Write your own story

Book review: These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

Josephine Montford (better known as "Jo") is a Montford by birth - one of the oldest, richest and most influential families in 1890's New York. She has lived a privileged life for the past seventeen years, wears the latest fashions, attends the most happening balls, and is about to be engaged to the scion of another rich and influential New York family. She should be happy and contented with her life, right? Nothing could be further from the truth, because Jo is not like the other society heiresses who cheerfully spend their time discussing inane topics such as tea parties, ball gowns, flower arrangements and eligible bachelors. She is a girl who is gifted with insatiable curiosity, sharp intelligence and a burning passion for truth, in an era when women are supposed to be docile, subservient and bound by rules of the society. 

Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things and girls only get to watch?

Any woman digressing from the accepted norms of behaviour or thinking faces social ruin, humiliation and even life-long detention in a mental asylum! Women are thought to be fragile beings, incapable of logical thinking or intelligent decision-making. A mere walk in the streets at night alone is enough to get a young woman branded as a woman of loose character or worse still, charged with insanity. In such a world, Jo is forced to keep her curiosity about the world outside her social circle carefully hidden, because she has been repeatedly warned about the consequences of being a non-conformist in society:

"You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that."

"....That was what people did when they wanted to stop a girl from doing something—they shamed her.”

That doesn't stop Jo from being secretly inspired by the trailblazing American journalist, Nellie Bly, and her sensational expose on the inhuman treatment of inmates in a lunatic asylum, "Ten Days in a Mad-House". 

We who have means and a voice must use them to help those who have neither. Yet how can we help them if we don't even know about them? And how can we know about them if no one writes about them? Is it so wrong to want to know things?

Nelly Bly (1864-1922)

Things might still have continued normally with Jo accepting the inevitable and letting go of her dreams, if suddenly her father hadn't been found dead in his study, apparently having shot himself by accident. Jo and her mother are in a state of shock while her uncle helps them sort out her father's extensive business affairs. During a visit to a prominent newspaper office owned by her family, Jo by chance overhears a young reporter talking about how her father's death was actually a suicide but was hushed up by her influential family. Unable to believe her ears, Jo confronts the reporter, Eddie, to find out why he has reached such a conclusion. Little does she know that her chance encounter with Eddie will propel her into a world of people she has never encountered, situations she has never faced and secrets she has never dreamed of before! 

"The truth can be a hard thing, Jo. It’s often best left hidden."

What if everything she has ever known about the world and the people around her is a veneer? What if her father's death is not even a suicide but a murder? Who or what was her father scared of? Who is the man with the scar Jo keeps seeing everywhere? Who knows the truth and who is hiding it? 

The mysteries keep piling one on top of the other and more secrets keep tumbling out, as Jo joins forces with Eddie to find out the truth. As she delves deeper into the mystery, she also travels to the underbelly of New York - the slums, the dockyards, the brothels, the mental asylums. Eddie helps her see and experience things and perspectives to life that she has never come across in her sheltered world. She finds the outside world scary yet strangely fascinating - full of untold stories waiting to be told. She is no longer able to reconcile herself with having no life other than getting married and raising a family - she starts questioning more, she starts wanting more:

How did this happen? How did I get here? Jo asked herself. She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to be home. Safe inside her Gramercy Square town house...

Go back? How? There was no going back. Not to her old life of drawing rooms and dances. Not to Miss Sparkwell’s School. Not to her friends, or to Bram. It had all gone too far....

If only she could be bold enough, and brave enough, to claim the things she wanted: love, a purpose, a life. But could she be?

I loved how the author expertly binds two parallel tracts together - the mystery moves seamlessly on one hand, while on the other hand, Jo awakens to a new and often dangerous world outside her known boundaries, through her association with Eddie. I liked their slow-burn romance, often poignant because of its very implausibility:

He was a flame and she’d gotten burned, and the pain was terrible, yet it didn’t make the fire any less alluring.

I liked some of the secondary characters like Eddie's friend, the forensic expert Oscar Rubin, and his funny comments about human anatomy. I also loved the strange camaraderie and female kinship between Jo and the pickpocket girl, Fay - how both were constrained to do what society forced them to do, and how both longed for freedom, in spite of being from completely disparate backgrounds.

Little by little, Jo's sheltered life crumbles around her and she loses her naivete as her assumptions about people are challenged. She realizes that the past is not really buried and the dark alleys and shallow graves may yield their startling secrets after all:

"If you're going to bury the past, bury it deep..Shallow graves always give up their secrets."

As someone who has everything to lose - her reputation, her family, her riches, her love, her sanity and maybe even her life - can Jo dare to find out the truth? Will the truth ultimately make her or break her? Will she ever be able to write her own story?

Between the shadow and the soul

Because I know no other way than this...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

- Pablo Neruda

My thoughts

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet and politician who is famous for his sensual and often erotically charged love poems. His most renowned works include Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair. I had started my blog with one of his poems; so it stands to reason that my favourite poem, out of all the ones I love, can only be one written by Neruda. 

I identify so strongly with the soul-deep love this poem speaks of - a feeling that cannot be expressed through honeyed words or flowers or precious stones. Rather, it is an emotion hidden in the dark recesses of the soul - a feeling without artifice or conditions or complexity. This is the kind of love that renders everything redundant - words, reasons, consequences, personalities and differences. There is no how or why or where to such a love; it is love simply because it is - because there is no other way to live than this.

Bargaining with your life!

Series review: Covenant of Thorns by Jeffe Kennedy

Ever read a book where the writer makes you see everything through the main character's eyes, leaving you increasingly confused and lost in a strange world - and instead of putting you off, this actually makes you more desperate to  figure out what exactly is going on? 

Ever read a book which starts off with elements you find unsavoury and characters you think are unlikable till suddenly mid-way you realize, to your surprise, that everything had happened due to a reason and that you like the characters after all? 

That was what happened with the Covenant of Thorns series by Jeffe Kennedy.

I stumbled upon this  fantasy series purely by chance on Amazon, and went into it with zero expectations, never having read a book by this author before. It's a trilogy, and I cautiously bought the first book, Rogue's Pawn, believing it to be a standard fantasy romance (judging by the clichéd cover!). But it was nothing like I had expected it to be! It disguises itself as a romance, but it actually isn't. It may be regarded as an intriguing mix of Alice in Wonderland, Rumpelstiltskin, Tamlin, Puss-in-Boots and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, but it is not really like any of them. The series progressively got better with every book and I ended up racing through all the three books in two days! Thank the gods that all the sequels had already been released and each book was of a normal, manageable length!

This is no fairy tale....

- cautions the back cover of "Rogue's Pawn", but I still wasn't prepared for how different this book was from the run-of-the-mill fantasies. The book starts like many normal urban fantasies, with a logical scientist frustrated with her dull job and duller fiancé finding herself transported accidentally to the Faerie world while on an impulsive hike to Devils Tower in Wyoming.

Devils Tower, Wyoming

When she regains consciousness, she sees a ferocious black dog standing in front of her - the same mystical dog which has been stalking her dreams for the past few weeks. The black dog attacks her, almost ripping out her throat and the next thing she knows is that she is in a dark castle where a mysterious stranger and a suspicious healer are trying to either heal her wounds or murder her (they themselves don't seem to be sure about which one they would prefer!). When she is told that she is a human Sorceress, she realizes that not only has she somehow entered the Faerie realm but has also mysteriously acquired some magic while transitioning to this world - she has only to think of something to make it happen! She can also communicate telepathically with certain people in this land. Surprisingly, she can understand and interpret the Fae people's language as her mind can translate that into English. Everyone views her as a dangerous human and an unpredictable hazard and she is bound in silver chains to restrict her magical powers. She is healed by magic, under the orders of the man who she learns is a powerful Fae sorcerer called Rogue (it seems people are named as per their character or profession in this world!). In spite of the gravity of the situation,  Jennifer's internal monologue is a joy to read:

"Call me Rogue - that's my name." 
I snorted out a painful giggle and he paced into my view. 
"I take it that translated oddly? Show me a picture of what that word means to you."
I pictured Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, scraped and bruised from escapades, a bottle of booze in one hand and a couple of girls in the other, wicked mischief on his face."

Ha-ha.

From here, things get more mysterious as Jennifer (which translates as Gwynn in Fae language) realizes that this world may look as  magical as a fairyland but is actually vicious and cruel, hiding all manner of creatures with their own agendas. The author creates a dark and uncertain world where wishes coming true have unpleasant repercussions, where everyone has an ulterior motive, and where every action and reaction have to be carefully thought out. The currency of Fae is bargain - nothing comes for free. Each favour is treated as a bargain which has to be repaid by service, trading a loved one or even death. There is no room for a random thought or impulsive action.

Rogue takes Jennifer/Gwynn to a party where she needs to bargain for her life and she doesn't fare well, given that negotiation is not her strong point. It seems she owes quite a lot of people and she is forced to survive by bargaining away her services (hence the title "Covenant of Thorns"). Rogue wants Gwynn's first born (with him!) as payment for saving her life, another noble Fae named Lord Scourge wants to train her, a general named Lord Falcon wants her assistance in winning battles and even a magically anesthetic (!) cat named Darling  wants to be her Familiar. What happens in this part left me as confused as Jennifer and unable to decide who is a friend and who is a foe, who is good and who is bad:

"You are a child in the wilderness. You are without friends."

I had issues with Jennifer submitting to the sadistic training boot-camp she undergoes, and I felt she didn't try enough to wrest back control. I found her too passive in this part and also hated Rogue for allowing this humiliation. In hindsight, I realized why this had to happen.

Things got better as the story progressed. As Jennifer becomes tougher and learns to control her magic, she also devises strategies to win battles, change hair colours, dream up the perfect dress complete with accessories and make lights out of pillows! Rogue makes a re-entry at this point, trying to use his considerable charm to seduce Jennifer, though neither she nor the reader is entirely sure of his motivations. His erotic torture is strangely irresistible to Jennifer, though she's not sure if that's due to Rogue's powerful mind control or her own weakness towards him. Every encounter with him and the other denizens of Faerie makes one sit up and notice that something underhand is happening here - a dark undercurrent of deception which seems to be leading Jennifer to an outcome which someone else is orchestrating. To top it all, Jennifer keeps seeing the mystical black dog and isn't sure if it still wants to harm her.

What kept me more interested was how well the author infuses humour in the most dangerous of situations and how quick on the uptake Jennifer is. Her intelligent mind and unique perspectives to unpredictable situations make for some delightfully snarky comments:

Act II, scene ii. Exit Nasty Tinker Bell, Enter God-Only-Knows-What-Now...

"Relax."...This wasn't easy to do, what with the knife and all. However, I was concentrating on being the most Zen I could be. Which was so not my forte.

I looked like death warmed over. Maybe death microwaved - because my eyes shone and my complexion looked fantastic.

I should have gotten coaching on proper greetings. Though it would have been difficult to cover "formally greeting nasty noble folk who've dumped soup on your head."

Each chapter begins with a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek comment, mostly starting with, "In Which I....", for example: "In Which I am Covered in Glory and Other Obnoxious Fluids" or "In Which I Accomplish Several Impossible Things before Breakfast".

Her analytical mind makes mental lists of her predicaments, that are totally hilarious:

Organize your options, I ordered myself.
1. Endure the pain..., then spend weeks convalescing chained to this bed, surrounded by people hoping to kill me.
2. Attempt to control myself long enough to be knocked unconscious, risking the possibility that I could harm someone else and likely be killed.
3. Do nothing and die here of starvation and infection.

As the story progresses, we are introduced to more likable characters who form part of Jennifer's entourage, such as Starling, Larch and Athena. The world-building is engrossing, as are the descriptions of the different types of Fae - dragonfly girls, pink pixies, blue pages, brownies, dragons and even crossover humans. Another hugely entertaining character is Jennifer's cat familiar Darling, who communicates with Jennifer using mental images and has delusions of being a fierce battle cat!

He flattened his ears in disdain, splayed his legs to lick his butt, and sent me an image of him striding through a battlefield, tossing monsters aside. The cat had battles on the brain. Plus he wanted a new name. A battle name....

"Gigantor", he suggested.
"I am so not calling you Gigantor."
Darling swirled himself around my ankles. "Titanus".
I rolled my eyes. "No."
Darling meowed up at me, lashing his tail. "Colossus."
A snort escaped me and I picked him up so he could head-butt my chin.

You go, Kitty!

The action moves at a rapid pace, the stakes get progressively higher, with never a dull moment - as Jennifer slowly starts understanding what is actually happening in this world and how to bargain with those trying to manipulate her. As she gains more clarity, the missing pieces start falling into place for the readers as well. We comprehend who is really on her side and who is not. Towards the end, there are some unexpected twists, though I cannot reveal any more of the plot to avoid spoilers. But trust me, the ride from being disoriented to being in control is well worth it, both for Jennifer and for the reader! I will give it a 4.5 out of 5, which is a very high rating indeed. Looking forward to discovering more such gems unawares! :)

I am a pause..

 Between going and staying by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

 All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause. 

 My thoughts: 

Octavio Paz (1914-1998), the Mexican poet and Nobel Laureate, is another of my favourite poets. His poems are a mixture of sensuality, philosophy and surrealism, and the one I have reproduced here is the one I like best. This poem is a complex one which can be interpreted in various ways, depending on how the reader views it through the prism of his or her own experiences.

To me, this poem conveys the state of shock that one goes through in the aftermath of the death or loss of a loved one - that feeling of constantly wavering between living and feeling dead inside. It feels as if one is unable to move on, while everything around is flowing normally and everyone else is going about their daily motions of life. It's akin to being numbed and mentally isolated from the world - physically present yet not really present at all. "I find myself in the middle of an eye/watching myself in its blank stare" - conveys a feeling of being alone and disconnected from reality.

The poem's paradoxical descriptions help articulate this solitary and strangely blank feeling, which is often difficult to express in words to someone who has never experienced a deep loss. The "circular afternoon" is in "stillness", yet it "rocks", like a stationary boat which is unable to move forward, even in flowing waters. Despite the fact that "Time is throbbing in my temples", it is "unchanging" - even in the middle of constantly changing time, the shocked person is frozen in a moment in time. "All is visible and all elusive/all is near and can't be touched" - it's as if one is unable to register anything and is existing on another plane.

As poignant as these images are, the last two lines are the most telling of all, juxtaposing motion and stagnation and conveying strongly the bereaved one's inability to move forward - wanting to let go but coming back again and again to the same point:

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

This is not a poem to be read or understood at one go. Do go back and re-read it - what does it say to you now?

Alive

Leap into the ripe air

E.E.Cummings (1894-1962) is widely regarded as one of the most innovative poets of the twentieth century, famous for his rejection of traditional poetry techniques and structures. He experimented radically with form, punctuation, syntax and spelling, to create a new, idiosyncratic and lyrical style of poetic expression. I have a number of favourites among his poems, but the one that I love the most is quoted below.

Source: facebook.com

I will wade out

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
i will take the sun in my mouth
                        and leap into the ripe air
Alive
                        with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                       Will i complete the mystery
of my flesh
i will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Source: pinterest.com

My thoughts

To me, this poem speaks of being intensely alive - of being spontaneous and making the most of every living moment. I find this poem very vibrant and sensual - it perfectly captures the feeling of motion through active images such as "leap", "dash" and "rise" which emphasize the vitality of life. It also conveys to me the joy of awakening one's true self amidst nature - of being one with the flowers, the sun and the moon.
What does this poem convey to you?

For the word is quiet and powerful

Book review: The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon

"For the word is quiet and powerful
Sharper than any two-edged sword.
Piercing even to the divided asunder
Of soul and spirit,
Of joints and marrow.
It is a discerner of the thoughts
And intents of the heart."

- Amy Harmon

After a long time, along comes a book that is so enchanting, imaginative, intriguing, unique, poetic and romantic that I just can't find the right words to do full justice to its beauty, though I will try. It is a book about the power of the word and this blog of words is the perfect place to extol the virtues of this extraordinary book.

"In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left."

In a world similar to the Medieval Ages, little Lark is born with a Gift - a gift of words that she can speak and bring into existence. She can make puppets fly, dance and jump just by saying those words and stop them by taking away the words.

"You don't need wings to fly."

"What do you need, daughter?"

"Words."

She has inherited the gift from her mother, Lady Meshara, who tries to keep this a secret from everyone including her father, Lord Corvyn. In this world where magic is shunned, exhibiting the powers of a Teller, Healer, Changer or Spinner is forbidden and anyone with such a Gift is persecuted and even killed by the King Zoltev's orders. As the book opens, an inadvertent demonstration of Lark's gift results in her mother's murder by the king. In that one moment, everything changes and Lark is so shocked that her voice is gone forever, urged by the dying words of her mother:

"Swallow, daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them ‘til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t tell, you won’t call on heaven or hell. You will learn and you will thrive.

Silence, daughter. Stay alive."

Before dying. Lady Meshara curses Lark's father, the king Zoltev and his son, the young prince Taris:

"The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would sell his soul and lose his son to the sky."

Shocked into silence, Lark grows up as a mute and neglected girl, kept a virtual prisoner by her father who fears that if anything were to happen to her, he would die too. He doesn't even teach her to read or write words, knowing that this might cause her to exhibit powers like her mother. Lark has only a faithful troll servant, Boojohni, for company, the only one who cares for her and protects her. She longs to be free and to live a life of her own. She feels emotions and words bottled up within her all the time and is able to hear words emanating from trees, animals and even people. Her loneliness and desolation come across strongly - bereft of words, she has no way of communicating with others:

"I have thoughts and feelings. I have pictures and colors. They are all bottled up inside of me because I can't make words.

But I can hear them.

The world is alive with words. The animals, the trees, the grass, and the birds hum with their own words.

"Life," they say.

"Air," they breathe.

"Heat," they hum.

I love these words. There is no deception or confusion. The words are simple. They feel the joy of creation. They feel joy because they ARE. Every living being has a word, and I hear them all.

But I can't make them."

One day, as Lark is wandering in the forest trying to hear words that she can't speak, she is captured by King Taris, the young prince of her childhood who is now the king after the sudden death of his father. He brings her back to his kingdom of Jeru to ensure her father's cooperation in the war that he is fighting against the Volgars, vicious half-human, half-vulture invaders.

Lark soon discovers that Taris is a man in the throes of an unknown anguish which she can't ignore and is compelled to use her abilities to alleviate his pain. She also realizes that Taris is nothing like his cruel father, especially after he makes her secret wish come true - by patiently teaching her to read, write and articulate words, thus giving her back the ability to communicate. Lark's newfound knowledge of words enhances her powers to make things happen with the words in her mind, and Tariq realizes that her powers can now be used to his advantage:

"You are a dangerous little bird. But I think I will keep you."

But Lark wonders if she is just a political pawn turned into a useful tool for Tariq or something more. She is also aware of how her abilities may hurt others and hence is against Taris' idea. In spite of her frail and bird-like structure and seemingly weak exterior, she is actually strong inside, a morally responsible character who wants to control her thoughts and use her unspoken words only to help others:

I was free. I was powerful. I was terrified. .
I was only limited by my ignorance,  by my fear, and by my own sense of right snd wrong.

In spite of their differences or maybe because of them, Lark and Taris share a strange bond and Lark is slowly able to communicate with him without speaking. The love story woven into the fantasy is slow to unfurl but breathtaking and sometimes poignant:

'“You glow, Lark.” His hand climbed back up again and swept over my unbound hair. 
I swallowed, suddenly close to tears. Then why does no one see me? 
“I see you,” he said..

The words had risen from his skin even when he wasn't speaking, and I had called them to me, collecting them like falling leaves, pressing them between the heavy pages of my memory so I could keep them.

Suddenly yearning had a flavor. It tasted like a king, a beautiful, frightening, infuriating man who flew into my life and began to free my words.

Though the love story is beautiful, this book is so much more than just a romance. It is ultimately a story of being true to one's own abilities, of making choices for the common good, and of accepting everyone as they are. I loved the way the story keeps moving forward, especially towards the end when there is a desperation in Lark's and Taris' relationship and they think that their time together is limited:

I welcomed him, feeling the battle within us both to reconnect and disconnect simultaneously...We were urgent. We were slow. We were barrelling towards the finish, even as we started all over again.

Surprising curses are revealed, hidden enemies emerge and epic battles need to be fought. The epilogue was just perfect and left me with a wonderfully content feeling. 

Very rarely do I come across books of this caliber - books that I want to re-read immediately after the first reading. I am mesmerized by Amy Harmon's magical writing and am definitely going to explore more of her books. This book is a romantic fantasy unlike anything I have ever read before and which I will wholeheartedly recommend, even though it has left me with a major book hangover:) I know it will take me months to find another book which matches up to this one! 

Of visions and illusions, mediums and magic!

Book review: Born of Illusion by Teri Brown

I've always been fascinated by seances and spirit mediums, tarot readings and magical illusions. I have read quite a few books on this theme set in the Jazz Age when seances and mediums were all the rage, especially because of the number of grieving widows and parents who wanted to contact the spirits of soldiers killed in World War I. The books set in this time period that I really enjoyed are "The Other Side of Midnight" by Simone St. James and "Things Half in Shadow" by Alan Finn. I also liked Jaime Lee Moyer's Delia Martin series about a woman in San Francisco of 1906 who can see and communicate with ghosts. Hence it is small wonder that I picked up Teri Brown's "Born of Illusion" which promised to be about a young and gifted illusionist experiencing frightening visions. While this is part of a series, I figured out from Goodreads reviews that each book is a standalone novel and this one is undoubtedly the best of the lot.

"Born of Illusion" is about a young girl, Anna Van Housen, whose mother is a popular spirit medium in post-World War I New York. Anna has had a lonely and unconventional childhood, moving from place to place, while her mother performed in physic shows in various small towns and cities. Her mother, Marguerite, is a stunning beauty who is always hungry for fame and fortune but has no real psychic abilities. She relies on tricks and fake illusions to make her stage shows and seances seem real. Only Anna knows her secret. Marguerite has also changed her real name to gain popularity and has spread rumours that Anna is the illegitimate daughter of the famous magician, Harry Houdini, and even Anna doesn't know if that's  true or another of her mother's elaborate deceptions. Anna is fascinated by magic and has taught herself various magic tricks over the years. Her dream is to perform independent of her mother and become an acknowledged illusionist, which is a difficult thing to do in an age when female magicians are rare and the ones that do practice are not taken seriously.

Source: pininterest.com

When the book starts, Anna and her mother have recently moved to New York as a result of her mother having found a well-connected manager, Jacques. Anna is happy that their days of barely scraping through and evading the law seem to be over and that they are now able to live in a well-to-do neighbourhood. Anna is the responsible one in the family, knowing that her flighty and unreliable mother is incapable to being prudent in money or household matters. She has a strange love-hate relationship with her mother - she loves Marguerite but is wary of her controlling and grasping nature. Anna agrees to be part of her mother's stage show in New York, where she demonstrates magical card tricks as the opening act before her mother's psychic act starts. She has always known that she has more psychic talent than her mother and struggles to keep that fact hidden from her jealous mother, as her act gains more popularity. She increasingly wonders if her powers have been inherited from her alleged father, the mysterious Houdini, and feels a strong desire to meet him in person.

Anna has more secrets that she has kept from her mother and everyone else - she is able to sense the emotions of people through touch and sometimes sees uncanny visions of impending disasters such as the sinking of the Titanic and the Spanish influenza epidemic. Her visions suddenly increase in frequency and this time they are frighteningly personal - she sees her mother in danger and feels herself drowning and unable to save her mother. She also starts experiencing emotions of others more strongly, even without touching them. During one of her mother's seances, Anna is unexpectedly able to communicate with a spirit - something that she has never able to do before. To add to her constant feeling of impending doom, the spirit Walter warns her that her life is in danger.

Source: pininterest.com

Anna's personal life is also in turmoil. She meets an attractive young neighbour Cole, who she feels a strange connection to. Her senses are heightened whenever Cole is near, but she is not able to trust him completely as he seems to have his own ulterior motive in befriending her. Anna is suspicious of her mother's manager Jacques, whose emotions are obscure to her even when she touches him. She also meets Owen, Jacques' dashing nephew, who seems to be interested in courting her. She accidentally comes across Harry Houdini and cannot restrain herself from revealing her illusionist abilities to him.

Things start becoming more complicated when some of her mother's clients start acting weirdly, she discovers the existence of a society which investigates paranormal abilities and realizes that Houdini himself is bent on unmasking phony mediums. Anna is caught between trying to protect her mother, discovering whether Houdini knows about her existence and fighting her growing attraction to Cole. All the while, she continues to question whether her own mother loves her enough and whether she will ever be able to move out of her mother's shadow.

Who can Anna truly trust - Cole or Owen? Can she reveal her true abilities to Dr. Bennett, an erstwhile member of the Society for Psychical Research? What is Jacques' hidden agenda? How much can she reveal to her own mother? What are her visions warning her about? Can she stop these events from happening in the future? All these questions start plaguing Anna and the reader. Though I managed to figure out the culprit before the final revelation, it was still an engrossing read and one I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone who enjoys a light, paranormal mystery about the coming-of-age of a likable heroine with unusual psychic abilities.