Grounded for All Eternity

Dark fantasy collides with Dante-esque imagery in debut author Marks’s nail-biting occult adventure, in which a fateful act of rebellion strands an adolescent group of literal hell’s angels on Earth. In the infernal suburbs, black-winged middle schooler Malachi is on a school holiday before following in his parents’ footsteps and becoming a “power”—a guardian of damned souls held in one of nine Dante-inspired circles. But vacation is rendered boring when an especially dangerous soul, puritan minister Samuel Parris—who acted as a ringleader during the Salem witch trials—escapes from hell’s eighth circle (which houses manipulators), resulting in a lockdown. After stumbling through a thin interdimensional veil on Samhain, Mal, along with close friends and fellow fledgling powers Crowley and Lilith, become stuck in Salem, Mass., having unknowingly let another party—Parris—through the veil. Already simmering tensions heighten as the group test their training and friendship, desperate to return Parris to his prison and frantically navigating hell’s bureaucracy in search of a way home. Though characterizations can be thinly rendered, a breakneck plot, rousing fight scenes, and light romance drive this action-forward fantasy with a unique premise. Characters read as white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Victoria Wells Arms, Wells Arms Literary/HG Literary. (July)