ALA Booklist

Juneau has grown up off the grid in a hunter-gatherer colony at the base of Denali in Alaska, convinced that she and her clan are the last civilized survivors of World War III. As she is out hunting one day, she sees a helicopter and returns to camp as quickly as she can. But upon her arrival, she finds her entire clan missing, including her powerful mentor, Whit. Juneau's clan is notable not only for their methodical survivalist lifestyle but also for their mystical connection with a natural force called the Yara, which grants them superior powers of perception across space and time. Juneau is particularly gifted with powers of perception, but her efforts to locate and rescue her clan are complicated by two separate factions in hot pursuit. Told in short chapters alternating between Juneau's point of view and that of the skeptical Miles, who will stop at nothing to find her, this fast-paced adventure novel from the author of If I Should Die (2013) pulses with magic, romance, and one humdinger of a cliff-hanger.

Horn Book

When she returns from hunting in the Alaskan wilderness, Juneau finds her entire clan missing and discovers that they were not survivors of a decades-previous nuclear war as she always believed. Thrust into the modern world, without her mystical powers, she forms a partnership with the son of the man behind the clan's disappearance. A quick pace keeps up the mystery-survival story's suspense.

Kirkus Reviews

Plum serves up another paranormal-suspense series opener. Seventeen-year-old Juneau lives in the wilds of post-apocalyptic Alaska, where elder Whit is teaching her to become clan Sage, to connect her mind with the Yara. This mystical energy enables her to Read distant events and people's motivations and to Conjure, allowing her to manipulate objects remotely and even to become briefly invisible. Returning from a hunting expedition, Juneau discovers that helicopters have attacked her village and carried off everyone in it. She begins to track them down, then discovers that the story she had been told all her life is a lie: She and her clan are not survivors of World War III, supposedly fought in 1984. Instead of devastation, she finds the vibrant contemporary city of Anchorage. Going undercover in a modern world she doesn't understand, Juneau begins to lose her paranormal powers. Meeting Miles, the son of the powerful man behind the underlying plot, she partners uneasily with him in a trek across the west in search of her clan. The story morphs from paranormal exploration to a chase thriller as Juneau narrowly eludes her pursuers. Miles and Juneau trade narration duties, their present-tense voices nicely distinct; Juneau speaks formally, with a slightly archaic accent, while Miles uses a pleasantly normal contemporary vernacular. Attractive characters and the fresh, present-day setting should hook genre fans. (Paranormal suspense. 12-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Seventeen-year-old Juneau has grown up isolated in the postapocalyptic Alaskan wilderness, a pristine landscape of -crystalline fields veined with frozen streams.- When her clan is kidnapped, she discovers that the nuclear war they supposedly fled never took place. Struggling to disentangle truth from lies, Juneau plunges into an unfamiliar world to rescue her clan, aided by her connection to the Yara, a mystical nature-force. In this series opener, Plum (the Die for Me books) introduces a resilient, crossbow-wielding, part-Chinese heroine, then forces this driven survivor to cooperate with a spoiled rich kid. Miles Blackwell seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of his CEO father by capturing Juneau, but he-s instead pulled into her attempt to find her people. Misunderstandings and betrayals abound as Juneau and Miles set off on a road trip through the West, coming to appreciate each other in a slow-moving, believable romance. Alternating first-person narrators let readers get to know intense Juneau from inside and out, while offering a window into Miles-s gradual maturation. Ages 13-up. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (May)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Raised to believe she was one of the few survivors of a nuclear war, 17-year-old Juneau is part of a tiny community of refugees in Alaska, isolated from the rest of the world. Juneau is training to be the next Sage and strengthening her mystical abilities. When her entire clan is kidnapped, she sets out to find them. She soon learns that men are searching for her, and she struggles to stay one step ahead of them while acclimating to modern civilization for the first time. In a parallel narrative, Miles, the son of one of Juneau's pursuers, decides to track her himself, hoping to impress his father. The fast-paced plot, rife with mystery, successfully moves the story forward. The initial setting of Juneau's camp is fully realized and portrayed in vivid detail. She is a tough, loyal, and smart protagonist and thoroughly developed while Miles is more two-dimensional. A romance develops between them, but some teens may question Juneau's interest in Miles, who is egocentric and has few redeeming qualities. Some plot devices feel contrived, straining readers' abilities to suspend disbelief, and the number of conveniently fortuitous coincidences may raise an eyebrow or two. Ultimately, however, the unique premise, strong protagonist, and action-packed story redeem the work. Fans of postapocalyptic fiction will enjoy this unusual not-quite-dystopian novel with a dose of corporate espionage. And the cliff-hanger ending will leave them eager for future installments. Julie Hanson, Chicago Public Library

Voice of Youth Advocates

Juneau grew up near Denali, Alaska, after World War III left Earth a nuclear wasteland. Her community centers itself around taking good care of the Earth and depending upon nature for everything they need. They are all specimens of extraordinary good health, as they do not age or grow ill. While out hunting, Juneau hears helicopters, which are signs of brigands, or looting hoards of radioactive people. She returns to her community to find there is no one left. Her connection with Earth's magic, or Yara, allows her the vision of everyone she knows being flown off in giant helicopters, a technology that was never supposed to have survived the war. As the only member of her community who has not been captured, she is charged with finding them and bringing them home. As she ventures out into the world beyond her community, she finds that things are not as she was taught, and now she has to question everything she thought she knew.A lot of things about this dystopian tale will sound familiar to teen readers. For example, a crossbow-equipped female main character with incredible wilderness survival skills holds sole responsibility for saving her family and community. For this reason, however, teens will jump at the opportunity to pick up this new dystopian series.Elisabeth W. Rauch.