BAD LUCK GIRL

Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit, half-human and half-Unseelie, Heir to the Midnight Throne, can save or destroy all of fairykind.

Now that Callie and best friend Jack have rescued Callie’s parents, everything’s going to be just fine, right? Jack, Callie and her parents reach Depression-era Chicago, struggling against dangers both magical (cold iron, which has a worse effect on Callie’s Unseelie father, Daniel LeRoux, than on half-fairy Callie) and mundane (the racism of Jim Crow, which endangers dark-skinned Daniel more than light-skinned, half-white Callie). After all the time she and Jack have spent fighting to escape the Seelie and Unseelie courts while rescuing Callie’s folks, she’s confident and independent. But her father is ancient, powerful and protective; Callie hates how Daniel’s “ordering [her] around like a little kid.” Zettel beautifully places this age-old generational conflict into her distinctive world. Callie and Jack want to help the Halfers, half-fairy elemental creatures composed of paper, electricity and other urban magics; Daniel calls them “Undone” and orders Callie to stay far away from the strange magic he despises. Ultimately, all the powers that be want to use Callie’s magic to win the war for their side, and nobody cares what happens to Callie, Jack or the Halfers, raising the stakes to frighteningly high levels.

Callie and Zettel bring this stellar trilogy to a satisfyingly sentimental conclusion