Kulper’s debut seamlessly blends fantasy elements with the more realistic life of a whaling settlement during the 19th-century. He believes his powerful magic can help Avery break her mother’s spell. Then she meets tattooed Tane, a harpooner from an island near New Zealand, who comes looking for answers to help him avenge his murdered family. After repeatedly dreaming of being a slaughtered whale, Avery knows her fate and despairs of ever escaping to fully master her magic and prevent her death. The teen has the gift of accurately interpreting dreams. To protect Avery from this fate, her mother cast a spell that prevents the girl from ever leaving town to see her grandmother. Avery’s once-beautiful mother was severely beaten and left with a devastating facial scar before Avery was born. A Roe witch cannot be killed but can be maimed. When the protagonist turned 12, before fully unlocking her magic, her mother dragged her away from her training at her grandmother’s cottage to raise Avery in town to be a proper society lady without magic. It’s the 1860s and Avery is descended from a long line of witches that use their magic to keep the island’s whaling men safe at sea. Sixteen-year-old Avery Roe’s destiny is to become the next witch of Prince Island. It’s long and the characters are not instantly likable, but they do grow on patient readers because the author portrays them as real, flawed, and multidimensional teens will learn to love and root for them.- Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

Salt & storm kendall kulper