The Hill
by Karen Bass
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Pub Date Aug 15 2016 | Archive Date Feb 03 2017
Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC | Pajama Press
Description
Seeking cell phone reception after a remote plane crash, city kid Jared and local Kyle scale a hill that Kyle’s Cree grandmother has forbidden him to climb. Coming down the next day, the boys find that the plane has disappeared, the forest has changed, and something is hunting them. A modern imagining of the Cree Wîhtiko legend.
Jared’s plane has crashed in the Alberta wilderness, and Kyle is first on the scene. When Jared insists on hiking up the highest hill in search of cell phone reception, Kyle hesitates; his Cree grandmother has always forbidden him to go near it. There’s no stopping Jared, though, so Kyle reluctantly follows.
After a night spent on the hilltop—with no cell service—the teens discover something odd: the plane has disappeared. Nothing in the forest surrounding them seems right. In fact, things seem very wrong.
And worst of all, something is hunting them.
Karen Bass, the multi-award-winning author of Graffiti Knight and Uncertain Soldier, brings her signature action packed style to a chilling new subject: the Cree Wîhtiko legend. Inspired by the real story of a remote plane crash and by the legends of her Cree friends and neighbours, Karen brings eerie life—or perhaps something other than life—to the northern Alberta landscape in The Hill.
A Note From the Publisher
Canadian Pub Date - March 2016
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781772780024 |
| PRICE | $12.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Allie B, Media/Journalist
Author: Karen Bass Publisher: Pajama Press Genre: Fiction Rating: 9
Copyright: March 31, 2016 ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-77278-002-4 Sales Url: http://pajamapress.ca/book/the_hill/
Description of Sales Url: Purchase from Pajama Press Review: In Karen Bass's The Hill,When the private plane Jared insisted on riding crashes, he is rescued by Kyle, a Cree boy who ought to be wearing a cape, given the circumstances. Jared is an unlikable spoiled rich kid flying from unlikable parent A to unlikable parent B. Jared is a city boy, completely unfamiliar with nature. Luckily for them both, Kyle is his polar opposite. Jared's refusal to listen to Kyle's advice forces them to climb the hill, a place forbidden by Kyle's Kokum (grandmother) and cross into the terrifying territory of legend, where they are stalked by the relentless Wihtiko, a virulently carnivorous creature out of the Cree spirit world.
All I can say is that this story works on many levels, and even if it is speculative fiction, has a ring of truth. Jared's journey occurs because he is forced out of his insular rich kid kingdom to a strange wild place where he must confront evil. He must rise to the challenge. If he gives in, he and Kyle will both die. We share his experience as he pushes past his boundaries, and struggles to survive.
I especially like how Karen Bass captures the voice and personalities of two boys who are polar opposites. Not only does the story show how they come together, it also shows how, in many ways, the boys are not as dissimilar as they believe. Jared has both of his parents, though he is essentially so apart from them he might as well be an orphan; and while Kyle has only his grandparents, he is so deeply steeped in his culture, he knows his place in the universe in a way few people do. The setting is rustic; the boys' relationship is dynamic; and the monstrosity hunting them is quite as terrifying as any creature out of a horror movie. Gripping story.
Book Trade Professional 15080
Outstanding. The way Bass interweaves traditional First Nation mythology with present-day thriller tropes is deft and effective. Loved every moment of this and can't wait to recommend it.
Marsha S, Reviewer
Don't read this book in bed!
Karen Bass has made a name for herself by writing well-researched and page-turning historical fiction from a post-WWII German teen’s point of view. What I love about her books is that she breathes life into bits of history that no one else is writing about and she does it with muscular aplomb and page-turning suspense.
The Hill is utterly different from anything Bass has written before. It’s a contemporary thriller about Jared, a rich spoiled teen whose plane crashes in remote northern Alberta, and Kyle, a Cree teen who witnesses the crash and comes to assist. The two protagonists are the same sex and age but that’s the sum of their similarities.
Jared survives the crash with just a concussion and his pilot is alive but injured. His cell phone has no service and he wants to get to the top of a nearby hill in order to light up a few bars on his phone. Kyle tells him that they cannot do that. It’s a forbidden place.
They go anyway.
There’s no cell service, and when they come back down, there’s no plane.
It turns out that by climbing the forbidden hill, the teens have slipped into a different dimension, and this alternate reality is a dangerous place populated with creatures from Cree legend. Now that they’ve slipped into this other dimension, how do they get out? Only by setting aside their differences can the boys puzzle that out and save themselves.
In less capable hands, the novel’s premise could be a disaster but Karen Bass anchors the fantasy element with such gritty, sore and smelly reality and such nail-biting terror that the reader has no choice but to be hooked.
I read this novel in a single long gulp because I could not put it down. And after I was finished, it stayed on my mind.
A phenomenal page-turner. Love the premise. Love the writing. Don’t read this book in bed.
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