Flowerheart: A Review

A version of this review originally appeared in Horn Book:

Clara Lucas spent five years training to become a witch through a series of apprenticeships with increasingly disastrous results. Unable to control her magic for even basic spells, Clara is given a choice by the Most Esteemed Council of Magicians who govern all magic in the queendom: have her magic bound (leaving her able to access only a fraction of her power with painful consequences for every spell) or have her magic removed entirely.

Clara is willing to suffer the binding to keep her wild magic. Until her touch causes toxic flowers to grow from her father’s chest and poison his blood–a curse that only Clara can heal with a complex blessing requiring perfect magical control. Desperate to save the only parent she’s ever known, Clara seeks help from her estranged childhood friend Xavier Morwyn.

Newly appointed to the magical council, sixteen-year-old Xavier is willing to train Clara if she agrees to give her magic to him once the blessing is completed. Unwilling to risk harming anyone else makes the bargain an easy choice until Clara begins to understand her magic and learns more of Xavier’s motives and his own mission to find a cure for an illegal and dangerous potion originally intended to treat melancholy in Flowerheart (2023) by Catherine Bakewell.

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Flowerheart is Bakewell’s YA debut. Clara and Xavier are cued as white in this inclusive world where LGBTQ+ identities (including bisexual Clara) are embraced and celebrated with transgender and nonbinary secondary characters who are accomplished and conscientious magicians.

As Clara embraces her magic, its voice which always told her the “worst parts” of herself and “brought [her] low” becomes easier to bear and to control. Completing the blessing is only the beginning of Clara’s journey as she also helps Xavier bear the weight of past choices–and secrets–while exploring how to work within the rigid confines of the council to offer people a potion not to erase melancholy and “change who they are, but something that will give them the power to be themselves again.”

Quick pacing and vividly described magic move this story along and make it easy to care about Clara’s journey to save her father and embrace her magic. While several plot threads (including Clara’s mother and the illegal potion) remain under-developed, all of the pieces are present for a compelling and exciting read.

Flowerheart delivers cottagecore aesthetics in a fantasy world where magic and mental health go hand in hand.

Possible Pairings: The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin, The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg, The Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier, Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson, Gallant by V.E. Schwab, A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

Magic Lessons: A Review

England, 1664. Hannah Owens finds a baby in the woods, wrapped in a blue blanket her name, Maria, embroidered along the side. She brings the girl home and raises her as her own, teaching her the Nameless Arts–the herbs to help ease pain, the best way to use blue thread for protection.

When Hannah is accused of witchcraft and burned to death inside her small cottage, Maria knows there is nothing left for her in England. Traveling to Curaçao as an indentured servant, Maria discovers the world is much bigger and beautiful than she first thought. At fifteen she thinks she’s fallen in love with an American businessman. But she forgets Hannah’s first lesson: love someone who will love you back.

Following Hathorne to Salem, Massachusetts irrecvocably changes Maria’s path forever when heartbreak and fear lead her to invoke a curse that will haunt the Owens family for centuries to come.

Every witch knows that you can make the best of fate or let it make the best of you. But Maria also knows it isn’t always so easy to do as you like without doing harm. When everything you give is returned to you threefold, Maria will have to relearn how to love freely if she wants to protect her family and her heart in Magic Lessons (2020) by Alice Hoffman.

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Magic Lessons is a prequel to Hoffman’s now classic novel Practical Magic. This novel focuses on the first Owens witch, Maria, and the advent of the family’s infamous curse. It can be read on its own without familiarity with Hoffman’s other books in this series. The story is told by an omniscient third person narrator with a close focus on Maria and an audio version that is wonderfully narrated by Sutton Foster.

The Owens family are white. Ending in Salem, Massachusetts, Maria spends a brief part of the novel in Curaçao and also in New York City (a significant location for the latter part of this novel as well as parts of The Rules of Magic.) Along the way Maria also encounters sailor Samuel Dias who is a Sephardic Jew.

Hoffman blends atmospheric settings, historical detail, and her own distinct characters to create a story filled with magic. Readers familiar with this world (or the 1998 film adaptation) might think they know how this story goes, but Magic Lessons still manages to pack in satisfying surprises.

Steeped in the practical knowledge of the Nameless Art and the enduring strength of love–both for good and for ill–Magic Lessons is a thoughtful and evocative story; a wonderful installment and a perfect introduction for new readers.

Possible Pairings: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert, Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin, The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, The Careful Undressing of Love by Corey Ann Haydu, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno, In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker, Just Kids by Patti Smith, Among Others by Jo Walton

Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop: A Review

Vanessa Yu never wanted to be a fortune teller. Which explains a lot about why she can barely control her magical ability as an adult. After years of avoiding learning more about her gift and refusing to embrace it, Vanessa is plagued by headaches in the wake of every vision and unable to avoid blurting out the fortunes she sees in any beverage that catches her eye at the most inconvenient times.

When her latest prediction of infidelity comes at her cousin’s luxe wedding, even Vanessa has to admit something needs to change.

Faster than you can say adieu, Vanessa is leaving California to to help her aunt Evelyn open a new tea shop in Paris and, hopefully, to also get a handle on her gift once and for all. Paris is filled with delicious foods, beautiful art, and possibly even romance with Mark, a handsome pastry chef.

Everyone knows that Seers are incapable of forming lasting romantic attachments. So before Vanessa can see if she and Mark have a future, she has a lot more to learn about her magical abilities in Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop (2020) by Roselle Lim.

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Lim’s sophomore novel is set in the same world as her debut Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune (read my review) which also features Evelyn Yu as an important secondary character.

Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop expands the world Lim created in her debut, introducing readers to more magical elements and moving the story into a new setting. Strong world building is once again grounded in intricate descriptions of the fashions, decor, and delectable foods that Vanessa encounters during her stay in Paris alongside magical elements including Vanessa and Evelyn’s predictions as Seers–some of which are better integrated into the otherwise contemporary setting than others.

Vanessa’s efforts to understand and control her magic works well with the side plot of helping Evelyn open her shop and work against xenophobic bigotry that threatens to shutter the tea shop before it ever has a chance. As Vanessa learns more about herself, her magic, and the red strings of fate that tie people together, she also starts to realize that there is more than one kind of magic in the world–and she just might be able to take a different path.

With attempts to matchmake for her aunt and a new Parisian friend, there’s plenty of love to be found in this novel even if Vanessa’s own love interest often feels lackluster in comparison.

Romantic and filled with love, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop is ultimately a story about choosing yourself–and your own fate–no matter the cost.

Possible Pairings: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, The Heartbreak Bakery by A. R. Capetta, Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien, Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn, A Thread of Sky by Diana Fei, Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron, Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li, A Taste of Sage by Yaffa S. Santos, Lost and Found Sisters by Jill Shalvis, The Recipe Box by Vivian Shipman, Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride: A Review

Once upon a time, an heiress named Indigo found a scholar who would become her bridegroom. He’d been lost long enough by then to grow comfortable in the dark; long enough he wasn’t sure anyone could lure him out. But Indigo was never the kind of woman to turn away from a challenge.

Coming into Indigo’s world of wealth and decadence is a feast. And he is always hungry. A single moment of either madness or mystery had shaped his life. Ever since, he’d sought proof of the impossible and bent his whole life around the feeding of it.

The heiress and the scholar. It sounds like the start of a fairy tale.

For years, that was enough for the bridegroom.

Until Indigo is summoned back to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, to tend to her dying aunt–the aunt who told Indigo years ago that she was grateful for her blindness. Because she’d never have to look at Indigo ever again.

The decaying house is filled with ghosts of luxury, memories of a grandiose past. It is also filled with secrets that are impossible to ignore. And haunting memories including a girl no one wants to talk about: Azure–Indigo’s oldest and dearest friend. Azure, who no one has seen in years.

Two girls that were closer than sisters, until they weren’t. A marriage built on a foundation of secrets and the bridegroom’s promise to never look too closely at Indigo’s past. A story that, once revealed, changes everything. A fairy tale that will leave its own scars in The Last Tale of the Flower Bride (2023) by Roshani Chokshi.

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The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is Chokshi’s first adult novel. The story alternates between the bridegroom and Azure’s narratives on dual timelines as both the past and present build to a powerful finale.

Themes of privilege and agency loom large throughout the narrative as Azure is pulled into Indigo’s world of impossible wealth and status when they are both still children. The bridegroom offers a different facet of Indigo–the one main character without a narrative point of view–as their secrets and experiences of magic in both the human world and the mystical other world heavily influence their marriage.

Atmospheric descriptions and lush imagery bring Indigo’s opulent and often dangerous world to life with the plot moving inexorably forward. Both the characters and plot of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride are heavily influenced by fairy tales with allusions to classic fairy tale devices, gender flipped elements of Bluebeard and, more generally, a contemplation of what it means to engage with fairy tales as a modern girl and woman–in other words as a person typically othered or dismissed within the fairy tale sphere. This last element in particular is artfully teased out in Azure and Indigo’s changing understanding of Susan Pevensie (the Pevensie child assumed to be rejected by Narnia as she grows older) in CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia as well as in their burgeoning familiarity with the magical other world.

Filled with rich prose and vivid emotion, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a dynamic exploration of magic and affection; a story told through the dual lenses of wonder and the mundanity that makes up both a marriage and a friendship.

Possible Pairings: Book of Night by Holly Black, The Birdcage by Eve Chase, The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab, The Death of Jane Laurence by Caitlin Starling

*An advance listening copy of the title was provided by the publisher through Libro.fm*

Hotel Magnifique: A Review

Janine “Jani” Lafayette always dreamed of a life beyond the small, idyllic village where she was born. But now, after four years of struggling to take care of herself and her younger sister Zosa in the port town of Durc, Jani dreams of quitting her job at the tannery and going back home.

When the Hotel Magnifique arrives in Durc, it feels like the answer to everything. Visiting a new destination every day, the hotel promises once-in-a-lifetime adventure and magic at every turn–with the price tag to match. Surely even working in such a place would have its own enchantments along with the chance, however slim, of one day stopping at the village Jani so foolishly left behind.

It’s a gamble Jani is willing to take. Until Zosa is hired on as a hotel singer. And Jani is not hired at all.

Following her sister is the only option but inside the hotel is nothing like Jani imagined. Instead of dazzling luxury, Jani is thrust into a world where every bit of glamour hides a dark secret. Including the horrifying unbreakable employee contracts.

Jani is determined to uncover the truth behind the hotel to free her sister and the other hotel staff. With nowhere to hide and no one to trust but Bel, a mysterious doorman with secrets–and loyalties–of his own, Jani will have to risk everything to break the hotel’s spells once and for all in Hotel Magnifique (2022) by Emily J. Taylor.

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Hotel Magnifique is Taylor’s debut novel. This standalone fantasy is set in a French-influenced world with characters of varying skin tones, body types, and sexual orientation. Jani and Zosa read as white. Bel is described as having brown skin and is bisexual.

Vibrant and richly described settings lend a sumptuous feel to this story as Jani is drawn in by the wonders of the magical hotel. The dark underside and pervasive menace of the hotel and the strange maître d’hôtel is slowly revealed with perfect pacing that amps up the tension and urgency of the story. Magical wonders contrast sharply with the grim violence of the hotel where magicians on staff are kept in line–and possibly slowly driven insane–with the removal of an eye or finger while continuing to deliver lavish illusions to hotel guests.

In a story where the backdrop and stakes gradually increase, Hotel Magnifique develops an intricate and engrossing magic system. Multifaceted characters and ample suspense further elevate this fantasy adventure.

Possible Pairings: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles, Wings of Ebony by J. Elle, Cruel Illusions by Margie Fuston, Caraval by Stephanie Garber, Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalo, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson, The Splendor by Breeana Shields

Cruel Illusions: A Review

Ava knows that vampires are real because her mother was murdered by one. Ava has been training to kill a vampire in revenge ever since.

Fueled by anger and an equally strong drive to protect her younger brother Parker, Ava dwells on her revenge and the scant memories she has of her parents; the fragments of wonder she can still remember from their magic act.

Ava’s mother always told her that their tricks were only illusions but if vampires exist, can’t magic also be real?

The answer is yes.

As Ava learns more about magicians who wield actual magic as easily as she conjures coin illusions, Ava discovers that there’s little difference between a vampire and a magician. Especially when the two groups have been locked in a bloody feud for millennia.

Recruited by a troupe of dangerous magicians, brings Ava closer to everything she wants: real magic, true power, and a chance to finally avenge her mother’s murder.

But first she has to win a deadly competition to prove her mettle. The closer Ava gets to victory and vengeance, the more she wonders if she’s been chasing the wrong things in Cruel Illusions (2022) by Margie Fuston.

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Cruel Illusions is Fuston’s debut novel. Main characters are white with some diversity among the supporting cast including a queer couple in Ava’s new troupe.

Ava’s hurt is palpable in her first person narration as she struggle to reconcile the potential stability of their latest foster home with the possibility that Parker is ready to move on while Ava isn’t sure she’ll ever get past finding her mother’s bloody body in the woods. This conflict makes Ava an angry, sometimes reckless narrator who is quick to run into danger and slow to realize the potential harm. Lacking the confidencet to be truly self-aware, she’s unwilling to admit her own self-destructive tendencies that drive her to seek out magicians and vampires instead of the promise of a new family. Slow pacing and evocative descriptions keep the focus on Ava and her mysterious past. As she learns more about the magicians and her own unlikely role with them, she also begins to question if making herself hard has worked to make her tough or if it has just left her brittle and prone to hurt.

The meditative pace of the story as Ava tries to decide what kind of magician–and person–she wants to be contrasts sharply with the intense action of the magical competitions and the strong sense of unease that permeates the magicians’ headquarters.

Gothic imagery, suspense, and a brooding love interest with secrets of his own in Cruel Illusions underscore the suspense and drama of this story; a perfect choice for paranormal readers looking for a story where the stakes are high (and sharp).

Possible Pairings: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Luminaries by Susan Dennard, Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst, Caraval by Stephanie Garber, The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

Dauntless: A Review

Valors explore the unknown world and keep the wild beasts at bay so the forest will remain safe for new and existing villages.

Everyone admires the valors for their strength and heroics in pursuit of their mission. Few follow the path themselves because become a valor means fighting and killing beasts yourself to make your armor.

Seri never thought she’d become a valor herself but working as an assistant to Eshai Unbroken–a valor whose heroics are known far and wide–sets her on a different path.

Everything Seri thought she knew about the beasts and valors is thrown into doubt when she she meets Tsana, a stranger from the unknown world. Tsana can communicate with the beasts and warns of the dangers of fighting them as if they are mindless monsters. But Tsana also has secrets of her own that could have dangerous consequences for all of the known world.

Questioning everything she’s been taught about the world and her place in it, will change Seri’s path again as she tries to find a path to peace that will not end in bloody war in Dauntless (2022) by Elisa A. Bonnin.

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Dauntless is a Filipino-inspired standalone although the sprawling world leaves plenty of room for more stories to tell.

Readers are quickly drawn into the forest world of the People and the unknown world beyond as Seri pursues her dreams of adventure. A tentative romance between Seri and Tsana threads their stories together and raises the stakes as conflict between their people looms.

Seri’s status as a young would-be valor trying to understand her place in a complicated world contrasts well with Eshai’s struggles to reconcile her everyday reality with the near mythical reputation she has earned for her heroics as a valor. Both girls have a lot to figure out when Tsana’s arrival changes the fundamental order of their world–a conflict that is as gripping as this novel’s numerous action sequences.

Dauntless is a fast-paced, high action story steeped in battle heroics that also urges its characters (and readers) to consider peaceful solutions above all.

Possible Pairings: Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco, Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean, Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim, Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan, The Dream Runners by Shveta Thakrar

Violet Made of Thorns: A Review

Shrewd and calculating witch Violet Lune doesn’t see the harm in using her magic for opportunistic gain. Especially if she’s the one gaining. Even now, positioned as King Emelius’s trusted Seer, Violet knows her position in the palace is unstable. Especially when Emelius’s son Prince Cyrus has no use for Violet or her carefully crafted (but not always entirely true) predictions. And he’s poised to take the throne come summer.

But Violet isn’t the only witch who has peddled prophecy throughout the kingdom and one is dangerously close to coming true–a dangerous curse that might save the kingdom. Or destroy it. Everything depends on the prince’s future bride.

When Violet’s attempt to influence Cyrus’s choice with one more carefully worded prediction goes horribly wrong, Violet has a choice to make: She can seize this moment to take control of her life, finally gaining the stability she has sorely lacked even if it damns the rest of the kingdom. Or she can try to save Cyrus from his cursed fate–and admit that the prince might actually be as charming (or at least attractive) as everyone at court always says.

In a world where magic can be bought and sold, sometimes telling the truth is the most powerful spell of all in Violet Made of Thorns (2022) by Gina Chen.

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Violet Made of Thorns is Chen’s debut novel and the start of a series. Violet is cued as a fantasy version of Chinese hailing from Auveny’s neighboring kingdom Yuenen. Cyrus reads as white (like most of the kingdom of Auveny). Other characters (and kingdoms) add diversity of the world and contextualize this fairytale remix beyond the common white/European setting with character with a variety of skintones, cultural identities, and across the LGBTQ+ spectrum including Cyrus’s twin sister Camilla who is lesbian.

Chen’s novel is filled with an abiding understanding and fondness for tropes and themes common to fairytales–many of which are artfully turned on their head by the end of the story. While beautiful, Cyrus is far from charming to Violet–constantly doubting her actions and her motives throughout the story even as the two form a very uneasy alliance to stop the curse from spiraling out of control. Confident and often brash to hide her own insecurity, Violet is keenly aware of her vulnerabilities within Auveny’s court as both a young woman and a person of color. Whether these fears drive her to become the villain of the story or its hero might be something readers will have to decide for themselves.

Violet Made of Thorns is an exciting story that builds familiar fairytale elements into something new; a story set in a world where happily ever after doesn’t come with rose colored glasses. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao, The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine, Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber, Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, Furyborn by Claire Legrand, The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller, This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi, Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin, Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes, Realm of Ruins by Hannah West

This Vicious Grace: A Review

As the latest in a long line of Finestras, Alessa Paladino’s gift from the gods should magnify her Fonte partner’s magical abilities making it possible for the pair to combat the demons that threaten the island of Saverio. Every Finestra and her suitor face the Divorando and its hoard of attacking demons during their time–usually working together to end the cycle before retiring and waiting to train the next Finestra.

Instead, Alessa has had three ceremonial weddings and three funerals for each Fonte–all killed by her touch. Reviled by the city, under threat from her own soldiers, Alessa’s situation is dire even without the looming threat of the next Divorando.

Desperate to stay alive, Alessa hires Dante–an outsider marked as a killer–who is willing to keep Alessa alive for enough coin.

Working with Dante, Alessa begins to understand more about her powers and how she might be able to use them without killing her suitor. But with Divorando approaching and demons at the gates, it is Dante’s secrets that might tear Saverio apart in This Vicious Grace (2022) by Emily Thiede.

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This Vicious Grace is the first book in a duology set in a world reminiscent of Renaissance Italy imbued with magic. Alessa is cued as white although there are varied skintones among the citizens of Saverio. In a society where marriages serve to enhance magic, the relationships Alessa forms are more reminiscent of political alliances than traditional marriages although it is worth noting that same sex marriages are welcome and seen as commonplace both for magic and romantic reasons.

Thin world building and ab abrupt start do little to situate the reader in the story although Alessa’s peril and her desperation are immediately palpable as she struggles to control her powers. This character-driven story focuses heavily on Alessa and Dante with banter, flirting and what could be seen as a slow-burn romance if only the main characters had more convincing chemistry. In other words, This Vicious Grace has a lot of pieces that make an entertaining fantasy for patient readers.

Unfortunately, Thiede also makes some strange creative choices including the use of antisemitic stereotypes that continue to give me pause.

Spoilers to follow:

Last Chance Dance: A Review

Smarting from her parents’ divorce in eighth grade, Leila Bean thinks it must be fate when she meets cute Dev Rajan while shopping for schools supplies the summer before freshman year. A habitual viewer of reality dating competitions, she knows better than to waste the opportunity.

Four years later, Leila and Dev are easily their high school’s most unproblematic couple. Which is why Leila is devastated when Dev decides to break up with her just before graduation instead of taking their relationship long-distance during college. Aside from the confusion of being out of a committed relationship for essentially the first time, Leila is devastated that this will be her biggest memory from high school.

Leila is skeptical when her best friend suggests the distraction Leila needs is to take part in her school’s annual Last Chance Dance. As its name suggests, the dance will give Leila a chance to match with 3 unrequited crushes (if the interest is mutual) and one algorithm-chosen wild card.

No one is more surprised than Leila when she’s matched with all of her crushes–and her longtime nemesis. Going on dates with athletic Kai, activist Mason, and bookstagrammer Eva is fun but the biggest surprise for Leila is that class clown Tre’–orchestrator of her biggest humiliation in eighth grade (and possibly her entire life)–might be an actual contender for a date and maybe even more in Last Chance Dance (2023) by Lakita Wilson.

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Leila and most of the characters in her Maryland neighborhood school are Black; characters fall across the LGBTQ+ spectrum including bisexual Eva and “masculine presenting lesbian” Bree. Dev is cued as Indian American and Hindu.

Opinions will vary but this adult reader was unable to willingly suspend enough disbelief to buy into a school sanctioning a very complicated dance like the Last Chance Dance and balked at Leila’s pride in acting like half of an old married couple with Dev at the novel’s start. While some readers might have a hard time getting in Leila’s head when it comes to her singular focus on relationships, the story does a lot to tease out her motivations and flesh out her character.

Wilson’s breezy narrative and the inventive premise ultimately make a winning combination in Last Chance Dance where Leila learns how to trust again while figuring out how to define herself outside of her relationship status.

Possible Pairings: Dramatically Ever After by Isabel Bandeira, Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett, Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant, I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest, Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

*A more condensed version of this review appeared as a review in an issue of School Library Journal*