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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Moriarty, Jaclyn

The Secret of Lillian Velvet

352 pp. | Levine Querido | September, 2023 | Trade ISBN 9781646142613 $19.99
(2) 4-6 Lillian, a foundling, has a momentous tenth birthday. Her one gift, a pickle jar full of gold coins, gives her access to a series of fantasy worlds. Without warning she is whisked off to the Luminous Forest, the Mellifluous Kingdom, the Kingdom of Kate-Bazaar, and so on: worlds of spells, genies, and mages. She is thrown into the middle of various disasters--windstorms, near-drownings, and threats of fatal freezing--before being arbitrarily whisked home again. The various plots do intersect, waving to each other briefly before ricocheting off in other directions until it all weaves together into a finale of reveals and revelry. Lillian is an Alice-like character: sturdy, intelligent, courteous, and with unexpected reserves of courage. In each of the hectic scenarios she is a force for good, although that can get tricky as the ethics of helpful intervention are by no means uncomplicated. This fifth volume in the series (most recently The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere, rev. 1/23) sparkles with energy, warm humor, outrageous metaphors, and a joyful alertness to the delights and challenges not just of the invented fantasy worlds but of our own as well.
Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

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