Review of My Contrary Mary, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, narrated by Fiona Hardingham

Audiobooks, Historical, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

My Contrary Mary

by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
narrated by Fiona Hardingham

HarperAudio, 2021. 12 hours, 18 minutes.
Review written March 12, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

Well, this crew of authors who play fast-and-loose with history have finally turned away from Janes to write about Marys — Mary, Queen of Scots, in this case, and an upcoming book about Mary Shelley.

I’m afraid I’m getting a little tired of the style, though it is fun if you’re in the right mood. I liked that this one went back to the world created in their first book, My Lady Jane. In this world, instead of Protestants and Catholics fighting about the thrones of Europe, you’ve got Verities and Edians. Edians are shapeshifters who can transform into their inner animal and believe everyone has one. But Verities believe humans should be human and Edians should be put to death.

Once again, we’ve got three viewpoint characters, each written by one of the authorial trio (though we don’t know which gets which character). Mary, Queen of Scots, has been growing up in the court of France along with her betrothed, Francis the Dauphin of France. The other viewpoint character is Aristotle, who goes by Ari, the daughter of Nostradamus. She does get visions, but they aren’t helpful at all. (The modern reader will enjoy recognizing scenes from modern films.) What Ari is good at is making potions. And that skill is commandeered by Catherine de Medici, Francis’s powerful and scheming mother.

To add to the fun, Mary and her four ladies-in-waiting, who are also named Mary but have nicknames, are all secretly Edians themselves. Mary can turn into a mouse, which is perfect for court gossip – and spying.

But there’s lots of intrigue going on at court, and Mary and Francis are doomed to ascend the throne of France much sooner than they meant to.

I’m not sure how much of real history you’ll learn from this book. The authors give Mary a happy outcome — which is very different from what happened to her in her real life. I confess, I enjoyed her Happily Ever After — even if the repercussions probably would have completely changed the modern world. I also really enjoyed that we saw the characters from My Lady Jane and got to see how well their lives were going.

That book had an outcome that matched very well with history — resulting in Queen Elizabeth on the throne even though Lady Jane Grey and King Edward weren’t actually dead, they were Edians. This book? Well, if it happened, European history would have turned out very differently, with less war and death, which is all good in my book.

Read these books when you’re up for silliness and happy endings involving historical characters who suddenly got much more interesting.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Root Magic, by Eden Royce, read by Imani Parks

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Paranormal 0

Root Magic

by Eden Royce
read by Imani Parks

HarperAudio, 2021. 10 hours on 8 compact discs.
Review written February 18, 2022, from a library audiobook.
2022 Walter Award Honor Book

Root Magic is set on a South Carolina island in 1963 among people with Gullah Geechee heritage. Jez is facing big changes after the death of her Gran. She’s been moved ahead a year in school, so for the first time, she won’t be in a class with her twin brother, Jay. But after school, their uncle, Doc, has decided they’re finally old enough to begin learning Root Magic.

Root Magic has been passed down in their family, and Gran was powerful enough to leave Jez a doll with some amazing powers. Doc tells them that Root work is mainly about protection — but their family needs protection. Their Daddy has been missing for years, there are haints in the marsh, girls at school are mean, and a white police officer is known for harassing root workers.

This book had some big surprises as Jez begins to learn to use her power. She shows compassion and plants seeds that will help her in time of need.

I have to say that I wasn’t crazy about the way the narrator read this book, and I think I might have enjoyed it more in print. But I’m glad I kept listening. I grew up hearing stories about “witch doctors” in Africa, and this presentation of root work as family heritage done with love and compassion shook up some of those ideas. Though many of the things that happened were firmly in the realm of fantasy, I appreciated the honor the book gave to family, friendship, and tradition. And I enjoyed the surprising twists and turns in the plot.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Sheine Lende, by Darcie Little Badger

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Sheine Lende

by Darcie Little Badger
read by Kinsale Drake
illustrations (in the print book) by Rovina Cai

Recorded Books, 2024. 13 hours, 47 minutes.
Review written May 20, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I was so excited when I heard there was a prequel to Elatsoe coming out! Obviously, you don’t have to read them in any order. The events in this book happen first, but Elatsoe was written first. Reading Sheine Lende definitely made me want to reread Elatsoe, which was a Sonderbooks Stand-out and CYBILS Award Winner in 2020.

Like Elatsoe, Sheine Lende is set in a world just like ours – except that magic is a normal part of life. Different people have different kinds of magic available to them, and humans have contact with people from other realms, such as fairies.

Sheine Lende features Elatsoe’s grandmother Shane when she was a teen. Like Ellie, Shane has a ghost dog companion — well, it’s really her mother’s companion. Shane’s mother Lorenza has a pack of three hounds who are trained to track down missing persons. One of those hounds, Nellie, happens to be dead.

But when Lorenza goes missing herself when searching for two missing children, Nellie comes back to Shane, distraught. When Shane tries to take up the search again, she gets transported hundreds of miles away — and finds one of the children. But obviously, magical transport is involved and who knows where Lorenza and the little boy were sent? This was when humans were beginning to use transport by fairy rings. Going on the rescue ends up taking Shane on an epic journey. Also like Elatsoe, Shane gets an opportunity to use her powers to right an injustice against her people, the Lipan Apache.

Again like Elatsoe, this is a beautiful and uplifting book with characters it’s a delight to spend time with. I like the way Shane sees and cares for animals (Even insects! And mammoths!) and her little brother and people who are lost — basically anyone who needs help.

darcielittlebadger.com
levinequerido.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of A Study in Drowning, by Ava Reid

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Study in Drowning

by Ava Reid
read by Saskia Maarleveld

HarperTeen, 2023. 10 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written May 13, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is another eaudiobook I checked out because it was very popular at Fairfax County Library — and one of the best results of that curiosity. I loved the heroine, Effy Sayre, a first-year university student in another world somewhat like ours in the 1950s or so. Effy was put into the school of Architecture even though her scores were high enough for the school of Literature, and literature is where her heart is — because no woman has ever been admitted to the school of Literature.

But when a chance comes from the estate of her favorite author Emrys Myrddin to redesign his family’s home, Effy jumps at the chance, and to her surprise, wins the competition. Effy loves Myrddin’s work so much, she can quote from all of his books, but especially his masterpiece, Angharad. The book is about a girl who loves the Fairy King and is taken as his wife, but who gradually realizes his cruelty — and is his undoing.

The book means a lot to Effy because all her life, she’s been plagued by visions of the Fairy King. Her mother never believed her and took her to a doctor who prescribed pink pills to make the visions go away. But Effy clung to the story of a girl who also saw the Fairy King and ended up triumphing over him.

But when she arrives to the far south coast of the country, things are not at all as she expected. The house she’s supposed to remodel is falling apart with decay, and the nearby sea is finding its way in. She’s greeted by Myrddin’s son, who has some very strange moments, and she never sees the author’s wife. And she begins seeing the Fairy King even when she’s taken her pills.

It turns out there’s a literature student also working at Myrddin’s estate, trying to access his letters and papers to write a scholarly paper about him. He’s pompous and stuffy. But when Effy learns he’s not even sure Emrys Myrddin actually wrote the Angharad, that seems a bridge too far.

But… things happen. This book continues on with a bit of a mystery and a big climactic scene full of danger. Ava Reid did an amazing job with the atmosphere of this book. The house is so decayed, so remote, so sinister, so close to the angry sea, and you get the feeling that the Fairy King might be real. And if so, he’s dangerous.

I do feel like I should mention when a novel for Teens has a sex scene. This has one, with a little bit of description. I did think the romance was beautifully done, with kindness and gentleness toward someone who’d formerly been abused.

Now, there were what felt to me like some big coincidences that allowed them to find crucial documents. And I can’t really believe that papers could have managed to stay intact in a metal box underwater. But those are quibbles. Overall, this wonderful book had me enthralled throughout and wanting to find more rote tasks to do so I could keep on listening. A truly wonderful book about a girl whose salvation has always been books — learning to stand up for herself in real life, despite all those who want to use her.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Call Down the Hawk, by Maggie Stiefvater

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Call Down the Hawk

by Maggie Stiefvater
read by Will Patton

Scholastic Audiobooks, 2019. 13 hours, 47 minutes, on 12 compact discs.
Review written December 14, 2020, from a library audiobook

Call Down the Hawk is billed as the first book in The Dreamer Trilogy, but I think readers will appreciate it more who have read the four books in The Raven Cycle, beginning with The Raven Boys. That series starts out being about Blue and Gansey, but is almost taken over by Ronan Lynch and his brothers. This new trilogy is about Ronan.

So if you already know the background, it won’t take as much getting up to speed. Ronan is a Dreamer – when he dreams at night, he brings back objects from his dreams. They don’t have to be possible objects – they don’t have to actually exist in reality. If he can dream it, he can wake up to find it real. One problem with this is that if Ronan goes too long without dreaming, he starts weeping a black fluid which will eventually kill him.

In this book, we meet some other Dreamers, notably a girl named Hennessy. Every time she dreams, she brings back a copy of herself, and another flower tattoo appears on her neck. The girls live together and specialize in forging art. They can easily pose as Hennessy herself. But they all know that when Hennessy runs out of room for flower tattoos, she’s going to die.

We also meet some Moderators and Visionaries. Visionaries dream what’s going to happen in the future. And all the Visionaries are saying that the world will be destroyed – because of something a Dreamer is going to bring into reality. The obvious solution? Kill all Dreamers. We follow along with one Moderator and the teen Visionary she monitors in order for him to lead her to more Dreamers.

There’s a lot more that’s going on in this book, and it quickly draws you in with the strangeness and the fascinatingly mind-bending scenarios. Things do not resolve by the end, though some of the threads do come together.

The reader of this book has a gravelly voice I didn’t find attractive, but the more I listened, the more I felt thought an unusual voice fits this particularly unusual book.

As with The Raven Cycle, there are many unpleasant things that happen in this book, but they are so unusual and so mind-bending, that I’m going to have to read on and find out what happens next as soon as I get the chance.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Ruthless Vows, by Rebecca Ross

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review 0

Ruthless Vows

by Rebecca Ross
read by Alex Wingfield and Rebecca Norfolk

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2023. 14 hours, 7 minutes.
Review written January 9, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Ruthless Vows is the second half of the duology begun with Divine Rivals, and finishes up the story. If you’ve read Divine Rivals, you’re absolutely going to want to read the next book, so I don’t have to say a whole lot, and don’t want to spoil anything. I will say that Rebecca Ross pulls off a satisfying ending, with the second book bringing us to an even deeper understanding of that world and the two gods who are fighting the war that’s decimating this world.

The biggest thing I loved about the first book was the romance begun in letters between the two main characters with one of them not knowing the other’s identity. I thought unfortunately that couldn’t continue now they’re fully in love. But ha! One of the characters suffers memory loss, so their letter-writing can begin again, still a beautiful romantic connection.

In fact, I was uncomfortable for most of this book because that character with memory loss is being held by the god Dacre. As their memory returns, aided by the letters, I was terrified that they would be caught. So yes, the author keeps the tension strong.

And the war gets close to “home” in this book, with soldiers and bombs closing in on Oath, the city where the story began. As the story progresses, all the characters we’ve come to love begin to figure out what they can do to help innocents and save the city and the people from destruction.

Is that vague enough? I highly recommend this wonderful duology, full of suspense, romance, and heroism. I also recommend listening, because the wonderful British accents of the narrators transport you to this wartime world. Yes, at the library I keep having to order more copies to help our Holds ratio, but I can’t begrudge them because this book is simply that good.

rebeccarossauthor.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of She Is a Haunting, by Trang Thanh Tran

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

She Is a Haunting

by Trang Thanh Tran
read by Emi Ray

Bloomsbury, 2023. 9 hours, 41 minutes.
Review written March 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #9 Teen Speculative Fiction

Okay, let’s start with some honesty: I did not enjoy listening to this audiobook.

But the reason I listened to the whole thing is that I’m on the Morris Award committee. And the reason I didn’t enjoy it was that I don’t enjoy reading horror, and this book creeped me out. Once I’m done, I have to admit that this book was really well-written. So I’m writing up my thoughts *before* any discussion with the committee to see if I can articulate what was good about it. (I am pretty sure that others in the committee, who actually like horror, will probably find even more things than I do, but I want to be clear that I’m writing this before any discussion, so these are my initial impressions only.) I’ll also say that I listened to this one for the sake of time, but if it is a contender, I’ll be reading it in print form as well. But all this is to say that if you read Sonderbooks because your reading preferences match mine, think twice about this one. It is really well-written, though.

And also to be honest, by the time I was done with it, I’m glad to have read it.

[Note: Yes, this was one of our Finalists, and I read it again in print form. I enjoyed it more the second time, knowing what to expect. And wow, the way she gradually builds the creepiness and dread and works in themes of colonialism… It’s just so good.]

Okay, here’s the set up: Jade Nguyen is in Vietnam for five weeks in a deal to get her long-estranged father to pay for her first year of college.

He left them years ago, and Jade didn’t want anything to do with him. But her mother is working too hard already, and she turned to Ba for tuition money. He used that as leverage to get her to spend time with him in the decrepit French colonial house he’s renovating to be a bed and breakfast. He also requires her to work on the website for the house, along with Florence, the niece of his business partner. Ba wants Jade to be friends with Florence, and she resists, but then when she finds herself attracted thinks that’s one more thing her parents could hold against her. Jade’s sister Lily is there with them, too. Lily is actually happy to be with their father. And their father reveals that his grandmother was once a servant in this very house. Their ancestors planted the hydrangeas that abundantly bloom to this day.

The horror builds gradually. First there are piles of dead bugs in her bedroom and some kind of insect leg in her mouth when she awakes. Then she begins having dreams – and waking up paralyzed, still seeing awful things, unable to move.

Jade meets a white couple who are investing in the house, thrilled about the Frenchwoman who once lived here while her husband was in the army.

That gives Jade a name to the red-haired ghost she’s been seeing. But there’s another ghost, a beautiful young Vietnamese woman, who begins sharing her memories with Jade. The Frenchwoman called all Vietnamese people parasites – and parasites are a theme in the house. The Vietnamese ghost warns Jade not to eat anything in the house, but can she really keep the parasites at bay?

I liked that Jade had a reason to stay – she needs the money for college. And when that motivation is not enough, she needs to try to protect her sister. The horror builds gradually and the house becomes harder and harder to escape.

I also liked that themes were naturally built into the story rather than spelled out. For example, once when out doing things with Florence, Jade gets upset with herself that she doesn’t speak fluent Vietnamese. It’s a natural way to show us how she feels torn between the two cultures. This author is good at subtleties like that.

So if you like well-written books and can handle some horror, this book is one you shouldn’t miss. I’m not sure if this book will end up getting honored by our committee, but it’s a strong debut. [Added later: This was one of the earliest books I’d read. At the end of the year, it still stood out.]

Trangthanhtran.com
Bloomsbury.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Divine Rivals, by Rebecca Ross

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Divine Rivals

by Rebecca Ross
read by Rebecca Norfolk and Alex Wingfield

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2023. 10 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written December 28, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Teen Speculative Fiction
2023 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Okay, before I start talking about this awesome book, I need to digress because I was reminded of how much I love stories where a couple falls in love via letters.

The example most people know about is the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” but one of my favorite Young Adult Fantasy novels, Crown Duel, has a similar set-up in a fantasy kingdom. I like this kind of romance so much, I have an unfinished novel fragment where I attempted to retell “You’ve Got Mail”/Pride and Prejudice with the letters happening in a fantasy kingdom by way of a magical diary.

Well, Rebecca Ross pulls off this plot much more effectively, expertly connecting our main characters through letters typed on magical typewriters. Like the other books, we start with an enemies-to-lovers trope. Like the others, the guy knows before the girl whom he’s corresponding with and tries to change that “enemy” perspective, because he’s figured out he’s falling in love with the friend he’s writing to.

And yes, the slow-burn romance is exquisite! I’m convinced that a part of why I love this scenario is that as an INFJ, I dislike small talk, love the written word, and love how with letters you can really get to know people. Iris, our main character in Divine Rivals, mentions that we all clothe ourselves in armor, but with letters, we can take off small pieces of that armor and share our hearts.

Iris has been working in a newspaper office, competing with her rival, Roman Kitt, to win the position of columnist and be able to put away the obituaries for good. But when her mother dies, she misses a deadline and loses the columnist job. Iris decides there’s nothing more for her in the city, and she signs up to become a war correspondent – hoping to find her brother Forrest, who went off to fight for the goddess Enva and promised to write, but never did. Iris had begun her magical correspondence with Roman by typing letters to Forrest and putting them in her wardrobe.

This fantasy world is expertly drawn. Without a slog of back story, we listen to the two characters writing to each other about the god and goddess who woke up after hundreds of years and plunged the human world into war. The war is carried out with the technology of World War I from our world — think trenches and poison gas. Refreshingly, some social factors are not like our world, with Iris encountering two women married to each other and soldiers who are women, and she finds that unremarkable.

A lot of the action takes place at the front. It reads like a historical novel of World War I with our heroes falling in love during wartime.

And, oh, the romance! There’s a meeting of minds before the meeting of hearts and bodies, and that always wins me over. In fact, I’ve had to come to terms with realizing that’s my own private fantasy – to some day fall in love via letters (possibly in electronic form). I’m sure it was being influenced by this book that motivated me the day after I’d finished it to *not* shut down a stranger who slid into my direct messages on Twitter, asking me three times in two days how I was doing. Well, I very quickly saw that was a major mistake. But the fact remains that I have many dear friends in my life, both men and women, whom I have gotten close to through the written word, from letter-writing to my friend who moved away as a kid to emailing now. In this book’s case, it was lovely to enjoy an example where the close friendship built in letters went hand-in-hand with romantic compatibility. I’m well aware that doesn’t always happen, but so much fun to read a story where it does.

Now, a word of caution. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the cliffhanger ending. But there’s where I lucked out! And if you haven’t read this book yet, you too can luck out! You see, the sequel, Ruthless Vows was published two days after I finished reading the book. (And it’s said to be a duology, so the sequel should not have a cliffhanger ending.) Even better, I order books for our public library system. The audio version of the sequel had 49 Notify Me tags in Libby (the ebook had 81), and so of course I ordered it. But my big score was as soon as it got ordered, I went to my own Libby account and checked out a copy! I don’t often take advantage of this insider knowledge, but this time it made me very happy.

And yes, the audiobook version is wonderful, so I’m happy to get to listen to the next book, too. They have British accents and are a delight to the ear. I’m not sure if I will get the sequel finished before 2023 ends, but either way I have no doubt it will be a Sonderbooks Stand-out — either for 2023 or 2024.

I picked up this book because every week since it’s been published, we needed more ecopies at the library because of all the holds. Once I finished reading for the Morris awards, I decided to find out what the fuss was all about. I’m so glad I did!

rebeccarossauthor.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, by Garth Nix

Audiobooks, Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath

by Garth Nix
read by Marisa Calin

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 49 minutes.
Review written April 10, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is the sequel to The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (which is the best title ever). I didn’t remember very well what happened in the first book, but was quickly brought up to speed and delighted with this new adventure. Both books feel complete in themselves, which I always appreciate in a series. I’m not sure if there will be more, but I enjoyed the adventures.

Both books are set in an alternate-reality Britain of 1983. In the first book, Susan Arkshaw discovered a force of left-handed and right-handed booksellers who deal with powerful magical entities from the Old World, trying to keep ordinary mortals safe. But Susan discovered she’s not exactly an ordinary mortal.

This book begins as Susan’s friend Merlin (a left-handed bookseller) gets pulled by a magical map into a place outside of our world and our time. Merlin’s sister Vivian (a right-handed bookseller) tells Susan she needs her help, and Susan and Vivian go to get Merlin, using Susan’s power to bring them back to our world.

But that exercise of power stirs up powers in Susan. She starts getting vivid dreams as her powers seem to be awaking. At the same time, the entity who made the original map is now aware of Susan and all signs point to Susan being the target of the next Wild Hunt to happen on the Winter Solstice. All Susan wants is to live an ordinary life as an art student.

It all makes for a fun adventure, complete with magic and danger and surprising characters. This world has shades of Arthurian myth, but has a unique take on magic that makes it not your typical fantasy novel. And the characters are folks I was delighted to spend time with.

garthnix.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb

Award Winners, Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

When the Angels Left the Old Country

by Sacha Lamb

Levine Querido, 2022. 400 pages.
Review written February 24, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review
2023 Michael L. Printz Honor
2023 Sidney Taylor Award Winner, Young Adult
2023 Stonewall Book Award Winner, Young Adult

Oh, this is an amazing book. I read it because of the awards it won, and even with my expectations high, I was blown away.

The story tells of an angel and a demon who are leaving a shtetl in Poland and going to America to check on Essie, the granddaughter of a rabbi in their shtetl whose letters haven’t made it back home. But this book is nothing like what I’d expect from that description. Along the way, they encounter various people preying on Jewish immigrants and defend their people.

Along the way, they also befriend Rose, a girl who’s emigrating to America on her own, after her best friend she thought would go with her had the audacity to marry a man. But Rose takes an interest in Essie and her lovely picture.

This book reminded me of the wonderful book The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, with some of the same naivete of the angel in dealing with people. At the same time, this book is very different, surprising, and refreshing. It’s the kind of book I couldn’t resist talking about because it so captivated me.

Here’s the first paragraph:

In the back corner of the little synagogue in the shtetl that was so small and out of the way it was only called Shtetl, there was a table where an angel and a demon had been studying Talmud together for some two hundred years. Indeed, they had been studying in that corner since before the little shul was built, and had been rather startled to look up one day and realize an entire building had sprung up around them.

And on the next page:

Little Ash knew hardly any magic and did not even have the wings with which most adult demons fly from place to place. He had made trouble in the demons’ yeshiva, where they learn their magic, and without completing his studies he had been sent to Poland, where he found he liked it better than at home, as in his father’s palace other demons were always treating him like a child and telling him what to do.

The angel had been sent to Shtetl for a purpose it had now forgotten, and had stayed in Shtetl to hinder the mischievous whims of Little Ash. Like Little Ash, it resembled a human youth; unlike Little Ash, who considered himself to be male, the angel had merely chosen the shape of a man for convenience, as angels have done since the time of Abraham, Our Father. It had never had a bar mitzvah, or a bat mitzvah, or any such ceremony at all, and had never bothered to wish for one.

Its name, of course, changed according to the activity in which it was engaged. At the moment, the angel’s name was Argument.

The argument they’re having at the beginning is that they should follow the young people of Shtetl to America. Little Ash convinces the angel by showing it that doing so would be a mitzvah, finding out what happened to Essie.

Much of the book takes place on the way to America, where they encounter the first unscrupulous person and a spirit not at rest. The angel gets a name when the demon makes him papers, and that changes some things about it.

And I don’t need to tell you all that happens. But it’s an imaginative, wonderfully-spun historical novel about an angel and a demon working together to help people who need help, with much danger to themselves along the way.

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