Weave a Circle Round

Starred review from October 2, 2017
In this dazzling debut—a love letter to history, legend, and the power of stories that takes inspiration from Norse myth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge—a young woman is catapulted through time and space after she runs afoul of her eccentric neighbors. Fourteen-year-old Freddy Duchamp isn’t sure what to make of her abrasive, rebellious classmate Josiah or the mercurial Cuerva Lachance, who claims to be a private investigator. When Freddy and Josiah fall through a time portal, it’s the start of a fanciful odyssey through the past and future. As they encounter numerous versions of Josiah and Cuerva, who appear to represent order and chaos, Freddy realizes that she or one of her siblings might be the third in their eternally reoccurring trio, destined to tip the balance between opposing forces and influence a story as old as human civilization. This is an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale, with memorable characters and a powerful sense of wonder. Agent: Monica Pacheco, McDermid Agency.

October 1, 2017
A Canadian teenager learns about herself--and the fabric of the universe--when she goes traveling in time with an immortal 14-year-old.Freddy Duchamp is uncertain where she fits in at high school, especially since her only two friends are about to dump her in a bid for popularity. But her attempt to survive by flying under the radar is utterly torpedoed by her strange new neighbor and classmate, Josiah, who seems determined to provoke attention and anger at every opportunity. Surviving high school soon becomes beside the point when Freddy finds herself traveling in time with Josiah, thanks to Josiah's even weirder housemate, Cuerva Lachance. Josiah and Cuerva Lachance are actually immortal forces representing order and chaos respectively. They're balanced out by an endlessly reincarnating mortal known as Three, who must choose between the other two in each time period. Apparently, either Freddy, her clever younger sister, Mel, or her sullen, geeky stepbrother, Roland, is the incarnation of Three in Freddy's time, but the two immortals aren't certain which of them it is. As Freddy traverses the past and future, she becomes ever more convinced that there's more to Three and the choice than Josiah and Cuerva Lachance are willing to reveal. Time travel is a tricky trope to make consistent, but Maaren employs it deftly. Her teenage characters are incredibly plausible. In contrast, it seems odd that Freddy's mother and stepfather could truly be as absent as they seem; it is possible (and sad), but it mostly feels like yet another trope: in order to have adventures, you have to get the parents out of the way. This debut novel could easily be pigeonholed as YA, and certainly those in that age group will gravitate to it, but adults shouldn't hesitate to dive in, too.A charming, extraordinarily relatable book with the potential to become a timeless classic.

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November 15, 2017

Like any teenager with an eccentric family, Freddy Duchamp just wants to get through high school as an ordinary student, but her precocious little sister Mel, who wants to be a detective, and deaf stepbrother Roland, who's a huge geek, aren't much help. However, when a van crash next door leads them to meeting their new neighbors Cuerva Lachance and Josiah, any attempt at normalcy gets thrown out the window. Even odder is their house, just barely larger than a TARDIS (the time-traveling machine of the British Doctor Who), which suddenly whisks Freddy away with the neighbors--thousands of years into the past. Maaren's characters are by turns charming, annoying, and frequently hilarious. The quick pace and dialog may remind readers of Madeleine L'Engle or Jasper Fforde, making the protagonists timeless in their own way. VERDICT With definite YA crossover appeal but enough action and intrigue for adults, Maaren's enchanting debut is for anyone who enjoys stretching their imagination or is nostalgic for their teenage years.--KC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017

Gr 7-10-Fans of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time will devour this debut author's adventurous new fantasy. Afraid of being called "weird," Freddy Duchamp tries to be invisible at school, but her brilliant little sister Mel and deaf stepbrother Roland often draw too much attention to her. Making matters worse are the new next-door neighbors and quirky Josiah, a boy her age, who follows her to every class. Freddy senses something strange is going on with the newcomers, and soon she's swept away with Josiah on an epic quest through time. Mingling with Vikings, warriors, mythical figures, and futuristic races, her journey becomes one of self-discovery as well as one of self-preservation. Even Roland, her clumsy, annoying stepbrother, doesn't seem so bad with centuries keeping them apart. Yet Josiah seems to be harboring a secret, and Freddy must find the courage to seek the answers if she ever wants to return to her family. This is one of those rare books that surprises readers at every turn because Maaren's deft writing keeps the story impossible to predict. Although the cast of characters is big and the science mind-bending, readers will relate to awkward Freddy's desire to fit in and the coming-of-age lessons she learns from each character on her path. Ultimately, the theme of being true to yourself and yet still kind to others will resonate with young people. VERDICT This wildly imaginative book deserves to be on every YA fantasy shelf.-Sandi Jones, Wynne High School, AR

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2017
When a strange woman in the park offers her a key, it presages peculiar things to come for 10-year-old Freddy. And come they do four years later when a surpassingly strange woman named Cuerva Lachance and a boy named Josiah, who hotly insists that Cuerva is not his mother, move into the equally strange house next door. Before you can say how odd, Freddy finds herself transportedin her new neighbors' companyback in time to ninth-century Sweden. Then it's on to Iron Age China and then to sixteenth-century France and then, well, you get the idea. We're clearly hip deep in a time-travel novel with all the conventions, challenges, and charms of the genre. There are perhaps fewer paradoxes than usual, butto make up for itthere are a host of perplexing occasions that invite head-scratching questions. Who, for example, is the person called Three? Why does Josiah develop a doppelganger? Who or what is Cuerva? Tantalizing questions to hold readers' attention to the end of this intriguing exercise.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)