In Every Heart a Doorway we get to meet two sisters called Jack and Jill. In this, the sequel to that book does we get the whole background to their story. But, you don't have to have read Every Heart a Doorway to enjoy this book. It can definitely be read as a stand-alone. However, Every Heart a Doorway is an amazing book and I recommend warmly either reading it before this one or after.

So, Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the tale of how Jill and Jack traveled through a chest to another world. Like the wardrobe in Narnia, however, the land they got to is not like Narnia, there is no lion waiting for them in this land. Only darkness and different paths for them ...even though they are sisters are they quite different...

I liked this story, I did not love it the way I loved In Every Heart a Doorway, but I enjoyed reading the book. It's always interesting to read a fleshed out story of something you learn in another book, to get the full story. Now, I can't wait to read the next stand-alone story; Beneath the Sugar Sky! That comes in January 2018 ... sigh

From the publisher: Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. This is the story of what happened first… . Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a presequel of sorts to Every Heart a Doorway. Jack and Jill are two of the main characters in Every Heart a Doorway; this book is their story, of the fantasy land they stumbled into at the age of 12 and returned to at the end of Every Heart a Doorway.

I really really loved Every Heart a Doorway (see my review at http://lookgoodifyoudie.blogspot.com/2016/03/every-heart-doorway-by-seanan-mcguire.html). I would heartily recommend it to anyone who feels they don’t quite fit in. I enjoyed Down Among the Sticks and Bones because I really love the way Seanan McGuire writes, but it’s not quite as good as the first book in the series. The fantasy land is well drawn, but what’s missing is the immersion in a place where everyone feels different and is seeking the place they belong.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a short book and a quick read. We get to know Jack and Jill better, and it has the same sort of creepy allure that the first book did. It has the same language affirming the right to choose how you are who you are.

For a short time the twins are cared for by their grandmother, and when she is sent packing by their parents when they fear she is influencing them too much, the grandmother thinks:

She had done her best. She had tried to encourage both girls to be themselves, and not to adhere to the rigid roles their parents were sketching a little more elaborately with every year. She had tried to make sure they knew that there were a hundred, a thousand, a million ways to be a girl, and that all of them were valid, and that neither of them was doing anything wrong. She had tried. (p. 34 of the advance reader copy)

I definitely recommend this book if you read and enjoyed the first.

I read an advance reader copy of Down Among the Sticks and Bones. It will be published in mid-June and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library as a print book and an ebook.

This is a must have sequel for my library. It will be on hold the minute school starts in August.

This stand alone prequel to Every Heart is a Doorway is just as exciting and well written as the first. If you have read Every Heart Is a Doorway you already know what happens to Jack and Jill, but, even so, that doesn't take away from the excitement of this book. I am super impressed by McGuire's ability to successfully pack so much into a short novella. Also, the LGBT content was a nice surprise.

Plot: You met twins Jack and Jill in Every Heart is a Doorway, mourning for the magical world of moors and vampires and science experiments they left behind. This book reveals their what their lives were like before they entered the magical land of the moors and what joys and tragedies changed their lives.

The natural response to "Every Heart a Doorway" is, "Ooh, I wish there were backstories on [insert favorite characters' names here]." The sequel is a one-sitting morsel, but for those who missed Jack (and, I suppose, Jill) before closing the first book, it's more than welcome. This first fleshed-out world, alluded to more than fleetingly in what may become (?) an umbrella novel, provides a hauntingly bittersweet contrast to the Wolcott twins' "real" world. While I can follow the "real" world's logic intellectually, it's heartless. The world that welcomed them--its creatures follow their natures, and allow the twins to find and develop their own. Unmissable. What's particularly exciting is McGuire's demonstrated ability to follow through on a really good complete series, so this high-concept extended idea has amazing potential. She's sketched out a classification system for other worlds, and this first exploration is lovely. I'm pushing the first book hard with a broad cross-section of readers and it's going over very well.

This is set in the same universe as Every Heart a Doorway and you will recognize the main characters but you don’t need to know anything about that book to enjoy this one. Jacqueline and Jillian are twins that have parents that expect certain things from them and don’t seem to care that those choices may not be what the girls either need or want. When they are five, the one person that loved them and wanted the best for them was sent away during the night the girls came to realize that they couldn’t trust adults. As they grew apart helped along by the different goals each parent had for them a door opened in the room they were never allowed to go into anymore, their grandmother’s room and the one person who loved them with all her heart.
The girls go in the door and live for years following two separate but entwined destinies in a small village on the moor of a land with a different moon in the sky. Choices are made by both the girls that are shaped in part by how they were raised and paths they decided to take while they live in the village.

After finishing this I really want to go back and reread Every Heart a Doorway so I can see the twins again.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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I'll keep this brief so as not to include any spoilers.

I didn't think it was possible, but I enjoyed reading this even more than Every Heart a Doorway. Travelling to their other world with Jack & Jill is more than I had hoped. It's dark and sad and beautiful and you should read it.

I devoured this and Every Heart a Doorway in a couple of hours at the beach. This picks up the backstory of Jack and Jill, who featured prominently in Every Heart a Doorway. We find out more about their parents and the twisted world they end up in and how truly cruel Jill is. This is a great, quick read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for this eARC.

<i>Every Heart a Doorway</i> is a slim masterpiece of a book, following children who've returned to the "real" world from their own personal Narnias and who have therefore lost their homes. <i>Down Among the Sticks and Bones</i> is its prequel, and follows Jack and Jill, characters in the prior book and twin sisters who discover the stairs to a brutal other world in a trunk. The Moors allow them to grow beyond the confines their parents set for them (Jill the tomboy, Jacqueline the perfect princess), but they won't stay in the Moors forever.

We know Jack and Jill from the first book in the series, but get to see what made them in this volume: their parents' wholly selfish reasons for creating them, the wish for adventure that led them down the stairs into the Moors, and the choice of masters that foreshadowed and determined their fates. This book was all about choices - the ones we can make ourselves, the ones others make for us and that we can't overcome, and choices that feel foregone, like a child climbing into a magic trunk.

Seanan McGuire is a beautiful writer and any fans of the first book will want to sink into this one. I like the novella length, but this one could've been a bit longer so that the weird world of the Moors could've been further fleshed out. I can't wait for the third in the series.

I was so excited when I found out the Seanan Maguire was writing a follow-up book to her awesome Every Heart a Doorway. I was even more thrilled when it was a prequel about Jack and Jill.

When 12 year old twins, Jacqueline and Jillian stumble upon a staircase hidden inside their dress up trunk, what do two children do except go down it. There they find the world of the Moors, so different from their own. It changed them into Jack and Jill. They just never expected to have to go back.

So I adored just about everything about this book.

Jack and Jill are characters from Every Heart a Doorway (which if you have not read, go read it. Go!) This is their story, about finding their doorway, the world they discovered and how they found their way back.

The world building in this book was so cool. The Moors, is a place of neutral territory surrounded by vampires, werewolves, gargoyles, Drowned God worshipers, and more in the paranormal vein. It’s not sane and it’s not normal, but at the same time this world is so real.

The tone of this book just feels so dark and eerie, while also being so magical and lovely. The writing is atmospheric and you can feel the strangeness the world.

The discussion on gender roles and the impact they have on children is so important and a major factor of this book. I found the message that it's okay to be a tom-boy and it's okay to be a girly-girl. But most importantly, there is no wrong way to be a girl.

My only complaint was that I wished the Jill had been more complicated. She started out with all the difficulties and as the book went on I found her to become a shell of what she was in the beginning. I wanted her to not be quite so predictable and maybe more sly. Not clever, that’s Jack realm, but a true monster can hide what she is and Jill is going to end up dead before she can achieve that. I just wanted a bit more depth and potential from her.

I loved the book. It’s a great companion to Every Heart a Doorway.

This is a great if somewhat short follow up to Every Heart a Doorway and I think I liked it even better. Set before the events of the first book this episode tells us how Jack and Jill came to the home for wayward children. Fast paced, reflective and brilliant with a diverse and gender fluid cast this is not to be missed.

This slim little novella packs an emotional punch. The core theme is one of inclusion, and of being yourself. The fairy tale style narrative structure drives home the message that we can't force anyone to fit into molds. Jack and Jill most certainly do not. When freed from their restrictive parents they change and flourish into their own true versions of themselves. Jack is allowed to and encouraged to be traditionally feminine with Master. Jill can indulge in intellectual pursuits and wear pants, a thing her mother would never allow. There is just so much going on in these few pages. I hugged my kindle a few times while reading this. It left me with questions and I'm really looking forward to the next novella. I actually think this is perfect. 5/5

A darkly magical story about identity, family, love and loss. This is a sort-of sequel to the equally wonderful Every Heart a Doorway but but works just as well as a stand-alone tale. Beautifully written and enchanting throughout, this book is not one to be missed.

*To be posted two weeks on goodreads and blog before release date*

This book was addictive. It grabbed me from the first page and did not let go until both it (and I) was completely done. It was an experience and the brilliant narrative and story was amazing. I am thoroughly impressed.

As a prequel to the very good, but not as perfect in my eyes, Every Heart a Doorway, this novella easily stands on its own. At only 176 pages McGuire manages to effortlessly squeeze in topics like gender issues, jealousy, first love, growing up and identity without it every feeling out of balance. In fact, everything was so exceptionally well balanced and sharp that this slightly morbid story, full of both real and magical horrors, played out to perfection.

Part of the brilliance of this novella was the very wise and all knowing narrator whose strong and satirical presence made all the difference. It added this richness to the story, something that the predecessor novella lacked.

It was fantastic.

I loved Every Heart a Doorway and this was a great look at how my two favorite characters became the way they are! Works well as a standalone as well. Interesting, lovely, and a little sad.

I adored <i>Every Heart a Doorway</i>. I related strongly to it, and judge it to be one of the best novellas I have ever read. It's fair to say that straight up, because it would have been hard for <i>Down Among the Sticks and Bones</i> to live up to its predecessor. And it doesn't.

It's a good story, going deep into what happened to twin sisters Jack and Jill when they found their portal and entered the realm of the vampire called the Master. McGuire's writing, as always, is evocative, and the voice of the piece sets the mood so well. These are sisters raised in abusive circumstances, cultivated as props for their well-to-do parents, and when they enter this other-realm, they immediately rebel against the tight gender constraints they were raised under. But once they find their new roles, I found myself less engaged as the story falls into a good twin-bad twin dynamic and there's a major death that is easy to predict and a major trope.

In Every Heart a Doorway we meet Jack and Jill, two sisters bound together yet alienated. Both exiled from their realm and their different masters, both seeking to return home. But for all of their core participation in the events of that novella, it was not their story nor even a story of any specific realm. Down Among the Sticks and Bones lets us peek at what shaped the Jack and Jill we meet in Every Heart a Doorway, and lays bare the motivations for their actions within.

The story starts with a couple having children for the wrong reasons. Falling in love with the idea of having children, of parenting, but being unable to discern the difference between a dream and reality.
"It can be easy, in the end, to forget that children are people, and that people will do what people will do, the consequences be damned."
It's a story about love, hate, and the thin line between.
"At the top of the stairs there was a door that they weren’t supposed to go through, leading to a room that they weren’t supposed to remember. Gemma Lou had lived there when they were little, before they got to be too much trouble and she forgot how to love them. (That was what their mother said, anyway, and Jillian believed it, because Jillian knew that love was always conditional; that there was always, always a catch. Jacqueline, who was quieter and hence saw more that she wasn’t supposed to see, wasn’t so sure.) The door was always locked, but the key had been thrown into the kitchen junk drawer after Gemma Lou left, and Jacqueline had quietly stolen it on their seventh birthday, when she had finally felt strong enough to remember the grandmother who hadn’t loved them enough to stay."
And, perhaps, it's a story about the monsters we love and the monsters we can become. But more than anything, it's a story about two young women and the trauma that shapes them.


I had to take some time away from this novella after finishing it. I found it absolutely captivating to read and incredibly emotional. There were tears, or at least very close to them. I need to revisit Every Heart a Doorway to be sure, but right now I feel like Down Among the Sticks and Bones surpasses it. You can read this novella as a standalone, but reading it first would destroy some of the mystery of Every Heart a Doorway.

As beautifully written as the first volume, though the slightly abrupt ending will leave readers aching for the third in the series.

If you've read Every Heart a Doorway*, you've met Jack and Jill. This book tells their story--how they grew up and landed in their alternate world.
I love this series....love McGuire's writing.
*If you haven't read EHaD, please do yourself a favor and read it ASAP! It's lovely.