After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.
Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily’s gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find—even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism.
This book started off really well. The writing flowed; much like Maeve in the Chokey, I was losing track of time as I read. I was interested (and a bit jealous!) as Maeve immediately understood the cards on a deep level. I did find myself shuffling my own pack and pulling out the cards Maeve talks about as the story went on!
However, as we moved through the story, things got complicated and I wasn't sure I was understanding all the nuances. It seemed like the Housekeeper was conjured during the misery of the famine, which we're told was quite bad around the area Maeve lived. But later Maeve decides that the Housekeeper came back from America with Heaven. Maybe it's the same being, maybe it isn't, but I didn't follow the chain of events very well. (Also Lily was apparently a river and might become one again? That bit really didn't make any sense to me.)
However, I loved the characters, the flow of the story and the bits of magic instruction and information. I'm very interested to see what happens to these characters in the next book of the series. This is going to fill a niche for teenage girls, and might even give tarot sales a boost!
All Our Hidden Gifts publishes on the 8th June, 2o21 in the US (top image) and on the 1st July, 2021 in the UK (lower image).
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