BETWEEN MONSTERS AND MARVELS https://ift.tt/FcTiKyt

Dare Coates is willful, surly, and unrepentantly nonconforming: “an awful girl.” Only her father truly understood and loved her, but he was often busy patrolling for monsters on the island where they live, even though one hasn’t been seen there for over 20 years. After his violent murder, her mother marries the island’s pompous and secretive governor, who then sends Dare to the mainland to live with her father’s aunt. From the moment her journey begins, Dare finds connections to her father through his past associates and the guild emblem on his special wooden box. The more she learns about him, the more peril Dare finds herself in, especially as she realizes the connection both she and her father have with so-called monsters. Dare has an outwardly cantankerous nature that hides a desire for acceptance. This works to endear her to readers even as her thorny exterior provides entertainment. Dare’s true nature reveals itself piece by piece, like the clues dropped in every so often that help expand the worldbuilding as well as the moral conundrums Dare becomes embroiled in. Questions of what constitutes a monster and who decides what’s true add depth to an already feisty caper. Characters read white.

from Kirkus Reviews https://ift.tt/XGnaOH4