When Miranda's grandmother discloses on her death bed that the family is cursed, Miranda is not inclined to believe her. She is a young woman of science, and it's 2021, for goodness' sake. Still, it's hard to deny there's something supernatural about the Liu family, as their great-great-grandfather (aka The Grandfather) lived to the age of 134 trying to locate the remains of his twin brother, Qianfu, whose unmarked grave is the stuff of feng shui nightmares. As a result, Qianfu's ghost is hungry and feeds off the life force of The Grandfather's descendants. It's up to Miranda and her goofy, dyslexic, and compassionate cousin, Brian, to find Qianfu's bones and break the curse by using a family heirloom, the lo p'an, or geomancer's compass. The night-and-day dynamic between cousins Miranda and Brian creates most of the lighthearted humor and also highlights Miranda's unlikable but very human characteristics. Embracing the tumultuous, tragic, but triumphant history of Chinese Canadians, Hardy explores a not-too-distant past of corruption, discrimination, hate crimes, and commerce in this adventurous mystery.

In 2021 Canada, Miranda is more comfortable in Augmented Reality than in her traditional Chinese family. Tasked with breaking a century-old curse by their dying grandmother and their great-great-grandfather's avatar, Miranda and her dyslexic, hyperactive cousin must save their family with a seventeenth-century geomancer's compass. Hardy melds history, Chinese-Canadian culture, magic, and virtual realities in this fast-paced, unusual story.

Chinese-Canadian cousins must lay to rest the hungry ghost of an improperly buried ancestor in this debut for teens set in the very near future. The Lius are cursed: Miranda's father has never really recovered from an unlucky lightning strike, her brothers are plagued with asthma and encroaching blindness, and her cousins are, respectively, dyslexic to the point of illiterate with a side of ADHD, agoraphobic and anorexic. But narrator Miranda, the normal one (aside from crippling anxiety about any number of things), has a breezy tone even when relaying terrible things, thanks to her boundless self-obsession. After The Grandfather dies, Miranda and Brian (dyslexic) are sent on a journey to recover the bones of The Grandfather's twin brother, killed a century ago. Due to bad feng shui, he is not at rest, which is the reason for the family's misfortunes. Conveniently, The Grandfather can take avatar form and appear in a virtual reality, accessible via I-Spex, to guide Miranda and Brian and fight Qianfu's ghost. Indeed, The Grandfather and convenient technology (the virtual Google Maps–like system includes the ability to see underground, right when Miranda and Brian need to pinpoint the dead body) are the stars of this somewhat belabored and uneven but earnest novel. Notable for originality but limited by forced writing and shallow characters. (Science fiction. 11-14)