In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

Surely she can get Michael to ask her to prom. Liz hopes that her senior year might turn into a real-life romantic fantasy, as an old crush has moved back to town, cuter and nicer than ever. Liz Buxbaum has always adored rom-coms, not least for helping her still feel close to her screenwriter mother, who died when she was little. There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.Ī grieving teen’s devotion to romance films might ruin her chances at actual romance. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. Vintage photographs contribute to the authenticity of the atmospheric and nicely paced storytelling. Winters strikes just the right balance between history and ghost story, neatly capturing the tenor of the times, as growing scientific inquiry collided with heightened spiritualist curiosity. Stephen’s distasteful half brother, Julius, exploits those fears and the growing interest in the occult by serving as a “spirit photographer”-an occupation Mary Shelley is skeptical of until Stephen is killed and she is visited by his ghost. This place is just as full of anxiety and fear as Portland, the toll from war and disease sending her families grasping at anything to alleviate their pain. Her new home allows her to reconnect with the family of her first love, Stephen, now a soldier fighting in the war.

Mary Shelley flees to her Aunt Eva in San Diego to avoid possible fallout from the arrest and since it might be a better place to wait out the influenza epidemic that is sweeping the country. It is 1918, and the country is at war those who speak out against it, like her father, find themselves persecuted. Mary Shelley Black’s world has been turned upside down by the arrest of her father at their home in Portland, Ore.

A bright young woman is caught between science and spiritualism in her quest to make sense of a world overcome with war and disease in 1918 California.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters