Sleight by Jennifer Sommersby

Her mom is dead.
Ghosts follow her around.
Her best friend is an elephant.
And she’s about to meet the biggest game changer of all: a boy. With a secret.


When circus-dwelling Gemma Flannery learns she will be attending public school for the first time in her seventeen years, little does she know that fitting in with her 12th-grade classmates will be the least of her concerns. A pro at hiding her knack for seeing the dead (“shades”), Gemma is grieving the recent suicide of her mentally ill mother, a process eased by the introduction of her first real love interest, the charming and painfully handsome Henry Dmitri, who is harboring his own collection of dangerous secrets. Together, they will be presented with a frightening challenge: to assume their roles as heirs to a 3000-year-old magical text, the AVRAKEDAVRA, a book the über-rich, sleight-of-being master Lucian Dmitri would do anything to get his hands on. As each terrifying layer in her new reality melts away, Gemma unearths truths that her quiet, nomadic life with the Cinzio Traveling Players is not at all what she’d always cherished. Gemma and Henry must rely on each other to stop Lucian’s diabolical plotting that will bring the world to its tired, scab-riddled knees, and are sent on the flight of their young lives, to save themselves, their families, and the world from the darkest kind of destruction.


Let the chase begin.”

This is a hard one for me to review. It was an original story, the characters were well-written, but I felt like something was missing. You know how sometimes when you read a book and you just can’t put your finger on it? Just like that.

I loved the setting for the book, reading about circuses reminds me of childhood and getting to go watch the acrobats. Gemma had lived through a very rough life thus far, and throughout the story more and more went horribly wrong. Henry was one of those sorts of guys that is written to be too perfect in the beginning, as the story goes on a few of his “flaws” start to show, but I wouldn’t even really consider them flaws. I loved Ash in the beginning, since I typically love the boys with a bit of bad guy attitude, but I quickly decided against that, because of his attitude as I neared the middle part of the book that just got worse and worse with little to no explanation until later in the book.

The overall storyline was imaginative, and I can’t wait to read the next book to see what happens to Gemma and Henry next. Hopefully with the sequel I will not be left feeling like something out there is just…missing, because the story was actually really good.

I received my copy as a giveaway prize from New Books for New Bloggers, thanks to them and the author!