The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

August 24, 2020
In Jerreat-Poole’s imaginative fantasy debut, teenager Eli masquerades as a white human girl, but is in fact a deadly assassin whose form was crafted by a witch out of “beetle shells and cranberries and uncaring function.” Eli’s task is to hunt down and kill ghosts who still roam the human world in illusory bodies, but when a job goes horrifyingly wrong, she realizes that someone chose a live person, not a ghost in disguise, for her mark. No longer able to trust her witch mother, or the Coven that rules her city, Eli allies with a renegade faction of diverse witches whose members include a gay Vietnamese Canadian character and a brown-skinned nonbinary individual. The rebels aim to destabilize the Coven, which intends to close the all-important portal between the human and magical worlds; though Eli agrees to assist the rebels, the decision may cost her her life. The novel’s narrative structure relies upon confusing temporal shifts, producing a somewhat disjointed plotline, and frequently labored prose, but inventive worldbuilding and intriguing characters complement the fantastical setting. Ages 15–up. (Oct.)■