Irra gifts Gina a talisman, a fae family heirloom, created when Gina was born, that enhances the wearer's power, and Yap's story explores what happens when a young girl receives a great power and no guidance in mastering it. Except for a neighbor, Mrs. Jenkins, no adults have stepped in to stop the abuse in Gina’s life, so of course Gina, endowed with potent new agency, will strive to protect her family, despite the warning emblazoned on her keepsake pendant: “With this talisman, I bear the responsibility of my new powers, never to use them for revenge.”

Yap explores themes of abuse and racism with jolting frankness, and the story moves briskly, with emotional urgency, though the prose often lacks polish and dialogue tends toward the expository. (Characters declare things like “It’s the 1970s” with regularity.) The mechanics of aura-reading are smartly left intuitive, without explicit rules, and the mysteries Yap teases entice—and, in the spirit of series starters, don’t all get resolved. Powering the novel, though, is the potent central dilemma of power and how to use it, as Gina finds magic doesn’t relieve her from real-world consequences.

Takeaway: A young girl, touched with fae magic, must protect her family from abuse.

Comparable Titles: Jodi Taylor’s The Nothing Girl, Kyrie McCauley’s If These Wings Could Fly.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B
Marketing copy: B