The Sterkarm Handshake

New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket. 2000. Stated First Edition. First Printing. Hard Cover. 0060293926 . Publisher's full black boards, gilt (blue) lettering on spine, gilt (blue) lettering and design on cover, fore-edge deckle, gray endpapers. Includes Glossary. Price's gripping time-travel adventure, a 1999 Carnegie Medal finalist, cleverly imagines a startling collision of 21st-century technology and 16th-century mores. A British corporation called FUP has built a time machine, planning to mine pre-industrialized land for gold and oil and eventually turn it into a resort. But the Sterkarms, one of the warring families inhabiting the Scottish and English border "16th side," won't cooperate; they keep robbing FUP survey teams. Tensions escalate when FUP's power-hungry boss, Windsor, kidnaps Per, the only son of a Sterkarm lord. Making matters even more complicated, Per and Andrea, an FUP employee sent back in time to live with the Sterkarms, have fallen in love. Both parties question her loyalty, and she faces the impossible task of choosing with whom to side. While Price builds the drama well, her story lags at certain points; adults should know there's some sexual banter. These caveats aside, Price does a masterly job of blending fact and fiction, straddling two time periods and rotating through several characters' points of view. Readers will be engrossed, unable to rest until they know how the author resolves the seemingly insoluble conflicts. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize in England, Susan Price's The Sterkarm Handshake--a richly textured love story, a vivid and sometimes humorous portrayal of confrontation between cultures, and a thumping good page-turner--should find enthusiastic fans among teen-fantasy and time-travel buffs. Ages 12-up.. Spine slightly worn at heel, top corners slightly bumped, top and bottom edges lightly soiled, library markings on ffep, else fine. The unclipped dust jacket has small tear and is rubbed and creased, else fine. VERY GOOD+/VERY GOOD. . Ex-Library. Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall. (vi), 448 pp .