Unfortunately didn’t find that this book was for me. I really wanted to like it but just couldn’t get into it. Thank you for the opportunity to read this work!

This was an nice take on melding magic with the modern world. I enjoyed how the author kept the story light enough to feel fun but not so much as to distract from the bigger issues. Their writing kept me engaged throughout the whole book.

Thankx to Netgalley and Evernight Tern for the opportunity to read A. D. Brazesu's book. I loved it and can't wait for #2!

Loved this book from start to finish. One of my few 5 stars this year.

Fantasy is hands down my favorite genre and so I was looking forward to this book being fantasy and having LGBTQ+ representation.

One thing I liked about this book was how magic was sprinkled into the story that focused on Miranda's everyday life struggles with magic just being one of the struggles. The growth of Miranda throughout the story was very organic and made her feel like a real 16 year old out on her own that the reader could relate to. The friendships that grow within this book are very relatable with the ups and downs that every friendship goes through. The relationship between Miranda and Ash is beautiful without being over the top that you sometimes see in books.

I can't wait to read the next book and follow the story of Miranda and friends!

What a lovely read!

I was hooked from the very beginning of this YA Fantasy! Reading about 16-year-old runaway Miranda and her navigating the big world outside of her conservative parent's bubble was simply delightful in every way. A great coming of age story mixed with love, found family, witches & magic. And Queer representation!

I appreciate how much time has been put into crafting the characters. They're all great, believable and unique in their own way. Nothing to complain about, at all.

So why isn't this a 5 star read for me? I would have loved more insight in the magic system. The whole story revolves around Miranda developing these magical powers and how her whole life is turned upside down because of it, but we barely get the chance to understand what it entails. This might have been done of purpose by the author, but I was so intrigued by this story that I simply longed to get more information. And at just over 200 pages, Brazeau could definitely have added some more information. But maybe it's just me being greedy :)

I'm very much looking forward to reading the second book in this duology!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Evernight Teen for sending me an eARC ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review!

There's potential and I liked the world building. Unfortunately I wasn't a fan of the style of writing that was a bit too convoluted and the story fell flat
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, but I have to admit to being bored for the majority of the book.

Other than being scared and confused, Miranda, the main character, does not seem to have much of a personality. (Being able to do magic and sing well do not count as personality.) I also found her pretty judgmental of sex work and quite selfish/self-absorbed most of the time (to which she at least admitted – but still got her way. Apologizing without changing anything isn’t worth much, Miranda.) I liked that she was bi though and I’m sure she was supposed to be the nice girl next door type of character.
The side characters were great, I loved Billie and Neeta, even though they also felt a bit flat to me. All the characters did to be honest. This does not make this a bad book, but it certainly does not live up to its potential. I really liked that this book was mainly made out of a queer cast.

I loved the blurb of this book and was very excited for the plot to unfold. Even though it was predictable, and I had hoped for more, it was still a good plot and far from the unrealistic fast-paced stories we usually get, where years of storytelling happen within only a few days. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but they’re still unrealistic. So, this was a nice change of pace. Due to the flatness of the characters, I found myself uncaring until the very end, where the pace had picked up, though. It felt like everything and nothing was happening at the same time. I do believe the plot would have worked better, had the characters been aged up by two years, but I can see reasons why the author wanted to keep Miranda underage.

If you like descriptions of all the senses, the authors writing style is for you. While longer than needed in my opinion, they did not stretch on endlessly and always painted a picture.

All in all this was still a good read, just not my cup of tea.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This was a delight. Miranda is a fun protagonist and the author does a great job of helping the reader feel the real vibrancy of New Orleans.

Miranda lives in a world where magic (or powers, or abilities, or SOMETHING) has suddenly come alive in the hands of young women. Miranda is one of those women and runs away from her religious family, not knowing if they will help her to try it out on her own in New Orleans. She quickly makes a handful of friends in Netta and Billie, who are fun and heartwarming conspirators even in a quick period of time. Miranda also meets two love interests, and her choice between them as a bisexual young woman is a fun background throughout the book.

Given her powers, her runaway status and her burgeoning queer love life the author does a good job of recreating that feeling of adolescence where EVERYTHING matters and its hard to figure out what is a good decision as you are weighing things against each other.

My major issue with the book is that I am not sure who the target demographic is which made it hard for me to fit some pieces together. The writing and characters felt too simplistic for a reader older than Miranda's sixteen years, but some of the topics felt like they would be hard to share with someone who was 12 or 13 - most pressingly the complicated issue of sex work as well as the lived reality of domestic violence. As a smaller nit, given the serious weight of some of these issues I was slightly annoyed when our protagonist declares her love for someone after only a handful of encounters - it felt like a juvenile response in the midst of weight topics and added to my confusion about the target age.

However, I breezed through the book and after I finished, I am excited to see where the story goes in the second part as we definitely end on a strong (and intriguing) cliffhanger.

I hate to leave a negative review, but I have to be honest.
The writing is choppy; reminiscent of very early YA paperback novels.
Nothing really happened. Nothing was explored or built upon.
I'm guessing there will be a sequel because it just ended. Boom. Done.

This was a pretty fun read. The beginning and end move pretty fast. The middle was on the slower side.
The main part of the story is the found family, and I liked seeing the three main characters grow closer as they learned more about each other.

There really wasn't much magic though, so I was disappointed about that. I am hoping the next book will be more magic heavy because I would really like to know what the powers actually are. The drag club doesn't play a huge role in the story either besides being a place where Neeta and Miranda work for a while. I wish there had been a way to include the drag show cast more.

I just wanted more from this book. There are several ideas and tropes that I like. I know this is book one of two, but I really wanted to get more of the magic in this one. The stakes felt quite high, but it was hard to really understand why. It feels like this book was meant to establish characters (which it did) and then book two will give us more context for the magic. The main character is quite young, so her focus being on her feelings and immediate surroundings does make sense, but it would have been nice if there had been news articles at the start of chapters to let us know what is happening in other places. Having magic show up around the country while only seeing through one perspective felt too limited.

My Review
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Book comes out 21 Oct 2022.
As I’ve said a few times now, I love fantasy novels, so I was excited to read about Miranda Stone. I loved meeting her and all her friends. For me, having the book set in New Orleans seemed to add to the magical aspect of the story. I love watching her grow to trust the people around her and grow as a person. The parallels with the Salem witch trials for me was an interesting touch. I wonder where the author will go with that in the second book. The one thing that bothered me was the book was a little slow, but as it is part of a duology, I will forgive that. All in all, a light, fun read.
Will I read more from A.D. Brazeau? Yes, this was a good read. Will I read the next book? Yes, all my questions are not answered.

Until next time peace and happy reading

This is a solid book about a teen discovering her magic. The New Orleans setting was a huge draw for me. I loved how the city was done in the book, it really pulled me into the world. The social circle was established very well. I enjoyed getting to know the cast of characters. The pacing was a little slow, but not unexpected in something that had a planned second book. I loved the parallels to the Salem witches. Overall it was a fun light read that I hope finds a big audience. As always, thanks to NetGally for the ARC opportunity.

A good story about magic entering the real world
This is part one of a duology where everything unfolds (so don‘t expect the author to deliver „the end“!). I really liked the vibe of the book.
Magic unexpectedly enters the world literally at the hands of women. In history repeating itself, people are starting to name them witches and if you think Salem you are on the right track. I loved how author Brazeau subtly painted the picture and hints a historical parallels all by telling what happens from the point of view of Miranda. Miranda is 16 years old and started to worry how her conservative parents would react when discovering that she too shows signs of the new magic. So she runs away.
I loved how Brazeau settles the naive run-away into her new world in New Orleans: The music, the queerness, simply the atmosphere of NOLA, her new quirky friends. The pace is leisurely and maybe at the end a bit too slow until the first hints start to come in and the next part takes off.I look forward to reading the second part.
A note to the publisher: This is a good book and entirely deserving of a much better proofreading - my major gripe when reading the book.
PS.: Clever title!

Thanks for the ARC via netgalley and Evernight Teen. The review is left voluntarily.