Set in 1987 against the backdrop of Santa Maria, with a girl and her mother fleeing their abusive household, Mayhem is a poetically wrought mess that disappointed me the more I read. There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good.īut when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost.ĬW: talk and depictions of domestic abuse, sexual assault, suicide Either way, she knows they aren’t like everyone else.īut when May’s stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem’s questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self. Maybe it has to do with Roxy’s constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem’s own irresistible pull to water. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy.

It’s 1987 and unfortunately it’s not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. He might not even survive himself.Genre(s): YA Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Magical Realism

He faces ghosts, ancient monsters, and even an evil substitute teacher, but unless he can confront his past, and the trauma that lies there, he might not manage to save the people he cares about. When the murderers turn their attention to Vie, though, he discovers that his powers might not be up to the task. As he searches for the killer, or killers, he discovers that a conspiracy exists in the small town of Vehpese: a conspiracy that might be older and deeper than Vie first suspects, a conspiracy of drugs and human trafficking that might also be tied, in some way Vie can't quite understand, to his own abilities-and to the other psychic abilities in his town.

On the day of cross country tryouts, though, Vie finds one of the teachers dead-and Vie refuses to believe that the death was a suicide. Make the cross country team, pick up his grades, and spend a lot of time with his boyfriend.

Only days have passed since Vie Eliot's murderous half-brother-a dangerous, out-of-control psychic-was stopped from killing the people Vie loves most, but Vie is ready for his life to return to normal.

The Dust Feast by Gregory Ashe