Conjured

Gr 9 Up—Suffering from severe memory loss, Eve is taken to a safe house and told she's in a witness protection program, but that fact and many others are called into question when she meets other "witnesses" who believe that the agents will eventually kill her. With no information about the crime she witnessed, the teen has no idea who to trust. She's also haunted by chilling visions that immediately follow when she uses her various powers to do things like making the birds on her wallpaper fly or walking through walls. Eventually, she is able to remember enough to go traveling through many magical worlds on a hunt for "the Magician," only to find out that she herself was created as a way for him to store power from young magical beings by the inference of their dying breaths. Only her nonmagical boyfriend's belief in her newfound humanity is able to convince Eve that she doesn't have to be defined by her past. This is an urban fantasy without a solid sense of time or place. It's contemporary in tone, but there are no distinct regional flairs or cultural references. Due to Eve's memory loss and the story being told entirely from her perspective, readers learn things in fits and starts with memories slowly taking shape and reality constantly being questioned. The narrative progresses slowly and can seem disjointed at times, but the action does pick up and leads to a satisfying, if slightly creepy, ending.—Sunnie Lovelace, Wallingford Public Library, CT