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    Chime
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    Chime
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    Chime
    Audiobook10 hours

    Chime

    Written by Franny Billingsley

    Narrated by Susan Duerden

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "Romantic, mysterious, and wildly inventive. I adored every gorgeous word."-Nancy Werlin, author of Impossible and Extraordinary
     
    Briony has a secret. She believes her secret killed her stepmother, destroyed her twin sister's mind, and threatens all the children in the Swampsea. She yearns to be rid of her terrible secret, but risks being hanged if she tells a soul. That's what happens to witches: They're hanged by the neck until dead.

    Then Eldric arrives-Eldric with his golden mane and lion eyes and electric energy-and he refuses to believe anything dark about Briony. But he wonders what's been buried beneath her self-hatred, hidden in Rose's mangled thoughts, and whispered about by the Old Ones. And Briony wonders how Eldric can make her want to cry. Especially when everyone knows that witches can't cry.

    A wild, haunting mystery and romance that is as beautifully written as it is captivating.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 22, 2011
    ISBN9780307915207
    Unavailable
    Chime
    Author

    Franny Billingsley

    Franny's first novel for Bloomsbury, The Folk Keeper, was awarded many US prizes including Notable Children's Book and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Best Book of the Year (School Library Journal). Franny lives in her home town of Chicago with her husband and two children. She was a children's book buyer for over ten years, but now writes full time.

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    Reviews for Chime

    4/5

    415 ratings96 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Reading this book was a chore, I won't lie. It was like rolling a huge boulder up a very steep hill. The end was worth it, it really was. I was almost about to give this book a bad rating, but it turns out the long and painfully slow journey was worth it.
    • 4/5
      The narrator, Briony, believes herself to blame for all of her family's misfortunes. She hates herself, having been told by her stepmother that she is a witch. Briony can see and talk to spirits, Brownies, and dangerous others who lurk in the swamp, something only a witch should be able to do.Briony doesn't want to be hanged, but she believes she should be. She believes she is evil. But then Eldric comes, and brings with him thoughts and ideas Briony never thought possible.Billingsley has a great gift for language, and spins a beautiful story. There is an underlying thread of mystery throughout that makes you have to keep reading, to find out the truth.
    • 5/5
      Chime is Briony's story, a self-proclaimed witch with many hidden secrets. Briony has been taught many different things growing up as a pastor's daughter but the one thing that really has stuck with her is that witches are evil, and the reality in the swamp where she lives is that anyone found to be a witch is hung. This is where her story begins...This book instantly swept me into its' pages from the first page. At the very beginning of the book, Briony tells us that she is a witch and that because she is a witch her anger causes her to hurt the ones that she loves. This is her secret that she carries with her and that plays a huge role in this book. Even though Briony shares her "horrible" secret with the reader, well...I couldn't help but like her. She was one of those characters that I instantly connected with and the relationship that she had with Eldric just felt real to me. Both the characters and the storyline were well developed in this novel. The author's writing had a magical quality to it that spoke of fairy tales while being both haunting and captivating at the same time. It was a book that I couldn't get enough of and found myself wrapped up in throughout. The ending was satisfying and unexpected which made the book all the better in my opinion. I really enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it!Bottom Line: A wonderful read that swept me away in its' pages!Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book for review from the publisher. My thanks!
    • 3/5
      I had difficulty getting into this book. Although the story is unique, it is difficult to follow. Transitions in the story felt choppy and I wasn't real impressed with this book. I see that others either really love or really dislike this book. It just wasn't for me.
    • 4/5
      A magical tale, a love story, betrayal, sisterly love, Old ones and Dark Muses - all this neatly wrapped up in this fabulous story. Briony Larkin is a witch something she has hidden from everyone including her twin sister Rose. But when Eldric comes to Swampsea her life is turned sideways and the finally the truth is revealed.

      I had such a hard time putting this book down and really itched to read it cover to cover immediately. It was well written, suspenseful and made you really feel. The characters were painfully real and the setting was so fitting. The swamp was mysterious and dangerous and Briony was so immensely likeable. Fab!!

    • 4/5
      Oh, Chime how I love thee! Somewhere in the countryside of early 20th century England (the time and place remain elusive) Briony Larkin believes she's a witch. She mentally handicapped her lovely twin Rose and injured her Stepmother, who has taught her the ways of the Old Ones who live in the nearby swamp and instructed her to guard her secret. Full of self-loathing, Briony tries to do good despite knowing she's wicked.

      Briony is one of the more unique protagonists I've read about in a while, and her voice shines throughout Chime. Billingsley writes from her perspective in the most beautiful and surprising prose. Her descriptions are unexpected but wonderful; for example, when Briony admits she feels sexual urges she says, it would be assumed that a young lady had no such impulses at all, but I'll tell you something: Chocolate melts on my tongue too. I never would have thought to describe it like that, but it's just so right. I can feel the meaning; it's palpable. Briony is clever, funny, and loyal, but she is very flawed due to her witchy past. Reading in her voice the entire novel is a treat because we closely witness her gradual improvement.

      In addition to Briony's awesomeness, we have Eldric, who I should be ashamed for not mentioning yet. Eldric is, of course, the self- proclaimed bad boy who serves as a love interest for our heroine. Parting from the tradition of YA bad boys and lovers, however, Eldric is actually sweet, kind, and non-misogynistic. He plays with local kids, speaks horrible Latin, teaches Briony to box, and charms Rose, Briony's lovely disabled sister, making him an easy favorite for my most swoonworthy YA boy in 2012. There is no insta-love here, and the friendship between Briony and Eldric is pure fun. When the romance develops, it does so with hardship, for Briony is damaged and feels unworthy of love. At first I struggled with this aspect of Chime; Briony needs and wants to be taken care of like a child by Eldric. I find this to bring up an interesting question I struggle with in literature and real life: if a woman wants to be strong and independent, is it okay for her to be taken care of and, more importantly, to want to be taken care by a man? It seems a bit anti-feminist, but I found Briony's answer to this question acceptable after some thought. She takes care of Eldric as well, and she only desires Eldric's care due to extenuating circumstances from her past.

      My only complaint about the novel concerns its plot. Much of the plot involves the gradual unfolding of Briony's mysterious past; however, the truth of her past was obvious to me and I guessed most of what happened way before it was revealed. It is for this reason that I deducted one star from my rating. A bit more plot complexity, and Chime would have been a new all-time favorite. My foreknowledge did not ruin my overall enjoyment of the book, considering I still loved the romance, original voice and atmospheric setting. What I appreciated most, though, was the trajectory of Briony's character throughout the novel. At its core, Chime is about recovery from childhood trauma and finding a way to move forward in adulthood. This journey encapsulates the entire novel, coming to fruition in the final, beautiful paragraph. I love it so much, I'm putting it in a spoiler tag below, because I think it represents everything I loved about this book.

      We walk to the motorcar. I step on the running board, but he catches at me.

      "I love you."

      Word magic. If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world?
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderfully thought provoking novel. Briony's step-mother had brought her up blaming her for all the bad things that had befallen the entire family. Making sure the Briony also blamed herself. Over the course of the book, not only does Briony come to realize that is not true but she finds her own true worth. This is a wonder book about redemption and of self discovery.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely adored this book. Everything about it was phenomenal. The author's use of language is genius and thrilling for the reader to interpret. I highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      This is an exceedingly well written and thought provoking book. Especially for the genre it is in. There are so many poorly written, shallow YA books out right now. Books that largely consist of a love triangle or a summer romance that do not deign to go deeper than such things. Not that there is anything at all wrong with these kinds of books, I read and love them too; however, it is very nice to see that there are still challenging, artistic YA books being published like Chime. It is really too bad that this book is receiving such a low rating, though it is understandable. It is a quirky book that is just not going to sit well with a lot of people. The good news is, I think it will be very easy for you to tell whether this is a book for you from the sample. I knew I would love it from it's very first pages.

      P.S. The cover shown here does a terrible job of expressing what this book is all about.
    • 3/5
      I have to be honest and say that I couldn't finish Chime. While the language is absolutely gorgeous in some places, the pedantic pace of the narrative was much too slow to keep my attention, and I'm a fan of slow-moving classic novels. But I know many others who've absolutely loved this book, so I'm going to say this is a book that's just not for me. The beautiful prose, however, deserves at least three stars, so there's that.
    • 5/5
      This book is a masterpiece. The eerie narrative is uncomfortable and chafes at the subconcious. There is a wrongness that sets the reader on edge. That same wrongness keeps you reading in hopes of abating your unease.

      Briony is not likeable. She is not the typical strong and righteous heroine. She loathes herself and it makes you wonder just how horrible she is or has been. You worry for the characters around her. She is not right in the head, yet she is good at keeping a "normal" mask.




    • 4/5
      It's the early 20th Century, but it's a world unlike ours, there's witches and magic and supernatural creatures (vampires are mentioned but don't really appear, then again it's dependent on your definition of vampires). Witches are hung and legend says that they turn to dust after they die, but many who are accused and found to be witches are not turning to dust.Briony starts the novel saying that she's guilty of witchcraft and would like to be hung, please, but as the story unfolds and as it travells backwards you discover that that's not the whole story, as the story unfolds and you see that Briony has taken a lot of burdens on herself, not the least of which is the responsibility for her sister, Rose, who is a challenge. She's obsessive and disruptive and Briony blames herself for her twins problems.But at the end of it Briony is shown to be an unreliable, if poetic, narrator and when everything resolves itself you know that she doesn't mean it and she believes what she has said before.It's a really good read, an interesting read and the way it's written was so good. I just wish they weren't talking about a fatal cough while I was coughing my way through the book.
    • 4/5
      What a treat! A gripping story, marvelous characters, madly inventive language, supernatural romance. I thought the ending was a little unbelievable for the world Billingsley created--seems like a gung-ho pitchforks-and-blazing-torches town that dismisses the death of an innocent with an "oh, well" wouldn't have been so concerned about justice in the end. But I got the ending I craved so no complaints here.
    • 5/5
      Briony Larkin is a witch -- she says so from the beginning -- and this story is her confession. I probably ought to warn you, though, that Briony is not the most reliable narrator in the world, so you might want to look and listen carefully to the rest of her story, and draw your own conclusions.I'd further summarize the plot, but I've probably already given too much away. To me, this book read like a puzzle. I managed to put some pieces together well before the end, while others were a surprise to me. There's one place where I thought the author broke her own rules for the world of the story, but to say more about that would be to give away one of the book's big secrets, so I won't. All in all, though, I thought this was a well-written story with good world-building and an interesting main character. I didn't exactly like Briony, but I was fascinated to see what she would do next. I'd say I connected with this book on an intellectual level rather than an emotional one. I'd recommend it, especially if you like creepy, atmospheric fantasy.
    • 3/5
      I am such a fan of this author. I loved her other two books for middle graders, so I was very excited to get hold of her most recent. And there is a lot to like. It is well written, the main character is believable and vibrant, and the author has created an interesting supernatural world in the swamp that the main character lives near. I found it a little difficult to situate the human part of her world in time -- the reference to women smoking cigarettes made me think it might be 1920s, but everything else sound more like 1890s. But my least favorite part of the book is the extremely heavy aura of angst and self loathing that overpowers the narrative. For me, though, you can put this down to my preference for middle grade over YA. The teen audience may love it.
    • 4/5
      The story was interesting & the writing beautiful, almost lyrical at times. I really enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      In the early 1900s in the town of Swampsea, 17 yr old Briony, who can see the spriits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's childhood injury as well as her stepmother's injury that led to her eventual death. Then Eldric arrives as a houseguest and questions Briony's assumptions about her wicked self. Briony slowly uncovers secrets her stepmother hid from her and by the end of the book, her self-perception has begun to change. Anachronistic speech which feels much older than the era portrayed. Sense of "magical realism" mixed in that felt "off" to me as well as the verrrrrrry slow reveal.
    • 5/5
      Briony believes herself to be a witch who has caused her sister’s brain damage and her stepmother’s injury and later, death. True, she can see the old ones, and speak with them, and walk through the swamplands in safety where others would sink and drown. She knows she needs to stop the draining of the swamp so the Bogeyman will stop killing people, but if she is exposed as a witch, she will be hanged. Then a beautiful young man named Eldric comes to the swamp. He can make her laugh and cry and love, even though witches can’t cry or love, and he is determined to find out the truth of what is happening to Briony.
    • 3/5
      This one took some getting into -- the language is eccentric and the story line a bit wandering. On the whole, I liked it, although it is uncomfortable to read a character who loathes herself so much.
    • 1/5
      teen fiction; witches/paranormal romance. Briony's voice is emotionally detached and calculated--sort of like she's an autistic savant, but there's absolutely nothing charming or endearing or even very interesting about it. I found her to be annoying, and gave up on the book a few chapters in.
    • 4/5
      Chime tells the story of a young witch who is sacrificing her present happiness for her past sins, while keeping her own neck out of a hangman's noose. Grieving for her stepmother and caring for her (autistic?) sister, Briony leaves little time for herself, and rejects anything that "ordinary" girls may be interested in. That is, until a young man comes to live with her father, and changes her perception of her own past.Wait, that sounds like far more of a horrible love story than this actually is. In truth, Briony is far too self-centered to even consider a romantic interest for much of the story. Filled with fairy tales and deceit, Chime is largely fascinating for the point of view, which is that of a young woman who believes she's guilty, and says as much before the crimes are even presented. Although the plot is fairly predictable, I enjoyed the book primarily for this point of view, and the exploration of memory.
    • 5/5
      Briony Larkin is wicked. She’s had to live all 17 years of her life with the knowledge that she was responsible for her identical twin sister Rose’s brain defect and her Stepmother’s death. That’s because Briony is a witch: she can see the Old Ones, the magical creatures that live in and near the swamp, and if anyone in the Swampsea finds out that she’s a witch, then she will be hanged.When Eldric arrives in the Swampsea, he is like a breath of fresh air in Briony’s life. Eldric makes her come alive in ways she didn’t even know she could anymore. But witches don’t love, and witches don’t cry, and if Eldric doesn’t watch out, Briony’s going to be the cause of his death.CHIME has received countless starred reviews and a nearly equal array of praise and protestation from bloggers. Suffice it to say that I went into this book with equal parts anticipation and trepidation. A book couldn’t possibly live up to all that praise, I thought. At best, I thought, I will like this book, but I won’t love it.But oh, I loved it. Oh, how I did. CHIME completely won me over, and I am in nonstop raptures about its genius. Seriously. It might be a good thing you are not in my vicinity right now. Otherwise I’d be floating and spinning in circles around you in my enrapturement.When I say that CHIME won me over, it really did have to win me over. The first 150 or so pages were craAaAaAaAazy! I was really confused, because the book throws us right in the middle of Briony’s narration, and she’s not exactly the most objective of narrators. She is a great example of a successful unreliable narrator, because everything she narrates is colored by her own charged perception of things.Briony is so vehement in her self-hatred that she very nearly makes us hate her as well. A person who spends her whole life thinking that she’s wicked and hating herself will obviously have a great deal of trouble thinking otherwise. And yet Briony also has a wicked sense of humor—and by “wicked,” I mean in the best way possible. She is like a magical, irresistible combination of Anne Shirley’s whimsy and—well, I can’t think of who her wit is like, but yeah, she’s a combination of wit and whimsy, which makes her completely and utterly cool.Briony’s narration may be confusing at first, but if you give yourself a solid chunk of time to read CHIME, by page 200 you will be so engrossed in these characters’ stories that you will not want to put this book down. Perhaps most incredible is how well we come to know and love supporting characters such as Eldric and Rose through Briony’s voice. Eldric, the boy-man with an irrepressible love of kind-hearted playing. Rose, brain-damaged but still beautifully artistic, and all the more precious for her unique and childlike take on the world. CHIME celebrates childhood and play, and suggests that the best kind of love comes from these nearly magical moments of youthfulness.There is so much more I could say about CHIME, and so much more within this book that deserves to be talked about. But I could go on and on for pages and pages, and nothing would compare to reading this book yourself, to see if it is, too, your brand of magic. I wasn’t expecting to love CHIME, but now it’s one of my favorite books of all time, an impressive accomplishment of writing magic. Now excuse me, while I go and reread it.
    • 5/5
      I fell in love with this magical book. CHIME is unique, funny and utterly original and completely deserving of the 6 starred reviews it has earned. The characters are eccentrically wonderful and the story is charmingly written and full of surprises. CHIME is a YA paranormal historical set in Swampsea village in turn of the century England. It includes fantasy and romantic elements that captivated me from start to finish. In addition to the mystery and romance, mystical creatures including Witches, Dark Muses, and Old Ones help to set the stage.The characters in CHIME really bring the story to life. Briony is unusual in that she is self-loathing, but with a witty and clever sense of humor. As a narrator she is at times misleading as she leaves out some details. Briony believes she is a witch and that she is responsible for the sickness and death that have fallen upon her family. She keeps her fears to herself to avoid a witch’s prosecution. Briony carries around a lot of guilt for the pain she believes she causes to those around her. She feels a terrible responsibility to protect the swamp creatures whose lives are threatened by the plans for the railroad that threaten their swamp home. She must stop the progress of the railroad before more children can be cursed with the dreaded swamp cough.Briony starts to see herself in a new light when Eldric arrives to live with her family. Eldric is a burst of sunshine in Briony’s life that refuses to believe anything negative about her. The relationship between Eldric and Briony is very sweet and unique and one of my favorite parts of the book. They have a fun banter and respect for one another. Briony lives with her father and her identical twin sister named Rose who has some charming quirks about her. Rose is another one of my favorite characters that made me smile with her off the wall behavior. Their stepmother recently died under mysterious circumstances, and it seems like Rose knows more than she lets on.The fantasy elements add a dark and eerie sensibility to the story. Briony tries to stifle her witch side, but keeps getting pulled into the supernatural world by the creatures that follow her around.CHIME is a lovely and inventive story that is sure to appeal to fans of YA fantasy and fans of adult fiction. As soon as I finished the story I wanted to start reading it again. CHIME is one of my favorite reads so far this year.
    • 5/5
      Find this review and more at On The Shelf!This book was wonderful! This one will definitely find it’s place on my Favorite Reads page. Chime is an amazingly written tale that weaves a magical world and mystery throughout it. There are so many secrets to unlock in this story with some surprising turn of events. I did figure out a big discovery, but it didn’t make it any less enjoyable when the secret was revealed. The writing was beautiful for this novel and the author is a painter with words! It was perfectly written to give you the feel of being in an old town back in the days of witch trials and magic. Briony’s voice is so rich and honest; she was a great main character. She is a very strong female and looks out for others she cares about, especially her sister Rose, who was also a great character and brought a lot of quirkiness to the story. As for Eldric, he was quite chivalrious and was so protective over Briony, you couldn’t help but like him. And Cecil was one of the characters that you like to hate. The reader for this book was fantastic as well and probably the second best reader I’ve heard so far. Her English accent really made it feel like I was in way-back-when England and her voice changes were great for the different characters. There was no point that I felt she was flat or boring. The language usage was very unique. There was a lot of purposeful repetition that made points more powerful or made things stand out better, and the descriptions were unlike a lot of what I’ve read, so it was new and great. The story itself was incredible! There was a lot to it that was powerful and beautiful and nerve-wrecking. I look forward to the author’s other works. Great characters, awesome story, powerful, beautifully written, wonderfully witchy tale!
    • 4/5
      Briony and her sister live in a strange swampy backwater of England in an early 20th century that still hangs witches. She can see the magical creatures of the bogs, but had been warned against telling by her late stepmother. She's an unreliable narrator and the story is wholly filtered through her jumbled and fanciful adolescent mind. The truth of her situation is fairly obvious to the reader so it is a little frustrating to watch her struggle. Billingsly manages to make her quirky trains of thought charming along with her preferred beau - for it is a romance also. The reader does well with the voices and I stayed in bed on a Sunday morning to enjoy the end.
    • 1/5
      I have a soft spot for witches.




      I have always been fascinated with witch stories. Simply spying the word in a book blurb can make me sit up and take notice, (oddly enough, the word Werewolf usually makes me stop reading a blurb with disgust - an instinct that I should have listened to when I picked up Shiver. Damn you Stiefvater! Also, damn you for having a name that I have to check for spelling every time I want to curse you. But, I digress).

      Briony is a witch. At least, she tells you she is a witch. However, other than talk to a few people no one else can see she doesn't actually DO anything witchy. At the beginning, this brings out minor annoyance in me, prompting me to tell Briony "Come on, talk to the old ones, write their stories, do a spell - it's not so bad, you'll like it!". About halfway through the book, my irritation gives way to anger at how much of my time this book is wasting and my pleas get a little more dark: "Oh, you don't like that chick? Let's kill her!" and get more and more desperate "Come on, Just kill her! Maim her? Give her Boils? .... Hives? ... One, little, pimple?"

      "DO SOMETHING"


      The writing itself is strange. Just when I think I have a handle on what is going on, Billingsley throws out something that leaves me flicking pages trying to figure out what I missed. She goes off on random tangents that have nothing to do with the storyline and only serve to add to my annoyance (see above). The plot points that are supposed to stun and shock me only leave me shaking my head and asking "You're just figuring this out NOW??? Where were you 100 pages ago?!"

      The only character that I enjoyed was Rose, and there was far to little of her. Briony's self hatred made me feel like I was reading a 13 year old's emo poetry and Eldric's constant figeting was more irritating than endearing.

      The word that came to mind throughout this entire book was Tedious. I found myself forcing time to read it when I would much rather be doing something more enjoyable like, oh I don't know, taking a bath in a tub full of razor blades.

      Teaching Note: While I am not sure any of my Junior High students would appreciate the quirky writing style, I might recommend it to a grade 9 student due to the difficulty and one scene of *almost* sex

      This review can also be found at Reading Between Classes
    • 5/5
      Excellent read !
      Highly recommend this novel.
    • 5/5
      This book was provided to me as an audiobook by the library, because the library is awesome.Briony has a secret. It is a secret that killed her stepmother, ruined her sister's mind, and will end her life, if anyone were to know. She has powers. Then Eldric comes along with his golden lion eyes and a great mane of tawny hair. He is as natural as the sun, and he treats her as if she is extraordinary. And everything starts to change . . .Hear me now and know these words I type are true: This. Book. Is. Awesome.The Chosen One. It’s a common device in the world of fantasy books. While it can be a great tool in the hands of a thoughtful author, after a while one wants something different. Chime is something different. Briony Larkin is, without a doubt, something different. Briony is far and away one of the most engaging and relatable characters I have ever read. Her sister Rose and love interest Eldric are right up there with her. I’ve always smirked at girls talking about “book boyfriends”, but I kind of get it now. These characters are in my head and in my heart. The story is enthralling, twisty, and gives away everything and nothing at the same time. The moment I thought I had it all worked out, there was a new element that I never saw coming. So good! The audiobook narration by Susan Duerden, was very well done. Ms. Duerden does an excellent job of conveying the characters’ emotions. The tonal differentiation between the characters was so well done that I knew which character was speaking without any additional explanation. I look forward to listening to any book narrated by Ms. Duerden.I recommend Chime to anyone over the age of 14. Some scenes might be considered scary to more sensitive readers. There is some alcohol consumption, talk of drug use (arsenic), and poisoning (arsenic), but there is only vague mention of sex.
    • 5/5
      Really different. Morose and macabre initially---overtones of Wuthering Heights. Layered and complex in a way that creates intrigue and suspense. The role others play in in understanding the truth about ourselves is the theme.
    • 5/5
      Chime starts off with a bang and then slowly draws you in with its lyrical, hauntingly beautiful writing and mysterious characters. The protagonist Briony isn’t particularly sympathetic at first, but as the story unfolds, so does the depths of her emotional and psychological trauma. I eventually came to love Briony and her rocky relationships with Rose, Eldric, and her father. Briony’s story is as raw and painful as it is insightful, especially in regard to abuse, guilt, self-loathing, love, fear, and memory. The romance develops organically - no insta-love here - and is far from sweetness and light, even at the end.But perhaps what I loved best about this novel is the world Billingsley so deftly crafts. The Swampsea is a such a vivid setting - creepy, perilous, magical, and lovely, all at once. My only criticism is that the big mystery isn’t really a big mystery at all; most readers will have guessed the ultimate revelation early on. However, I still enjoyed this book immensely, savoring every description, every poignant moment. Both chilling and heart-wrenching, Chime is an excellent romantic young adult fantasy. I highly recommend it.