THE FIVE IMPOSSIBLE TASKS OF EDEN SMITH

Orphan Eden Smith meets her iconoclastic grandfather just as he’s imprisoned by his Guild. Can she complete five impossible tasks to free him?

After years in foster care, 13-year-old Eden learns she has a living grandfather. In the smiths’ vast, secretive, rule-bound Guildhall, Vulcan’s the only Eleventh-Level Master, but the Council jails him anyway for rules violations. Estranged from Eden’s manufacturing father, the prickly Vulcan at first feigns disinterest in his granddaughter, but he thaws upon discovering her unexpected smithing skills. Meanwhile, Eden, lonely among the aging smiths, befriends kitchen boy Nathaniel. Like all Guild staff, he is a Jones, forbidden from smithing, but Eden finds that rule ridiculous. After all, her mother was a Jones. Recruiting Vulcan, Nathaniel, and other Joneses serves Eden well during the deadly tasks. Can she clean dishes, catch steel birds and rats, steal a girdle, and avoid Uriah Pewtersmith’s vindictive troublemaking to save her grandfather, her life, and her new home? Eden is a resourceful, brave, sympathetic character in an intricately crafted and original setting. But the blend of tongue-in-cheek dark humor with genuine emotions feels uneven, and plot mechanisms are overt; Eden learns something vital to each task before attempting it. Eden and Vulcan have brown skin; Nathaniel is cued white, and contextual clues signal diversity in ethnicity and race in the supporting cast.

Themes of family and prejudice thread this creative, slightly uneven adventure in smithing.