What good is powerful magic when society demands submissiveness? One night in New York City in 1911, Frances Hallowell, a 17-year-old seamstress, stays up late to finish a coat in the communal workroom. Her boss, stumbling in drunk, tries to assault her but ends up with Frances' shears in his neck. They flew across the room, as if by magic. Before she can be arrested for murder, she's whisked away by two women posing as nurses who claim she has tuberculosis and must be treated at once. Frances discovers their ruse was cover for being taken to Haxahaven Academy, a girls' boarding school where students dressed in black uniforms are kept safe as they learn about their various inherent magical gifts. However, safety apparently means focusing on magical housekeeping techniques and quietly learning to control their urges. Frustrated and wanting to solve the mystery of her brother's recent death, Frances accepts an offer of lessons from her brother's friend Finn, an Irish boy she's been seeing in her dreams. Frances' pragmatic, city-girl outlook keeps the story grounded despite only cursory evocations of the setting. This intensely dramatic story presents Gaelic-influenced magic as a means to empowerment and shows the strength in sisterhood. The academy operates with an inclusive definition of girl, and there is background queer representation along with some racial and ethnic diversity. Intriguing. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Grief and empowerment lace this engrossing duology opener as it careens from boarding schools to basement pit fights in a casually diverse 1911 New York. Since her brother William's murder, sweatshop dressmaker Frances Hallowell, 17 and presumed white, lives in poverty and has closed off her heart. But when an assault by her drunk employer wakes her inborn magic--and ends with him dead--she's swept away to the overgrown, walled Haxahaven Academy: a school for female and nonbinary witches that's disguised as a tuberculosis sanitarium. Soon, hints about William's murder appear in Frances's room, and his Irish friend Finn, part of a magical gentleman's club, offers to teach her a spell to speak with the dead. But as the students' ambitions surpass learning to dampen their magic, dreamwalker Finn haunts Frances's sleep, and more boys die, Frances must stop the murders--and find a way to own her magic. Devotees of Libba Bray's The Diviners will enjoy debut author Smith's affectionate group of witches breaking through straitlaced expectations in a historical New York whose grittiness never tips into horror. Ages 14--up. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, ICM Partners. (Aug.)■

Seventeen-year-old Frances Hallowell is a seamstress in 1911 New York City trying to deal with her brother's mysterious death, in which she is a suspect. Before she can be arrested, Frances is taken away by two nurses, who claim she has tuberculosis, to a Haxahaven Sanitarium, which turns out be a school where girls are trained as witches. Enthralled by her newly discovered powers, Frances yearns to learn more but is stifled by the school rules. After she meets Finn, a cute Irish boy with his own abilities, she begins learning darker magic in an attempt to solve her brother's murder. In doing so, she unknowingly attracts others who want to use her powers for evil, and Frances must decide which path to take to find the answers she seeks. Mystery and adventure abound in Smith's spellbinding debut, which resonates with the familiar vibes of a magical boarding school, along with a feminist twist. Readers will be pleased that the conclusion points to a sequel.