Another Faust kept coming up on my library searches and popped up in Amazon’s recommendations.  The novel, listed as YA dark fantasy, didn’t sound like something I’d care for.

The blurb was not appealing: “One night, in cities all across Europe, five children vanish only to appear, years later, at an exclusive New York party with a strange and elegant governess.” However, Another Faust was good and I enjoyed it.

The book starts with vignettes where four of the five children face their deepest fears and desires. Madame Vileroy meets each of the four and offers a bargain. They can come live with her, give up something small, and she will make their fears disappear and their deepest wants come true.

Of course, like any bargain with the devil, what the children gave away was far more important than what they received, and what they received was flawed and dangerous.

Victoria wanted to win, to be the smartest, know the most, win at anything that required intellectual prowess. What she really wanted was to be loved and be special to someone. What she received from Madame Villeroy was the ability to listen to others’ thoughts, to find what almost anyone said or did. What she lost was honor, empathy, a sense of fair play, a value for others. She became unpleasant and unlikable.

Belle wanted to be beautiful. At 10 she was already attractive but she wanted desperately to be beyond pretty. She bargained herself and her twin sister Bice and received beauty but at a horrible price. Underneath her beautiful exterior she hid rotting flesh and spirit. And she smelled. She stank of rot and sewage. Of course Madame Villeroy had a cure for that, but again, the cure was barely superficial and the cost was high.

Belle’s twin Bice was not swept up by her own desire. But she too traded. She traded time for learning.

Christian was desperately poor. He feared poverty and wanted to excel at sports to become rich. He traded himself for the ability to steal, however slight, from others with more talent, more ability. Madame Villeroy gave him a dummy man to practice on and a coffin-like chamber to rest and restore his body. Christian puts aside his dreams of being a writer to pursue fortune on the sports field.

Valentin also wanted to win, to be loved, to count for something. He dreamt of being a famous poet. He traded his anchor in time and place for the ability to unwind time and change events, for the illusion of success.

As the novel progresses we see how each of the children, now 15 years old and enrolled in the most exclusive school in New York, realize the poor bargain they made, face the fact that they sold their soul for nothing and what they decide to do about it. Three of them escape, albeit at a very high price, and two remain behind, hopefully to learn later as they grow that they can leave and that they can retrieve their souls.

One point I particularly enjoyed about the book was the way the authors treated “selling your soul to the devil”. The three children who escape realize that the sale is not like selling your house. Instead it is a day-by-day decision and a process of giving away small pieces of yourself over time. This is less dramatic than in “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, but far more likely to be the way it works. You don’t damn yourself in one dramatic action but in small steps, small losses, small cheats, small choices over the course of your life.

I highly recommend this novel to adults or older teens.

4 Stars