First reports blame someone who shares Maya’s last name, and the backlash they suffer leads her parents to restrict Maya’s options. Interspersed with Maya’s intimate first-person account are brief, cinematic interludes tracking a disturbed young man who commits a terror attack. Her matchmaking parents like Kareem, an intriguing young Indian man Maya meets and dates, while Phil, a white classmate who’s been her longtime crush, remains a secret from her parents. Meanwhile, two potential love interests command her attention. Time is running out to break the news to her parents that her filmmaking is more than just a hobby. Maya, the only brown girl in her school with the only immigrant parents, loves parts of her Indian culture but blames everything she thinks she can’t have on her cultural constraints and on the fact that she’s different. High school senior Maya Aziz works up the courage to tell her parents that she’s gotten into the film school of her dreams in New York City, but their expectations combined with anti-Muslim backlash from a terror attack threaten to derail her dream. Main characters are White queerness is accepted without comment in this world.Ī deliciously dark coming-of-age fairy tale brimming with magic, monsters, and hope. Some aspects may feel familiar to fans of this genre, but the writing and pacing will sweep readers along. The romance is relatively low-key, and the developing trust and friendship between characters shines. The voice of Cerys, whose lack of self-confidence makes her a convincingly unwilling hero, contrasts with the talking fox’s witty narration. Beautifully dark and descriptive prose creates a grim fairy-tale atmosphere that blends with horrific descriptions of bone-eaters, twisted magic, and the ominous adventure through the Wilds. When the coronation is disrupted by the woodcurse, Cerys and the fox rush into the Wildwood, searching for the possibly mythical city of Voryn in hopes of saving the kingdom. As Cerys mourns missing loved ones, Anwen’s upcoming coronation looms as ruler, her friend will wear the crown of Aloriya, whose magic keeps the evil of the Wilds at bay.
With only Princess Anwen, her father, and a mischievous fox for friendship, Cerys has accepted her quiet life, which includes being gossiped about by others for the magic in her blood that, when spilled, causes greenery to grow exponentially. A lowly gardener’s daughter enters the cursed Wildwood to save her kingdom.Ĭerys, the royal gardener’s daughter, always believed she would stay in Village-in-the-Valley, inheriting the care of the castle’s flowers from her father.
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