Read This Book…

Maeve is an Irish teenager going to a Catholic school, and she’s not the best at school. One day, during detention, she finds a deck of tarot cards and teaches herself how to give readings. Finally, this is something she’s good at, and she even comes up with a nice little side hustle giving readings to her classmates. But when she reads the cards for her ex-best friend Lily, she draws a terrifying card she’s never seen before: the Housekeeper. Then, Lily disappears the next day. Maeve is alarmed, and she can’t help but feel guilty and somehow responsible when she learns that Lily was last seen with a tall, dark-haired woman bearing a striking resemblance to the Housekeeper card. Maeve teams up with Lily’s sibling and a new friend to get down to the bottom of this magical mystery, and get Lily back.

I loved the creepy vibes of this book, which has a light mystery element to it, but is mostly a witchy read about realizing the extent of your power and wielding it responsibly. I loved that Maeve is a teenager who isn’t conventionally good at school and often feels out of place as the youngest child of a big family with siblings who are all a lot older than her. She has insecurities and doubts, and those feed into her budding powers. Her journey is all about learning to come into her own powers, owning up to her actions, and facing her mistakes. There is also a delightful queer romance at the heart of this book, and some really interesting local history, with an all-too-real villain in the form of a far-right Christian conservative group. All of the elements came together really well, and while this book is set in spring and not in fall, it feels like a perfectly atmospheric and witchy book for October. Bonus: The sequel is excellent, too!