THE WISH RING CIPHER

An autistic girl solves mysterious codes as she and her friends try to retrieve magical artifacts.

Emma Avery anxiously enters seventh grade at a new school, Afton Academy. Her stepmom, Jennifer, expects that there she’ll receive “speech therapy and counseling and a bunch of other stuff,” and Emma finds Jennifer’s relentless positivity annoying. Popular classmate Nate Lin notices Emma’s code-breaking talents and invites her to join his group of friends, who call themselves the Codebreakers. At first, white-presenting Emma’s social anxiety takes over, but as she proves her abilities, her new friends reveal the secrets of Sablewood, a mysterious local 19th-century village. The racially diverse Codebreakers hope to find magical objects hidden in Sablewood by decoding carvings in the ruined village’s stones. Emma’s friendship instincts have been wrong before, and she’s unsure whether to trust them now. She sometimes imagines how easy life would be for “Other Emma,” one without autism, but as the storyline progresses, her interactions and internal monologues show her many strengths and contributions. Diagrams demonstrate how some ciphers work, which may encourage further exploration, and a bonus cipher for readers to solve adds to the fun. One subplot introduced at the beginning of the story disappears without resolution, but the main storyline progresses cohesively, leaving just enough suspenseful loose ends to pique readers’ interest for the next series entry.

A suspenseful mystery novel with a carefully and convincingly drawn protagonist.