INEVITABLE FATE

Is a 17-year-old student’s acceptance to NYU’s elite art program a lucky break or preordained?

Rather than returning to high school for his senior year, Evan Kiernan is settling into college, thanks to a portfolio that included an impressive oil painting he did called The Green-Eyed Girl. During his first week in New York, a sudden rainstorm leads a stranger to share his umbrella—a green-eyed stranger who looks exactly like the girl he painted from his imagination. Evan and Mara Cassidy feel an immediate connection that strengthens as they spend time together. Mara’s physical likeness to the painting isn’t the only strange coincidence, however. At a Coney Island gallery, Evan finds a 1911 photograph of a young man—one of the people with unusual physical traits who was on display at an amusement park. Apart from his numerous tattoos, the young man looks exactly like Evan. Flashbacks send Evan back in time to the amusement park and even to the Puritan witch trials; each time, he encounters Mara. Interspersed among Evan’s narrative are entries written by a certain Kieran Flynn from the Kings Park Asylum in 1911. Readers will enjoy spotting parallels between the characters across the different time periods, and Evan is engaging as he tries to solve the puzzle. For all her charm, Mara, a drummer in a rock band, remains woefully passive and underdeveloped. Main characters present white.

A clever tale about breaking free from the past that falls short on secondary character development.