(3) YA Sixteen-year-old Clara has attempted to train as a witch but is unable to control her magic. She is given a choice: have her magic bound, so she can access a fraction of her power with painful consequences for every spell or lose magic entirely. She chooses binding, but then 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. She seeks help from her estranged childhood friend Xavier, who agrees to train her--if Clara will give her magic to him once the blessing is completed. The bargain seems an easy choice, until Clara begins to understand her magic and learns more of Xavier’s motives, which involve counteracting an illegal and dangerous potion originally intended to treat melancholy. Bakewell’s standalone YA debut delivers cottagecore aesthetics in a fantasy world where magic and mental health are intertwined. 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.” 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.

Reviewer:

(2) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Elissa is a Singer, one of the few whose voice can channel the power of the goddess Caé and make miracles happen for her people. Lucio, seventeen, is her Composer, responsible for guiding her and writing sacred songs. Elissa has songs she wants to write, too, but she fears claiming more than one gift will displease the goddess. When their travels through war-torn Basso lead them to a governor and then a king who want Elissa to work for them, Lucio bends to their pressure (and to the pleasures of court life), even after the governor demands a song that accidentally kills an entire village. Elissa feels that performing miracles for the powerful isn't the will of the goddess--and when the king wants to direct her magic against the enemy, she puts her foot down. Bakewell crafts a spellbinding narrative that weaves the protagonist's guilt over the fate of her parents (convicted of heresy for trying to shield her from the church) with her motivation to write a song that brings peace, despite the impossibility of success. Readers may find their own religious convictions either strengthened or challenged by the portrayal of an absolutely loving goddess who appears in the flesh to make her wishes transparently clear to Elissa; others may gravitate toward Elissa's troubled relationship with the talented Lucio or the depiction of a devoted musical community.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2022