Knox, Elizabeth. Mortal Fire.

Knox, Elizabeth.  Mortal Fire.  Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2013  436p  ISBN 978-0-374-38829-4  hs        Hardback  VG  Magic     

This beautifully written but somewhat confusing story has a background theme of controlling and using magic. Canny, who has been a math whiz, visits the Zarene Valley in Southland (somewhere in the South Pacific).  She has the ability to draw the runes that control magic, a feat no one outside the Zarene clan has ever been able to do.  What she discovers scares her, and she runs away.  She becomes quite ill, as do all bearers of the magic.  Rediscovering her own rune, she returns to the valley to complete her plans.  In the process she makes some startling discoveries about her past and family background.

This book is exquisitely written.  The language is beautiful.  Just as the main character, Canny, does not understand all that is going on, so the reader is left with many unanswered questions.  Everything is not neatly wrapped up at the end.  It is recommended for high school due to the sophistication and confusing concepts of the magic involved.     

Summary: Set somewhere in the South Pacific in the 1980’s and 1942, this story features a girl with a photographic memory and mathematical ability meeting people who live in isolation and practice magic.  Here she learns more about her past.

Magic-Fiction, South Pacific-Fiction                              --Joan Theal