Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, 173 pages

Possibly the goth-est girl at her old high school, Nancy has just arrived at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, a boarding school where she hopes to fit in a bit better — and where her parents hope she'll return to the bubbly, colorful girl she once was. Because Nancy's parents don't believe that she passed through a doorway to another world, an underworld where she served the Lord of the Dead. In fact, none of the parents who send their children to Eleanor believe that their kids traveled to another world, despite the fact that all of them did travel to an underworld, or a fairyland, or a land filled with vampires and mad scientists.

In this first book in her Wayward Children series, McGuire introduces her readers to a wealth of complex characters and their diverse worlds, despite never leaving school grounds. It provides a great starting point for this series, which is one of my favorites. I can't wait to talk to the Orcs & Aliens about this one on Monday night!