December 20, 2021
The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Craft in this feminist standalone from Legrand (the Empirium trilogy), a fusion of horror and queer romantic fantasy that advocates unity, self-empowerment, and societal change. The village of Haven believes that generations ago, wicked women destroyed the world with their ambition, deceit, insolence, and lust. Only the most pious humans survived, banding together to form an all-white patriarchal settlement. Residents routinely gather to exhaust their rage and depravity by visiting it upon four teenage female “saints”—Mercy, Silence, Temperance, and newly anointed Amity. Amity hopes that her service will absolve her family of her adulterous exiled mother’s sins, and persuade God to halt the gruesome supernatural murders claiming the town’s men. When the killings continue, however, Amity realizes that more drastic measures are needed to save her neighbors. Upon discovering the existence of witches able to manipulate magical energy called extasia, Amity vows to learn their ways so she may summon the Devil—and banish him. Though the overstuffed plot retreads familiar tropes, readers will be riveted by Legrand’s fierce female characters and their harrowing emotional journey. Ages 14–up. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Agency.

December 1, 2021
Teenage witches take down the patriarchy. The Barrow family--young teen Blessing and her older sister, who's just taken the saint's name Amity--live in Haven, the only human settlement to survive the wars that destroyed The World That Once Was. Living in a White society supposedly chosen by God, governed by men, and ruled by a religious text called the Sanctificat, illiterate Amity is excited to take up the red hood of the saints and open herself up to visitations during which community members physically assault holy girls in a warped ritual. Over the course of 61 chapters, Amity sets out to save her village from mysterious and grisly murders, finds and joins a multiracial coven of witches powered by a supernatural force called extasia, changes her name to Rage, falls in love with a fellow saint-turned-witch, unravels the truth around her disgraced mother, and learns information about humanity's fate that upends everything she has been taught. The entertaining but derivative core of the story, which is weakened by allegories that are blunt and overwrought, would have been better served by getting to the various points without so much meandering. This doorstopper borrows at times from classic and contemporary White feminist literature with a blend of science and magic. Lacking a punch. (Fantasy. 14-18)

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January 1, 2022

Gr 9 Up-The day the fourth saint is anointed, the preternatural killings plaguing Haven, the last town on Earth, are supposed to cease. But Saint Amity's induction is marred by another body, white-eyed beasts, gray wispy women, and newfound secrets of her saintly sisters. Haunted also by the legacy of her mother's shame, Amity reluctantly approaches the other saints so that she may learn how to save Haven, only to discover rebellion, witches, and more power than she ever knew a woman could wield. Alongside the gory, insistent violence wrought by the town and the coven, Legrand's lush and uniquely evocative prose keeps tensions high throughout Amity's struggle with her magic, fury, and conscience. Gradual worldbuilding of the claustrophobic and purposefully homogenous village and the mountain beyond bookends a faster middle half, and while background characters fade somewhat, Amity's relationships with those closest to her are the foundation for her most personal and profound revelations. VERDICT Slow-burn horror meets a queer coming-of-age story, with compassionately explored themes of feminism, grief, trauma, faith, and abuse. A YA fantasy complement to Naomi Alderman's The Power; fans of Legrand will find this an interesting new approach, as will readers of Rory Power and House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland.-Madeline Newquist

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January 1, 2022
Grades 9-12 In the wake of apocalyptic warfare, the village of Haven emerged as the world's sole community of survivors, chosen by God. Here the story's narrator prepares to be made a saint of Haven, a pious position that will allow her to make up for women's sinfulness and hopefully keep the dark forces that have been murdering Haven's men at bay. But barely has she become Saint Amity when another murder occurs. Amity embarks on a dangerous quest to face down the Devil and save Haven, but what she finds instead is a coven of witches that shakes her understanding of the world and offers Amity and her sister saints the chance to wield the magical force called Extasia. Legrand crafts a fiercely unsubtle feminist fantasy that takes on the patriarchy and the toxicity of hate. While never labeled, Haven's cultlike religion uses the language of Christianity, a natural foil to the story's witchcraft. Amity's evolving sense of self joins horror-driven action that, despite getting a smidge too expansive by the end, will keep readers invested.

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