Come Tumbling Down

By: Seanan McGuire

Narrated by: Seanan McGuire

The fifth installment in New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire's award-winning Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down picks up the threads left dangling by Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones.

When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister—whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice—back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken.

Again.

The Wayward Children Series
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Book 4: In an Absent Dream
Book 5: Come Tumbling Down

Critic reviews

"[Come Tumbling Down is] Grotesque, haunting, lovely." — Kirkus (starred review)


Praise for Every Heart a Doorway

"With Every Heart a Doorway, McGuire has created her own mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy — a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics, even as it carves its own precocious space between them." — NPR

"Seanan McGuire has long been one of the smartest writers around, and with this novella we can easily see that her heart is as big as her brain." —Charlaine Harris

"One of the most extraordinary stories I've ever read." —V. E. Schwab

"This is a gorgeous story: sometimes mean, sometimes angry, and always exciting." —Cory Doctorow for BoingBoing

"So mindblowingly good, it hurts." —io9

"McGuire's lyrical prose makes this novella a rich experience." —Library Journal starred review

"This gothic charmer is a love letter to anyone who's ever felt out of place." — Publishers Weekly

"Seanan McGuire once again demonstrates her intimate knowledge of the human heart in a powerful fable of loss, yearning and damaged children." — Paul Cornell, author of London Falling and Witches of Lychford

Narrated?

I enjoyed this book. But I don't think Seanan has the range for multiple characters. Her previous narrator: Cynthia Hopkins did a fantastic job using her voice skills to separate characters. The story was well written and I enjoyed it.

Great!

This is an absolutely fabulous listen! Hearing Seanan perform was truly an excellent experience that leaves you wanting more.

The best books for lonely times

The books in this series are balm to the soul when we’re living in a time of uncertainty and isolation. Grateful to these stories for all they ways they comfort.

Author’s writing is great. Narration not so much.

Love this author and the characters. They are complex and vivid and unique. But the author shouldn’t read her own books for the audio version.

An excellent adventure with the Wayward Children

Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children carrying the body of her twin sister, Jill, whom she had just killed in righteous rage at Jill's murders among the other residents of the school. She took Jill's body back to the Moors, the world their Door took them to--and where death is not quite so permanent as in ours.

When a Door appears in the basement room that used to be Jack's and is now Christopher's he recognizes it as being from the Moors. He doesn't recognize the young woman who steps through, carrying what is either Jack or Jill, either unconscious or dead.

The truth turns out to be more complicated, of course. The body is Jill's body, unconscious. The person inside that body is Jack. The young woman carrying her is Alexis, Jack's lover. Jill, still determined to become a vampire, can't do so in a body that has already died once, so she stole Jack's. Jack's OCD won't let her live indefinitely in Jill's body, especially knowing what Jill has done with it.

Alexis has brought Jack back to the school to get help recovering Jack's own body.

Eleanor West has a Rule: No Quests. Awkward, but rules are meant to be broken, right? Christopher, Cora, Kade, and Sumi let Eleanor know where they're going and head off to the Moors with Alexis and Jack. What follows is an adventure that makes sense in the Moor, and more broadly in the universe of the Wayward Children and the Doors that take them to the worlds that suit them. The Moors, like the other worlds we've seen in this universe, is complex, detailed, and very much lived-in. Jack and her friends need to make hard choices in a complicated situation, and there's little to no chance of them all coming out the other end alive. Yet there's real warmth and friendship and loyalty, and also humor.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.