Synopsis
of Skin Deep by Joy Creech
At first Rowan thinks she is going
crazy when she starts seeing odd and frightening creatures in the world around
her. People don’t always appear as,
well, just people to her. Sometimes
Rowan glimpses the faces of otherworldly creatures and beasts behind human
faces. It all starts the night she meets
Xander Alston. He visits the pub where
Rowan is a waitress in Danton, North Carolina and as she hands him his receipt
his skin appears to change into reptilian scales. There is another world, an old Scandinavian
world, hidden within the modern world around them, Xander tells her.
Rowan is not sure if she believes
the fantastic stories Xander tells her or if she believes that she is a part of
that other world, but Xander is not the only one to try to convince her. A strange wizard named Loke Hemming finds
Rowan and tells her that she is one of these Scandinavian creatures, or Vatte
as they call themselves. He tells her
that she is a Huldre and asks for her help in finding an old powerful artifact. He is trying to find a special book called
Cyprianus for his mysterious and nameless employer. Loke doesn’t give Rowan much chance to decide
for herself; he kidnaps her. Rowan is
barely able to escape and is found by Xander, but he has been poisoned by one
of Loke’s minions. Feeling responsible,
she consents to take Xander to get help at his cousin, Gunnar Gustaf’s, house
in the North Carolina Mountains.
Xander’s condition becomes increasingly hopeless and Winston Isac, the
dwarf who is a Vatte doctor, can do nothing, and so Rowan decides to trade
herself for the antidote. As soon as
Loke has Rowan back he whisks her off to Sweden and to a city on its coast
known by locals as the City of Draugs.
One of Rowan’s gifts as a Huldre is
being able to communicate with all Vatte creatures, and that is why Loke needs
her. Rowan soon finds out that Draugs
are actually Vatte ghosts and that the run down old town on the Swedish coast is
full of them. Loke wants to use her to
get information about the location of Cyprianus from the Draugs. When Rowan realizes Cyprianus is a source of
great evil she refuses to be a part of Loke’s plans and eventually escapes to
the Swedish mountains where she finds a handsome and magical violin player
named Klos who decides to help her find Cyprianus before Loke does. Although they are unsure what Loke’s plans
are, they both agree that letting such an evil, powerful artifact fall into the
hands of the crazed wizard is extremely dangerous.
Xander
finally finds Rowan in Sweden and together with Winston and Klos they decide to
make a trip to visit Rowan’s adopted parents in her hometown of Holland,
Michigan where they have reason to suspect they will find some answers as to
the whereabouts of Cyprianus. They also
hope to piece together the reason behind why Loke wants the artifact. Back in her hometown Rowan finds the answers
she is looking for, but they are not answers she is happy with. The whereabouts of Cyprianus is a lot closer
to home than Rowan would have guessed or wanted and the truth is horrifying.
Cyprianus
is the key to her past and her very existence, and as Rowan struggles to come
to terms with her new reality she must fight Cyprianus and the man that
murdered her birth mother. She must stop
them both from creating a frenzied panic by revealing the existence of Vatte to
the rest of civilization. She must force
herself to look beyond her own dark demons and her growing love for the two men
who have chosen to stand beside her, Xander and Klos. And ultimately, she must save not just one but
two worlds.
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