Today a new book was released and an author saw her vision, her dream, and all her hard work come to life in the real world, at last. Sherry Taveras spent five years on this labor of love, trying to carve out time, finding her way through the publishing world, and most of at last telling her story to the world. I volunteered to receive an advance reader’s copy (aka ARC) in exchange for an honest review on the book.
Here is the official book blurb:
When Harriet Honeybee’s mother vanishes and her little brother is kidnapped, the quietest girl in school is thrown into the loudest disaster of her life. Following the only clues they left behind, Harriet stumbles through a hidden portal and into a world where seers, timekeepers, and ancient prophecies are very, very real.
There, she learns the truth she was never meant to know: the women in her family are powerful seers, guardians of the fragile line between worlds. And Harriet? She’s destined to become their next Matriarch.
Guided by her eccentric grandmother Zuzu and a circle of unlikely new friends, Harriet must unlock her own awakening magic, navigate shifting timelines, and track the people who took her family—before time runs out for all of them.
Now, for my review…I’m going to start with the challenges, the things that interfered with my enjoyment of the book and then, like Harriet herself, move on to the good stuff.
The formatting is rough and uneven, not sure if that is due to the fact that I received an advance copy or if all copies share this format. Likewise, there’s copy edit mistakes. They tend to bounce the reader out of the story. One minute you’re in awe of some magical transition between worlds and the next you’re thinking, “That should be you’re not your.” Lastly, and most importantly, this book needed a developmental editor, especially in the opening chapters. Everything with self-publishing costs a lot more than one thinks it will, so I understand if the author couldn’t swing the cost.
The beginning of the book is rough. There is a lot going on and it is confusing and hard to follow. Taveras pays the reader the compliment of assuming that they can keep up, however, I would have been okay with paring down some of the atmospheric scene building in favor of a bit more exposition. The beginning third is…muddy. That said, hang in there…it, like adolescence, gets a lot better.
Let’s talk about what the author excels at…man, what appealing characters! Harriet, Zuzu, Ruthie, Joey, the uncles, and even Griselda really draw the reader in and you feel for them. You can hear and see them. Better than that, you are rooting for them all, but especially Harriet. One of the things that I enjoy the most about Harriet (and there is a lot) is that among the many things that she is, she is a young, strong, lovely and loving black girl. I am going to do my best here to explain my emotional response to her without (I hope) offending too many sensibilities. Harriet is black, but in this book that is not ALL she is. This isn’t a fantasy novel about a black heroine. This is a fantasy novel about a heroine who is black. Does her race add to her strength, to her beauty, to her uniqueness? Absolutely. Is it her only defining characteristic? Hell no. I think that young African-American girls and boys will love and see themselves in this book’s characters, but I also think that because of Taveras’ skills in creating these lovely adolescents, so will Asian, Latino, and Caucasian kids as well. Taveras allows her characters to be quiet (in the beginning Harriet), to be impetuous (Ruthie), to fail (Zuzu and Elizabeth), to be snide (Griselda), to let us down (Benedict) and yet she has developed enough facets and complexities that by the end, we are even cheering Grizzly on.
Another area where Taveras is outstanding is in embracing the humanity, acknowledging our flaws. We are all going to have bad days. Bad things will happen in our lives. We will fail. Now, do we allow those failures, those tragedies to define us? Do we wallow in bitterness and double down on blame, anger, and regret? Or do we choose, actively choose, to rise above our worst selves? Do we choose to forgive those who would seek to wrong us? Not because they deserve it, but because we need it to move on, to live in a meaningful way. Not a spoiler, but I can say that Harriet’s greatest gift is forgiveness. Forgiving herself. Forgiving those who have wronged her. She is greater than the petty sorrows of the past. She recognizes that the road only leads forward, not back. One does not dwell, one perseveres.
Taveras champions free will and that theme runs throughout the book. Free will and family, both the kind we choose and the kind that we are born to. Harriet is faced with difficult choices and her success and survival is predicated on how she chooses, but she ALWAYS has a choice. Likewise, her friends who follow her and her family who love and seek the best for her (in their own VERY varied ways) have choices of their own. Even the establishments, whether it is the school system in our world or a similar institution across dimensions have choices on how they alternately deal with and/or support Harriet and her brother, Rico. I will say that while the book’s tagline is “Family is the strongest magic of all” I was disappointed in some family members, most of all Harriet’s father and, to a lesser degree, her mother. However, other relationships like the ones between Harriet and Rico, Helena and Magda are fully three dimensional, complex family ties. When she nails it, Taveras really nails it.
This is a solid four star debut and I am excited to see what adventures await Harriet in the future as I doubt, after this read, that we have seen all this brilliant young woman has in store for her lucky readers!
Here is where to buy the novel for yourself- just in time for the holidays!
