Midnighters: The Secret Hour

Scott Westerfeld

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‘Sorry,’ Rex said. ‘I should have told you: this isn’t a dream.’
‘But--’ Jessica started, but signed, knowing suddenly that she believed him. The pain, the fear, the feel of her heart pumping in her chest had all been too real. This was not a dream. It was a relief not to pretend to herself anymore.
‘What is it, then?’
‘This is midnight.’

Bixby, Oklahoma seems like an ordinary town. Even the people who live there think it’s ordinary. Most of the people, anyway. When Jessica Day moves to Bixby, she discovers its secret. A small group of people – the Midnighters – who get an extra hour in every day, when the town and everyone in it freezes at midnight. It’s called the Secret Hour.

It’s like Buffy meets Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children meets Numbers. But better. Although Jessica is a normal teenager, the other Midnighters are outsiders, isolated by their strange gifts.

Jonathan can fly. Well, he can bounce. But only in the Secret Hour. Rex reads the Lore, the secret history of the Secret Hour. Melissa is a mind caster: she can hear other people’s thoughts. All of them. All the time. It’s like being in a room with a thousand radios all tuned to different stations. Dess is all about maths. She can do mathematical things that the rest of us normal people can’t even imagine. And she’s the one who thinks up all the tridecalogisms.

The what?

Tridecalogisms. Words with thirteen letters. Like resplendently and deliciousness and rubbernecking. The darklings are scared of them.

The who?

Well, it wouldn’t be much of an spooky, chilling novel if it didn’t have some creepy bad guys, would it?

Midnighters: The Secret Hour is a scary, fun, funny pageturner with dollops of teen angst and romance. What more could you want in a book? Two more books in the trilogy? You got 'em.