Twelve-year-old Larissa's parents own Bayou Bridge Antiques, which features a wall of old phones. When one of the phones begins ringing, Larissa hesitantly picks it up. The female voice on the other end begs Larissa to find the fireflies. She does and is transported by the insects to 1912, where she witnesses her great-great-grandmother, Anna, stealing a porcelain doll from a servant girl. Chillingly, the doll is still in the family, sitting encased in Bayou Bridge Antiques. Larissa begins to realize that she is the only one who can correct past wrongs. But how will she know what to do? The only advice: trust the fireflies. Fans of Little's When the Butterflies Came (2013) will recognize Bayou Bridge and some of the returning characters. Like Butterflies, this book blends magic and mystery with a bit of horror. Unfortunately, transitions between time periods are choppy, and the large cast of girls spread across generations gets confusing. Still, fans of Mary Downing Hahn's books will appreciate the spooky porcelain dolls and family curse.

Gr 4-6 Larissa Renaud's scar burns down the side of her face every time the doll her Mamma keeps locked in the upstairs cabinet looks at her. The angry slash reminds Larissa of her terrible accident at Bayou Bridge, the same bridge where her aunt Gwen drowned as a young girl. The scar warns Larissa not to play with or talk to any of the kids in the town who forced her off the bridge. The scar makes Larissa think that her Mamma, pregnant and anxious, doesn't think she is beautiful anymore. Then Larissa starts getting phone calls on an ancient telephone in her parents' antique storea phone that has long been disconnected from the wall. "Trust the fireflies," the voice tells her. Believing that the message is a matter of life and death for her family, Larissa lets the fireflies swirl her across the dangerous river to travel back in time to her ancestor's rich sugarcane estate. Bouncing through the generations, Larissa begins to piece together the history of the blue-eyed heirloom doll, Anna Marie, that her mother keeps. Bought on the Island of the Dolls and infused with a powerful spirit, the doll that Larissa's great-great-grandmother stole from a servant girl became a curse for each generation thereafter. The evil doll has been at each tragic, untimely death, and Larissa soon figures out it is her Mamma and her newly born sister, Emilie, who are the next targets. Can Larissa find a way to save her family, and perhaps heal her own wounds? This is a haunting, well-constructed tale that keeps readers guessing until the end. The feel of the old bayou infuses the story and the well-developed characters fit into the landscape, moving along in a plot filled with suspense, adventure, and mystery. A perfect choice for lovers of ghost stories, historical fiction, or just a good yarn. Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA

Larissa begins to notice strange things in her family's antique shop. A doll watches her. A disconnected phone rings on its own, and the voice on the other end sends Larissa on a journey through time to break her family's curse. Lush descriptions of the Louisiana bayou create an atmosphere that will make it easy for readers to believe in the supernatural.

Little returns to the Louisiana bayou setting of The Healing Spell and Circle of Secrets in a summer story that follows 12-year-old Larissa Renaud in her quest to save her family from past tragedies that are bleeding into their future. It all begins with an ominous call from a disconnected phone in the antique shop her family has moved into. -Find the fireflies. Trust the fireflies,-