Parched

By Melanie Crowder

In this haunting, lyrical novel told from three perspectives, Sarel has just witnessed the violent murder of her parents. But she is not completely alone on the drought-ridden land. Nandi is the leader of a pack of dogs who looks out for her pups and for skinny Sarel-girl. Nandi knows they are all in trouble, and she knows, too, that a boy is coming—an escaped prisoner with the water song inside him. A hard-hitting but ultimately hopeful survival story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9780547975887

Melanie Crowder

Melanie Crowder lives on the Colorado Front Range, where she is a writer and educator. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of the middle grade novels Parched, A Nearer Moon, and the Lighthouse Keepers series and the young adult novels Audacity and An Uninterrupted View of the Sky. Visit her at MelanieCrowder.com.

Book preview

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Reviews for Parched

[fingerpost_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took me a few chapters to get into the writing style of this book, which drops the reader into a story already in progress with no explanation about anything that happened before. It seems to be set in the near future in a parched African country, unnamed. We alternately follow two characters. Sarel, a girl whose parents have been murdered is trying to survive alone in the desert, with a pack of dogs that her father owned. Musa is a boy with a gift for divining water, who is held as a slave by a gang, who wants to control the water. Musa escapes, and eventually wanders to the homestead where Sarel is struggling. Together they try to survive, find water, and not be found by the gang members who want to get Musa back.In spite of all the critical acclaim on the back of the book, I found this a well written, but fairly simple story, without enough plot to stand up as a great book. It was also dreadfully depressing.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A compelling debut novel that titillatingly straddles a line between fantasy and reality and should prompt mmany questions and much discussion.