Fall of the Fireflies (Seasons of Sisterhood #1)

Set in the world of García McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas, this mesmerizing novel follows 15-year-old Mexican American twins Velia and Delia as they determine to save their father’s soul from supernatural beings. Though Velia and Delia have always been close, the siblings find themselves at odds as they get older, as when Delia coaxes Velia into agreeing to go on tour with their recently returned musician father, who abandoned them years ago to make it big with his Tejano band. After Papá is attacked one night by a ghoulish dismembered hand, however, Velia realizes that she and her sister must work together to save him from the supernatural entity. Traveling from Eagle Pass, Texas, into Mexico, the siblings visit their abuelita, who informs them that their father’s soul has been stolen by elemental shape-shifters called chaneques. The sisters are then recruited by twin Aztec gods Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl in the beings’ efforts to vanquish the chaneques. Via the girls’ propulsive, distinctly rendered alternating POVs, McCall presents an Aztec-influenced world teeming with magical creatures and powerful deities. Across their adventure, the twins struggle to see eye to eye, a dynamic that an author’s note addresses as being inspired by sisters Antigone and Ismene from Sophocles’s Antigone. A Spanish-language edition publishes simultaneously. Ages 13–17. Agent: Andrea Cascardi, Transatlantic Literary. (Oct.)

Correction: A previous version of this review miscategorized two characters.