After Cat's grandmother dies, she has no choice but to go live with her estranged and unreliable mother in New Orleans. As Cat tries to understand her mother's bipolar disorder and how her history may have triggered it, she begins to worry that she, too, might be mentally ill. Morgyn (Resurrection Girls, 2019) draws readers in with an explosive start and then leads them deeper into the nuances of Cat's familial history with a tale whose creeping pace builds to a crescendo. Morgyn's haunting and unsettling story features a narrator with an observant voice and is told in alluring prose (though it includes a slur for Romani people). With questions about the nature of mental illness, the validity of fortune-telling, and what our interpretations of our fortunes say about us, this blends a difficult mother-daughter relationship with an atmospheric setting and a mystery touched by the ambiguously supernatural. Jellicoe Road (2008) meets Imaginary Girls (2011) in this sophomore novel for readers who enjoy stories with a strong sense of place.

Plagued by dreams and strange visitors linked to a tarot deck, Cat tries to uncover her mentally ill mother's secrets.Cat's lived with Moony, her maternal grandmother, since her mother, Mary, dropped her off at age 7 with a secret deck of tarot cards. Ten years later, Moony's death brings estranged Mary back into Cat's life; she relocates her daughter from Moony's small Louisiana town to New Orleans, where she works as a tarot reader in the French Quarter. Mary's severe bipolar disorder has hurt Cat deeply in the past and is depicted in painful, no-holds-barred details. Cat worries about her own sanity, knowing the disease's genetic component-and because she's haunted by people resembling the figures from the tarot deck both in dreams and, sometimes, on the streets of New Orleans. With the help of Daniel, her handsome love interest, Cat seeks answers about the people she's seeing and the inciting trauma that triggered Mary's illness. She finds far more than she bargained for, learning about old family secrets and devastating crimes and tragedies that her mother survived. The discoveries are well paced, the setting enchanting. Cat, Mary, and Moony are painted as complex characters caught in a complicated dynamic; their believability anchors the otherworldly elements and provides emotional weight to the stakes and resolution. Cat and her family are White; Daniel is a multiethnic Black boy.An enthralling dive into trauma, mental health, and mother-daughter relationships. (author's note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)

Gr 8 Up-The summer before her senior year, Catia discovers that her grandmother Moony, who has been raising her, has died in her sleep. With nowhere else to turn, Cat reluctantly reaches out to her estranged mother, Mary, who brings her daughter back to her apartment in New Orleans. Her mother has been grappling with bipolar disorder for years, with extreme highs and lows that made parenting Cat impossible. A mixture of gritty realism and fantasy are intertwined unevenly as Cat moves between solving the mystery of her mother's past and interacting with other-worldly beings. Cat begins a healthy romance with a multi-racial young man who proves to be a good balance to her dysfunctional family dynamic. Tarot cards, mysticism, and religion tie in together as Cat unearths a secret from Mary's past that explains some of her behaviors and sets Cat on her own path of discovery. Morgyn creates an atmospheric narrative that tackles some facets of mental illness and how some youths end up taking a parental role in their relationship with a mother or father. An author's note explains Morgyn's connection with Mary's secret and includes the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Cat and her family are white. VERDICT This magical realism story would be a good addition to larger collections and might prove welcome to those who do not have traditional households.Nancy McKay, Byron P.L., IL