Identical twins Sonja and Charlotte are musical prodigies with extraordinary powers. Born on All-Hallows-Eve, the girls could play music before they could walk. They were found one night by Tatty, the Tattooed Lady of the circus, in a pail on her doorstep with only a note and a heart-shaped locket. They’ve been with Tatty ever since, roaming the Outskirts in the circus caravans, moving from place to place.
But lately, curious things have started to happen when they play their instruments. During one of their performances, the girls accidentally levitate their entire audience, drawing too much unwanted attention. Soon, ominous Enforcers come after them, and Charlotte and Sonja must embark on a perilous journey through enchanted lands in hopes of unlocking the secrets of their mysterious past.
★★★★☆
Charlotte and Sonja are identical twins born on Halloween, but are soon abandoned by their biological parents. Wrapped in a shawl and tucked inside a pail, with only a brief note and locket for explanation, they are left on the doorstep of Tatty Tatters, the Tattooed Lady of the local circus.
Within a few short years, it becomes evident that both Charlotte and Sonja are musical prodigies. They join the performing crew of the circus, adjusting to life on the traveling show circuit. But as the girls get into their tween years, more and more oddball things start happening at their shows --- moments of levitation (either the performers or the audience ... or both!), candles lighting themselves, storms being summoned. Word gets out and before long the sisters have Enforcers (police) trying to sniff out their whereabouts.
Not wanting to further endanger their circus family, the twins decide to audition for a full ride scholarship at a nearby School for the Gifted. Maybe success in school can help them rise to a safer, more stable life away from the world of Outskirters (crime-heavy lands of the homeless) and Scrummagers (orphans, often trying to survive through acts of petty crime). Little do they know, this only causes more of the exact trouble they are trying to avoid, as all the Gifted schools in the area are all funded by the same "Richer" (wealthy citizen), Kats von Stralen. Kats has secretly been holding these scholarship "auditions" to lure in all the local gifted youth, only to later steal / extract the magic from their beings, using a unique technique involving cats.
*Why yes, there is a lot of on-the-nose word play in this novel.... but ehh, the eye can bypass a lot of it. It was quiet enough, I personally didn't find it all that problematic or distracting....even gave it a smirk here and there!
Kats manages to extract the power out of the twins, which naturally devastates them, but Charlotte remains concerned about her new friend & fellow talented musician, Jack Cross, whom she met at the school audition. Can she get to him before Kats does?
The twins having their magic stolen is only the start of their troubles, if you can believe it! They also discover that there is magic woven into Tatty's full body tattoos... and then suddenly she is kidnapped! The journey to save their adoptive mother takes Charlotte and Sonja through a parallel universe known as The Seven Edens, all the while dodging Enforcers on their trail. They make a stop-off in The Forlorn Forest, a land of shapeshifters (aka Changelings), before heading on to The Land Where Plants Reign where they are to meet up with Uncle Tell (the circus fortune teller), who is optimistic about a plan he has to set things right again.
There's an almost frenzied quality to the pace of the writing that keeps these pages moving at a good clip. I will say, it doesn't always have the classic feel of an innocent middle grade read. There is a fair amount of violence within the plot, with quite a few animals getting hurt or even killed, but as far as the description of these scenes go, nothing is really overly gruesome in nature. But several of the adult characters in the story appear to be habitual smokers, and at times we even have Kats tapping into his snuff box or snorting vials of black powder. So, any concerned parents out there with established parameters for what you want your kid reading, give this a precursory read if you feel so inclined.
Malouf has a definite talent for developing visual distinction among all these different environments the twins travel through --- the dirty, littered streets where Outskirters congregate; the smoky, brightly lit, tented circus world; the lush, green, rain-glistened forests across Seven Edens --- it was great! I was even hoping for a just a little more in-depth world building! (But who knows, maybe there will be a sequel one day.)
In between all the magic building and adventure story aspects, there's this more hushed side plot of the sisters learning (sometimes painfully) to test their metaphorical wings and try out the world independent of each other. Charlotte feels the stronger pull to learn who she is outside of her identity as a twin, but Sonja is more reluctant to be exposed to anything that might threaten to break up the duo. Without her sister or her music around her, Sonja feels incredibly lost in the world.
*the pencil sketches scattered throughout
the book are also done by Malouf.
At times it even felt like there was a little underlying ecological-type story running in the background. We have the classic "underdog" (here, being the twins, the Changelings of Seven Edens, the circus crew) taking on "the big corporation" (here, mainly in the form of Contessa, the incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful mother of Kats. Contessa wants to use the magic Kats has been harvesting from gifted children to funnel into a plot to make all the world one uniform, steel-covered, money-making machine that won't hesitate to "squash any rebellion."
This being her debut novel, Juman Malouf shows serious promise as a highly entertaining MG / YA fantasy writer! As evil as Kats was through most of this book, she actually had me momentarily feeling a little sad for the abandoned little boy in Kats' soul.
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