RAINSONG

Mendocino, California, conceals many secrets—and maybe magic too.

High school junior Zayn Pereira, whose dad is from Afghanistan and late mum was from Australia, arrives in Mendocino in a daze. She’s haunted by her uncle’s fatal bike accident and is struggling to care for her 7-year-old sister, Mania, while feeling resigned to her father’s distant affect. The story drops readers right into Zayn’s life, hinting only slightly at the secrets both she and her new Northern California town are hiding. The community is reeling from a teenage girl’s unsolved disappearance, and Tiago Rodriguez, a Mexican and Chilean American boy who’s the first person Zayn connects with, is a prime suspect. The story’s tone shifts dramatically when Zayn employs her supernatural gift to save Tiago following a hit-and-run: Pressing their palms together, Zayn uses her hand, which glows with healing orange lines, to absorb his pain into her body and heal his broken leg. For years, she’d “kept away from the scraped, the bleeding, the broken. Until now.” Things go sideways between Zayn and dark forces controlling the town as she discovers that generations of locals have been locked in a violent conflict. The premise is compelling, and many scenes, especially those set on Rainsong, a purportedly haunted nearby island, are deliciously terrifying. But the dialogue-heavy first-person narration struggles to match the story’s ambitious aims, distracting from the cinematic, high-stakes thriller elements.

An intriguing supernatural concept with distracting narrative execution.