A sweet and hopeful story of queer love and brujo magic.
An accessible and witchy romantic adventure told in verse.
Alejandro Zamora’s brujería is the ability to see the past. Lately he’s been particularly fixated on bygone times—ever since his boyfriend dumped him after cheating on him. Trying to avoid more pain, Ale vows not to fall in love again, but even focusing his energy on his classes at Borderland High, a magical school in Texas, seems difficult when mysterious events start happening. Ale’s deck of brujo cards is only supposed to contain 40 cards, but people keep finding extras with his initials on them. A giant cicada with murderous intent breaks into school, and then, to top it all off, there might be someone watching him. At least Ale can still count on his dad and his friend Zander Avaloz to be by his side as his emotional state worsens and he feels lower and lower. But a brujo who looks just like him starts wreaking havoc with Cold Magic—a sinister, forbidden type of magic that “freezes / your heart / alive”—and the situation worsens as everyone except for Zander believes Ale is responsible. The poems are laid out within a gorgeous interior design that resembles tarot cards and at times takes the form of text threads. This exciting story about believing in love again, set in an intriguing and magical world, seamlessly weaves Spanish into the reluctant reader–friendly text.
A sweet and hopeful story of queer love and brujo magic. (glossary) (Verse paranormal. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781978597358
Page Count: 200
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
An exciting and bittersweet ending to a compelling duology.
The gang gets back together after the catastrophic events of A Tempest of Tea (2024).
Arthie Casimir and her brother, Jin, managed to uncover the real identity of—and steal a ledger with incriminating evidence about—the Ram, monarch of Ettenia, but their crew, a mix of vampires and humans, is irrevocably changed. The revelation of a secret leads to a rift between the siblings, the Ram is still in power, and now humans are going missing, with blame unjustly falling on the vampires. To take down the colonizer of her birth country, Arthie must get everyone to work together again, travel back to her homeland of Ceylan, and pull off her most daring heists yet. With chapters alternating among the perspectives of Arthie, Jin, and Felicity “Flick” Linden—a skilled forger and Jin’s love interest—this genre mashup set in an intricate fantasy world combines exciting action and adventure, heartfelt romance, and complex paranormal beings, all while feeling relevant to real-world issues. The trio of non-white leads face racial prejudice among other hardships in a society that constantly underestimates them. The plot takes a little while to really get started, but once the action amps up, there are plenty of tense and impassioned moments. The ending satisfyingly wraps up the main conflicts and is sure to evoke a strong emotional response from invested readers.
An exciting and bittersweet ending to a compelling duology. (map) (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780374389420
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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