Betwixt » (Reprint)

Tara Bray Smith's autobiographical adult novel, West of Then, was published in 2004 to critical acclaim. She was born and raised in Hawaii, and now lives in New York City and Dusseldorf, Germany. Betwixt was Tara's debut novel for young adults, and she is currently working on its sequel, Broken, coming 2010.

For three teenagers, dark mystery has always lurked at the corner of the eyes and the edge of sleep. Beautiful Morgan D'Amici wakes in her trailerpark home with dirt and blood under her fingernails. Paintings come alive under Ondine Mason's violet-eyed gaze. Haunted runaway Nix Saint-Michael sees halos of light around people about to die.

At a secret summer rave in the woods, the three teenagers learn of their true, changeling nature and their uncertain, intertwined destinies. Riveting, unflinching, beautiful, Betwixt shows a magic as complex and challenging as any ordinary reality.

VOYA

Rising high school senior Ondine, her best friend Morgan, and Nix, a mysterious runaway new to their town of Portland, Oregon, have always known that they were different; however, neither has revealed the nature of their individual differences to anyone. Ondine, a gifted artist, has a vision that allows her to perceive magic in the air; Morgan, beautiful but heartless, feels a visceral connection to the wild; and Nix, confused and lonely, sees auras around humans that indicate their impending deaths. When the three are invited to attend a secret outdoor party in the wilderness, they discover their true natures: Ondine, Morgan, and Nix are "fay," changelings with fairy blood who live in mortal bodies and who will be called to their spirit homes in one year. They soon discover that other forces have special interest in making sure that the souls of the changelings never return home. Elements of traditional fantasy creep into Smith's contemporary third-person-omniscient narrative, and these references might strike a chord in the mind of the fantasy reader who is likely to recognize, for example, allusions to the character of Morgan La Fay in Morgan. Smith builds the mystery of the central characters' identities slowly, and as they learn the thoughts and actions of other corollary but in-the-know characters, readers are left to put the puzzle together. Fantasy fans familiar with the conventions of the genre will probably prove better at this mystery solving than others and will be among the first drawn to this new novel.