The Consequence Girl

Alastair Chisholm's The Consequence Girl is an adventure for 10 year olds about a girl who can look back through time and see exactly why something happened.

What happens

Cora lives in a hidden cabin on a snowy mountainside with Seleen, who is tough, suspicious and not keen on visitors. They hunt rabbits, keep chickens and a goat called Juliet, and stay well away from the little town below.

Cora has a gift. When she "looks", she can follow a trail back from anything to what caused it. Why did the snare come loose? Because the rabbit pulled it. Why did it pull free? Because she forgot to thread the wire through the stake yesterday (she can see herself doing it).

Seleen's rule is simple. You Mustn't Look. No do-overs, no second chances. When you mess up, there are consequences.

Then Seleen goes down to town for supplies. While she's gone, Cora finds a boy with a hurt ankle and blood in his hair in the woods, calling for help. What would you do? Cora runs away. Then she lies awake all night. Then she drags him home on a sledge she makes from branches and ties him up in the cellar.

That's when the book really gets going. A snowstorm traps them both. Kai is chatty and cheerful and completely unbothered about being tied up, which Cora finds very annoying. He's also clearly hiding something. And when she spots strangers moving into an abandoned cabin across the valley, he knows exactly who their leader is.

It's got the feel of a proper survival story, with a real world behind it. There are cities called Base and Sheen, old technology left behind by people called the Glories that nobody understands any more, and a Governor who has been in charge for a very long time.

It does start with a tense prologue, set years before Cora's story. A woman takes back something precious from a crook who stole it, with a small crossbow and a thrown glass, and breaks one of his ribs. Her partner has been killed that morning (it happens off the page). Cora also kills rabbits from her snares with a rock, which she hates doing.

None of it's gory. For a reader who likes their adventures with a bit of an edge, it's a really gripping start.

What to read next

If they enjoy this author's way with a big idea, I Am Wolf is one for a year or so later, where giant metal animal machines roam the land and the story begins in the middle of a fight between two of them.