CHANGELING

An alienated high schooler, relocated to tourist destination Mount Shasta in California, finds that she’s descended from a secret group of warring nonhumans with supernatural aspects.

Seventeen-year-old Ellie Blake has long felt like the odd one out in her family. She’s redhaired, unlike any of her relatives, and overprotected by her mother, Eleanor, with whom she lives; her father, Nathan, who lives elsewhere, has always favored her older sister, Jenna. Ellie also keeps it a secret that she can see human auras. After Eleanor dies of cancer, Ellie and Jenna go to live with their father in Northern California’s Mount Shasta region, where he’s inherited an inn catering totourists who frequent the area, lured by rumors of Bigfoot and a lost civilization of “Lemurians,” who supposedly dwell within the mountain. After glimpsing a phantom of a girl, Ellie learns that Lemurians exist; they’re a long-lived, nonhuman species with occult powers. At some point in their teenage years,a Lemurian must choose to be either a magic-wielding Mystic or a potentially lethal Vampire who feeds off the life-energy of others—including unwitting humans. A schism developed between the branches, and now Vampires are hunting and killing Mystics, with unaffiliated young Changelings caught in the middle. It turns out Lemurian-descended Ellie is a Changeling herself, and one of illustrious lineage. The novel’s lost-world premise is one of the oldest in pulp fantasy, but the tone here trends closer to Stephenie Meyer than Edgar Rice Burroughs; the settings here aren’t dazzling kingdoms, but bioluminous caves, glades, public parks, crystal-souvenir shops, and teenage hangouts as the mythic Lemurians lurk amid ignorant humans. There’s a tantalizing suggestion that the bulk of Lemurian territory might abide in an alternate dimension. For the most part, though, it feels as if this sequel-ready outing could plug in cast members of other popular YA paranormal series without changing its story too much. A niche readership may also enjoy the Mount Shasta and Trinity National Park place names and ambiance.

Spiritually tinged YA fantasy that may cast a spell over fans of the Twilight Saga.