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Title details for The Tarnished Garden by Alyssa Colman - Available

The Tarnished Garden

#2 in series

by Alyssa Colman
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

In this enchanting follow-up to The Gilded Girl, Maeve and Izzy O'Donnell must adjust to a new life together at the Manhattan School for Magic—but when Maeve's magic goes rogue and their school is in danger, they'll need to lean on one another to make things right.
The Manhattan School for Magic is the newest kindling school in New York, but Maeve O'Donnell knows she doesn't deserve her place there. Though her sister, Izzy, is one of the school's founders and a hero to those who can now kindle, Maeve can't control her magic and she lives in fear of anyone—especially Izzy—finding out.
When Maeve's worst fears come true and her magic goes rogue, it damages not only the new school but Izzy's reputation as well. While trying to repair what she's broken, Maeve discovers a mysterious garden in the tenement neighborhood of the Tarnish, a hidden place where her magic actually works. As her magic and confidence grow, she befriends the others for whom the garden is a haven: a litter of talking kittens (house dragons, of course) who need Maeve's help to find their missing mother. But someone else is searching for the kittens, too, someone who doesn't care how many magical sites they have to destroy to stop magic's expansion. And Maeve's unstable magic might be the only way to save her sister's school from being snuffed out next.
The Tarnished Garden is a sparkling middle-grade novel from Alyssa Colman.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Gilded Magic

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 5, 2022

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780374313968

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780374313968
      • File size: 4253 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      February 1, 2022
      Long-separated orphan sisters bond as tensions rise over mysterious attacks on magic in early-20th-century Manhattan. Following up on The Gilded Girl (2021), a riff on A Little Princess, Colman crafts a companion tale. Referencing Frances Hodgson Burnett's titular secret garden, this entry is set in 1907 and centers on 11-year-old Maeve O'Donnell, younger sister of Izzy and struggling student at a new, controversial magic school that is--thanks to her sister's heroic actions in the previous book--open to children of all social classes. Along with further developing the theme of class struggles (one of the school's rabid opponents is tellingly named Mrs. Nimby), the author stirs in disturbing reports of magic being somehow burned up in certain buildings as well as a rash of disappearing house dragons (think talking magic cats) and a walled garden in the Tarnish tenements where three rare and superlatively cute dragon kittens are hiding. It's in that garden (once she discovers it) that Maeve gets over not only her fear of her own uncontrolled magic by helping new friend Avi Sigal conquer his anxieties, but her conviction that her loving sister's affections are being stolen by the previous episode's co-protagonist, Emma Harris. Ultimately the mysteries all twist up into a tight, tidy climax that leaves the villain exposed and other storylines happily resolved. Most of the cast reads as White. A sweet tale spun around friendship, sisterly love, and dragon kittens, with a nod to another Edwardian classic. (Fantasy. 8-13)

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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