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C. S. Boyack

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Will O' the Wisp Kindle Edition

by C. S. Boyack (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.7 33 ratings

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There is something evil up Bergamot Holler, and it's been targeting the Hall family for generations.

Patty Hall is fifteen years old. She loves stargazing, science fiction, and all things related to space exploration. This leaves her perfectly prepared for the wrong problem.

Patty is afraid her mother will send her to a care facility if she tells her what she's seen. If she doesn't figure things out soon, she's going to join her father in the Hall family cemetery plot.

Patty has to come to grips with her own physical handicap, face the wilderness, and an ancient evil all alone if she's going to survive.

Will O' the Wisp is suitable for young adults. It involves elements of suspense, and is set in the mid 1970s.

Reading age

10 - 18 years
Print length

258 pages
Language

English
Publication date

March 14, 2015
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00UQNDT2C
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Amazon Digital Services, Inc. (March 14, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 14, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3562 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages

Customer Reviews:
4.7 33 ratings

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C. S. Boyack

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I was born in a town called Elko, Nevada. I like to tell everyone I was born in a small town in the 1940s. I'm not quite that old, but Elko has always been a little behind the times. This gives me a unique perspective of earlier times, and other ways of getting by. Some of this bleeds through into my fiction.

I moved to Idaho right after the turn of the century, and never looked back. My writing career was born here, with access to other writers and critique groups I jumped in with both feet.

I like to write about things that have something unusual. My works are in the realm of science fiction, paranormal, and fantasy. The goal is to entertain you for a few hours. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Craig

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Robbie Cheadle

A splendid read

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2017

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Patti Hall is a young girl of 15 years old, who is just starting her Freshman year in High School. She feels that she is a social outcast due to the braces she is forced to wear on her legs. She does, however, have two good friends, Laura and Pete. Patti is very interested in astronomy and likes to go star-gazing on the ridge near her home.

The Freshman are given a school project on their first day of school but instead of starting with the project immediately, Patti and Pete decide go up to the ridge and look at the stars. While they are up there they see an eerie ball of light and witness this strange light enter the body of a male surfer who is up on the ridge with his mates have a party. The boy falls to the ground and Patti and Pete run away in horror.

Laura and Pete question their families and find out that there are various stories and myths amongst the local community about this light. When Patti attends a football match she sees the surfer boy in a dishevelled and unkempt state and slathering water. This sighting prompts her to start researching this strange light as the subject of her school project. What will her research reveal about the Will ‘O the Wisp and how will her findings impact on Patti’s own life?

A fast paced story that starts off quickly and keeps you interested all the way through the book. Michael, aged eleven, found it a little bit scary in parts. Gregory, aged fourteen, found this to be a really good read and read the whole book within a few days.

From my own perspective, as an adult, I enjoyed the fact that this book highlighted typical social and family issues that would be experienced by a teenager with a physical disability. Patti experiences some bullying at the hands of her peers and has a Mother who, although loving, is a little bit lacking in her understanding of teenage angst and the workings and structures of teenage society.

3 people found this helpful

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John W. Howell

A Super Story for Young Adults and Adults

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016

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Will O' the Wisp is an exciting story told through the first-person narrative of Patti Hall a fifteen-year-old freshman in high school. She and her two friends Laura and Pete get caught up in what appears to be a plot to eliminate Patti. The story starts with Patti having a freshman writing assignment to do and the fact her uncle dies at the hand of a boy who she witnessed being possessed by a Will O’ the Wisp. While visiting the boy in jail (who continues to cough up water) Patti is unnerved when the boy screams, “You’re next.” While helping her mom clean out the uncle’s house, Patti comes across research that the uncle was doing on the Will O’ the Wisp. The finding triggers a keen desire to get to the bottom of things. Also, Mrs. Matthews, a school employee, is coughing up water and Patti believes the woman has been tapped to make the “You’re next,” threat a reality.

Will O' the Wisp is a fast-moving story that has a very exciting climax and rewarding epilog SQ UE finish. The interesting part of the story is although it is a YA fantasy tale it has enough nuance and symbolism to be much more. It could be that a young adult reading Will O’ the Wisp would take the excitement and fast moving plot on face value. When I read the story, I found some interesting metaphors relating to issues that teenagers face as well as the reactions of parents. Let’s suffice it to say, what you see in the story is not necessarily what you get. I felt a deeper message being conveyed by the author on social mores, religion, and authority. In short, this book goes beyond YA and should be enjoyable for anyone who loves a terrific plot that is beautifully written.

One person found this helpful

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Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko

Book Review of Will O’the Wisp by C. S. Boyack

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2015

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I wanted to read this book this halloween season to get the full impact of the story, and I chose well. The story itself can be said to be not too scary, but it is what Patty, the main character does in the story that is scary. Her actions were out of this world. And it was her actions that eventually solved a century old mystery.

Patty and her two friends, Laura and Pete seemed to live in their own isolated world where strange things happen. But Patty carried her search to such extremes, that sometimes I was left in disbelief that a young girl could plan, and take the kind of risks she took… her trip, alone, without permission, or knowledge of her parents to Washington… Finding herself locked up in an old enchanted library… Or is it her final exploit, the one that finally brought her face to face with the ghost of Widow Larkin, an ancient ghost who swore to haunt down and kill all the Halls.… I couldn’t believe that she would return to the old cemetery, at night, and all alone to confront her nemesis, but she did.

In the end, even her mother had to loosen the tight noose she had around her. The story is very interesting, and well written, but there were a few concerns I had. I took it as a matter of style, the author’s way of telling who is speaking before the person speaks. Otherwise, I enjoyed the story.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Barb Taub

YA that has it all--kickass heroine, retro 70s setting, curses, ghosts, and a new-fangled microwave.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2015

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I want to tell you all about this great book I just read. It’s about a girl whose family has been systematically picked off for generations by… [Crap! Spoiler.]

Maybe I could just say that C. S. Boyack’s Will O’ the Wisp is about a girl who discovers that her legacy from her murdered uncle is… [Darn! Again with the spoilers.]

Okay, let’s try this. Patty Hall is a fifteen-year-old high school freshman in the mid-1970s. She and her two best friends are the outcasts at Burkeford High. Laura was the tallest girl in their junior high, while Petey (“Just Pete now. We’re in high school and it’s time to grow up”) is one of the few black students at their Virginia high school. Patty herself has worn leg braces all her life, leading to the nickname Quacking Boot.

Like any coming-of-age story, Patty has conflicts with her mother over the braces—and of course, just about everything else in her life. She taunts her stepfather Rick with “I’ll bet my dad would’ve helped me out.” Her brother can’t help because he’s fighting in Viet Nam. Her two friends are moving away from her socially, with dates for the Homecoming dance. So she dreams of becoming an astronaut, freed from weak legs in the weightlessness of space—even though she realizes that all the astronauts were products of military schools that don’t accept women.

But this isn’t just a tale of angst-ridden teens overcoming handicaps and prejudice. When Patty and Pete stumble on a group of college students partying in the woods, they’re horrified to see one of them attacked by a glowing ball of light. As more deaths target her family, Patty’s search for information about the weird light becomes tied to her research into local and family history for the freshman report, her high school’s critical first-year assignment. She learns that her family has always seen the strange lights, which they call Will O’ the Wisp. She also starts to put together the untimely and unusual deaths of her father and almost all of his family back to Reverend Jonathan Hall, an early settler from more than three hundred years earlier. But Patty’s research becomes much more urgent when she realizes that she, her family, and her friends are also targets.

So far, all of that—glowing orbs of light, infected victims coughing up gallons of mucus, victims drowning on dry land—sounds like tales you’d tell around a campfire to scare your friends. But that’s where author C. S. Boyack changes the equation. He takes the Judy Blume-meets-Stephen King mashup and turns each trope upside down.

* Coming of age? Yes, there is the obligatory experimenting with drugs, fighting with parents, and all-important pivotal combat moment. But (it is the seventies, after all) the magically/ pharmaceutically-enhanced trip helpfully reveals a solution Patty couldn’t have found on her own. Her battles with her mother are tempered by Mom’s obvious if (through teen-aged lenses) overprotective love and concern. (“I wanted to talk to Mom, but I didn’t want her to think I wanted to talk.”) And some of the most lovely scenes in the book involve Patty’s growing bond with her stepfather Rick. His quiet support takes the form of teaching her to drive, challenging her physically, and then publicly acknowledging her achievements until she finally realizes what he means to her. “Rick wrote me out a permission slip, and it was legitimate. He was my father now.”

* Hero’s journey? Most interesting to me is the way Patty does a lot of this in reverse—she fights most of her battles in her own hometown, and with her own internal resources. That’s not to say that there isn’t one HELL of a fight against the Big Bad. But leave it to author Boyack to make that all about the seventies. I don’t know if those who haven’t lived through that decade could possibly enjoy Will O’ the Wisp as much as I did, but I have to say that I can remember our first microwave. We thought we were The Jetsons, and didn’t realize that we were dedicating a disproportionate share of countertop real estate to something that really wasn’t going to excel at much more than reheating coffee for at least another twenty years. I absolutely loved it that the witch’s spell was reheated in the microwave, and that Patty’s “skyclad” invocation was the Mashed Potato and the Swim danced to her transistor radio.

* Ghost Story? Oh, trust me—it’s good. But [curse you, spoilers!] you’ll have to get that part yourself.

If it was just the ghost story, I’d give this three stars for chills and some good suspense. But the way Patty grows over the short term of the story from a typical, whiny, self-centered teen to a… [damn! Not again..] I-can’t-tell-you-what-but-I-loved-it!, combined with the lovely touches that were so perfectly mid-1970s, makes this a five star read for me. If you like coming-of-age YA, or know a reader who appreciates a good ghost story, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Will O’ the Wisp.

*I received this book for free from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

One person found this helpful

Ali Isaac

Boyack's Best Yet!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 16, 2015

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Will o’ the Wisp is a paranormal YA novel set in mid seventies rural America and centres on a fifteen year old girl, Patty, and her slightly eccentric and dysfunctional family. I immediately sided with Patty; not only is she strong, and funny and clever, but she has to wear leg braces, which are the bane of her life. I identified with this, because my daughter wears them too.

The braces lead to exclusion and bullying in school and social life, and understandably, Patty freezes everyone out, allowing only two trusted confidantes across the barrier. On top of her emerging awareness as an adult, she shares a particularly complex relationship with her mother, which is hard to understand, or condone at times, but which adds an extra dimension of reality to the story. It is no wonder Patty seeks escapism in the stars, space and science-fiction.

However, a chance encounter with a phenomenon known as the Will o’ the Wisp leads to a frightening discovery about the fate of her own family, something only she can change.

Patty’s challenges with regard to her leg braces, her relationship with her mother, the highs and lows of her friendships and teenage life in general wind their cunning sub plots deliciously through the main thrust of the story.

In my view, this is Boyack’s best yet, his piece de resistance! All his characters are strong and well defined, but Craig has excelled in stepping into Patty’s shoes; he has produced a most convincing teen, likeable one minute, and annoying the next, a self-reliant, independent and free-thinking child of the seventies, an era which he has expertly and admirably reproduced in this story, and which is certain to bring back many memories for many readers.

Although this story is classified as YA, I recommend it to anyone who is still young at heart (or who can at least still remember how being young felt).

Harmony Kent

Great YA Urban Fantasy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2015

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Will O' the Wisp is a Young Adult Urban Fantasy novel set in the 1970s. Patty Hall is fifteen, stuck in leg braces, a fan of science fiction, and reaching that rebellious stage. One night, while stargazing, she finds more than she'd bargained for, or ever knew existed. Her love of sci-fi leads her down the wrong path for a while, and she has to work out what is actually going on if she is to avoid being murdered like every other generation of the Hall family. Something evil lurks in Bergamot Holler, and it has its sights set on Patty, but what is it?

I loved this book, and it had something to offer on every page. Patty, and indeed all the characters, are drawn excellently and I cared what happened to them all. The world building, plot, pacing, and character development were brilliant. One minor annoyance was when sat and set were mixed up ... this is one of my pet hates ... but honestly, the rest of the book is so good it stopped mattering all that much. The author has obviously done a lot of research into the 70s and the culture, food, tv programs, etc., and the whole thing has an incredibly authentic feel to it. This is the second book of this author that I have read, and I may just have found a new writer to keep on reading! A good 5 out of 5 stars from me.

Chris Graham

An enjoyable and easy read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2019

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A spooky tale, set in the 1970’s, but related to events that started with settlers in the Eastern States in the late 1680’s.