive SOB until the end, which does come eventually.

Now, besides being like a feudal lord and serfs, the people are very, very xenophobic. Like, "if your child shows the physical features of the enemy, it will be left in the woods to die" xenophobic. There is them--good brown-eyed people--and there are the horrible terrible cannibalistic blue-eyed Dalriadas. Maybe there is a war? Seems more like occasional raiding parties, but whatevs.

Turns outs the Thing is half-Dalriadas and his eyes are blue. That's his crime. So he's been locked in the attic for his entire life. Marries Rose. Gets Rose pregnant. Eventually Rose goes to meet the Dalriadas so they'll rescue Thing. Turns out Thing is their magically-destined king because he has Special Shiny Hair and I'm not kidding.

They rescue Thing. Turns out living your entire life cut off from society makes you also a total jerk. He kills his dad and also wants to kill Rose when she doesn't want to leave the land--which is literally the only thing she loves--but the rescuers refuse on account of him being an Absolute Douchcanoe.

Rose stays to be the mistress of the land, which is all she ever wanted. Every character--except the last-minute Dalriadas--remain unlikable twits. The only magic is that Rose and Thing occasionally get visions they don't understand, and the Thing has magic king hair.

Now, you may read all that and think, surely there is more to the book than that.. And there is! There are pages and pages of Mr. Brae being mean and Rose being scared and other people being various flavors of mean! And that's it!

Apparently this is a prequel, and it reads like a prequel, in that there's little compelling story and it seems like it's setting itself up for interesting things to happen after the story ends. I'm not sad my library's chucking it, I just wonder why we had it in the first place.

Edit:// I saw that this might be middle-grade and while it doesn't particularly read like middle grade to me (see the whole sex-related plot point of "you've married my monstrous grandson but really that was just to save face so I can impregnate you but if you refuse to have sex with me you really do have to have sex with my monstrous grandson and either way your job is to breed") it might make a bit more sense that way, in a "kids might not mind that lack of things happening" so much.

It's very...different than most other books in tone, and Rose is a...unique heroine in that she stays pretty timid and weird without doing that middle/high school shy-girl thing.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

An asthmatic serf must conquer her fears to release a monster imprisoned in the attic of the manor to which she is bound. An interesting retelling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

[Eskana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is either a soft sequel or just loosely connected to Calhoun's novel "Firegold," as it takes place in the same society. This one focuses on Rose, an unattractive teenage girl and the daughter of a bondman who is pressured by her family to accept a post at the landmaster's house... where a monstrous "Thing" is imprisoned in the attic. Rose is DEFINITELY not your average heroine- she is very timid, but determined when it comes to things she loves (like the land) and she is inventive as well when she needs to be. Due to her ugliness and her frequent spells (asthma attacks?) she is not very popular, but she really is passionately devoted to making things grow, and her love of the land really comes across strongly, at least for me, through Calhoun's writing.

The story itself was also intriguing. The mystery of the Big House was quickly solved but rapidly became complicated- Raymont, the master's grandson in the attic, is a very complex and imperfect person, as are most in this book. I loved Rose's journey as she began to be respected for who she was and what she did, and how she was really perfect for her land. The difficult decisions she has to make... I don't know, I really enjoyed this book for how the author was able to work Rose through these very difficult situations and decisions. She seemed to be one of the most human characters I've read about in a long time, and the other characters were the same way. Very good, although not as perhaps fantastical as "Firegold," and I found the descriptions of Rose's visions to be distracting and confusing (but they were for her too, so I guess that works.)

I recommend it definitely for anyone who wants to see a girl's completely independent coming of age in a very difficult situation, and for anyone who enjoyed Firegold.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a more dreamy and mysterious atmosphere than Firegold, which it is a prequel of, I felt that this story was more mature. There's more ambiguity in the characters, and no one is truly heroic. Many of the characters are monstrous, and the main character doesn't completely overcome the damage inflicted upon her by her family, and the others trying to play her. While this is somewhat sad, and some readers might find it unsatisfying, it's more realistic considering how the events of the story played out.

[Joice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dark story. I read this because I had recently read Firegold (the sequel to White Midnight) and really enjoyed it. With that said, I rated it 3 stars mainly because it was a dark story but I really liked the character development of the main character Rose. Dia Calhoun seems to be able to capture the very real and human essence of her characters which keeps me coming back for more. Life isn't all fairy tales and sunshine but growth, struggle, perseverance and learning. All of this was present in White Midnight.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful fantasy with fairy tale atmosphere about a young girl who must marry the son of the landowner (supposedly a hideous “Thing”) in order to help her family and fulfill her dream to care for her orchard. Full of references to films of Cocteau and fairy tales (Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast).

[Meg Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book about real love and the truth about human souls. Rose's character and growth were superbly drawn. She was clever, and brave. The other characters, including Raymont, Rose's parents and Mr. Brae were all products of their lives' circumstances. They did not choose to "dive into the terrible and the beautiful" as Rose did.
Dia Calhoun bravely ended the book in a very fitting, satisfying way.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not a great book. It did not live up to the expectations I set to it, which was quite disappointing. The characters were badly developed, and every time I thought I like the 'thing' he would do something terrible and I would hate him again. I really did want to like him, though! This book was just disappointing, and a little bit creepy. Especially the cover.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rose, a young bondswoman, is tricked by her parents and the wicked landowner into marrying the Thing, the misshapen heir of the landowner. She struggles to fulfill her oath and protect her beloved Greengarden from barbarian attack.

[Bridgett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unusual and fun book that made a lot of sense after reading Firegold. The ending was confusing to me, though.

[Kaurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

really weird book

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a prequel to Dia Calhoun's earlier book, Firegold. It is about the ancestors of Jonathan, the main character of Firegold.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a big dissapointment. Instead of touching your soul like 'Firegold', it touched death, hate, misery, murder, and revenge. A big dissapointment

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the plot was interesting but not enough to continue on with the series.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book was a bit slow. I kept reading hoping it would get better but it never really did and I didn't really care for the plot. I won't be reading the second book.

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird...



Oh so weird.

[Cecilia Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rose Chandler is fifteen and ugly. She also has panic attacks. In spite of these handicaps, her parents sell her to Mr.Brae, the owner of Greengarden.