Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

A disturbing painting plunges a modern girl into a decades-old mystery.After sacrificing her college savings to help save her family's home, Julie is stuck working at Bed Bath & Beyond while her best friend Lauren has the fortunate circumstance to attend Parsons in the fall, a dream both once shared. The white teens' final summer together begins with a painting Julie purchases at a thrift store. After hanging the painting and then turning off the light to sleep, Julie discovers that the darkness reveals an entire new painting underneath the surface that's visible in the light. The only clue to the artist's identity is the signature, the initials L.G. An artist herself, Julie goes on the hunt, dragging Lauren along, to discover more. They find other paintings that share this uncanny technique of masking two paintings in one. With each painting they find, the darkness reveals chilling images connected to a true story of young women who worked at a watch-painting facility during World War I. Alternating chapters follow Julie's quest and present decades-old love letters written by Lydia, a white radium factory worker, both slowly revealing the horrific story of young women who were exposed to radioactive paints. With this interleaved technique, Bryant brilliantly lures readers into an engaging mystery, a page-turner that begins beneath layers revealed in both paintings and chapters. A riveting story of ambitious and self-sufficient women, both in the present and past. (Mystery/historical fiction. 14-18)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

Gr 8 Up-wo young women, a century apart, find themselves drawn to the same dangerous glow. Julie, a young woman in the present day, is unable to pay for college after sacrificing her savings to help save her family's home. In her desperate attempt to forget about her circumstances, Julie looks for a project to occupy her thoughts. During a visit to a thrift store, she discovers paintings that not only glow in the dark but also reveal an entirely different scene that cannot be visible in the light. Julie becomes obsessed with learning the identity of the painter. In her quest, she finds the paintings are connected to a young woman named Lydia. Lydia and her sister work for a factory, painting watches that can glow in the dark for soldiers overseas during World War I. Unbeknownst to the women in the factory, the paints they work with contain radium, a dangerous chemical. Bryant weaves this story by alternating chapters of Julie's perspective and sharing Lydia's letters to her loved one overseas. As each girl tells their story, the true events and stories of the real radium girls are brought to light. Bryant's novel will surely spur readers to learn more about this dark part of history. Pair with Kate Moore's Radium Girls. VERDICT Libraries looking for historical fiction novels to add to their collection should consider this a strong purchase.Aileen Barton, Sherman Public Library, TX

ALA Booklist

When recent high-school grad and artist Julie finds a mysterious painting at a local thrift shop, with hidden images that glow in the dark, she becomes obsessed with finding more of these paintings and trying to replicate the technique. In alternating chapters, we meet Lydia in 1917, writing letters to her love overseas fighting in the Great War, as she starts work at a factory painting glowing watch faces. As her older sister falls ill om ingesting radioactive material, unbeknownst to either as deadly dia struggles to find the answers to her ailment. This fictionalized take on the Radium Girls is by turns suspenseful, macabre, and, at points, quite gory. Bryant doesn't shy away from the true horrors that befell these women d worse, the abject neglect from their male superiors, many of whom knew the true dangers of radium. Though the romance between Julie and a chemistry undergrad sometimes strains belief, Julie and Lydia's real-life struggles with family and personal responsibility ring true. An eye-opening window into a troubling moment in history.

Horn Book

A mysterious glow-in-the-dark painting links modern-day teen Julie to Lydia and her sisters, in 19171918, as they work at a factory that produces luminous watch faces, unaware that the paint they use causes radiation poisoning. This parallel narrative gives Julie's conventional YA romance story an infusion of originality. The historical background (expanded in an author's note) is intriguing, embracing chemistry, medicine, and labor and women's histories.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A disturbing painting plunges a modern girl into a decades-old mystery.After sacrificing her college savings to help save her family's home, Julie is stuck working at Bed Bath & Beyond while her best friend Lauren has the fortunate circumstance to attend Parsons in the fall, a dream both once shared. The white teens' final summer together begins with a painting Julie purchases at a thrift store. After hanging the painting and then turning off the light to sleep, Julie discovers that the darkness reveals an entire new painting underneath the surface that's visible in the light. The only clue to the artist's identity is the signature, the initials L.G. An artist herself, Julie goes on the hunt, dragging Lauren along, to discover more. They find other paintings that share this uncanny technique of masking two paintings in one. With each painting they find, the darkness reveals chilling images connected to a true story of young women who worked at a watch-painting facility during World War I. Alternating chapters follow Julie's quest and present decades-old love letters written by Lydia, a white radium factory worker, both slowly revealing the horrific story of young women who were exposed to radioactive paints. With this interleaved technique, Bryant brilliantly lures readers into an engaging mystery, a page-turner that begins beneath layers revealed in both paintings and chapters. A riveting story of ambitious and self-sufficient women, both in the present and past. (Mystery/historical fiction. 14-18)

Voice of Youth Advocates (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Julie, a recent high school graduate, spends time during the summer months working multiple jobs and hanging out with her best friend, Lauren. When the friends come across two paintings at a thrift shop, Julie buys them. After she takes them home and turns off the lights, she discovers that the paintings transform into disturbing, ghastly scenes depicting a tale of death and despair, colored by some type of glow-in-the-dark material. Julie begins obsessing over the paintings’ history and what material was used to paint them, not realizing that the paint could be making her ill. For each of Julie’s chapters, there is one of Lydia’s (the “LG” of the artist signature on the paintings) in the form of letters from the early 1900s to her beloved WWI soldier. The letters describe her life working for the American Radium Company (ARC) in whose factory she and her sisters use radium paint to detail various war-related items. Lydia’s sister, Liza, falls severely ill, first breaking her leg and then losing her teeth. Lydia’s grotesque accounts slowly lead her to realize that working in the factory is killing the girls. Julie and Lydia piece together the truth of the ARC, but not before the radiation takes its toll. Readers who love the historic side of this genre will crave more of Lydia’s story and what transpires after her sister’s death, as these situations are wrapped up too quickly at the novel’s end. Lydia’s unraveling tale overshadows Julie’s seemingly forced friend and family drama, as Lydia’s story is gruesomely detailed and suspenseful. Teachers could incorporate extension research opportunities and related readings about the Radium Girls, World War I, and factory worker health standards.—Lauren Straub.