At the start of Charlie Jane Anders's Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Jamie's mother, Serena, is struggling. Since the death of her wife, Mae, six years ago, simultaneous with Serena's career imploding, Serena has been holed up with her grief in a one-room schoolhouse in the woods. Now Jamie, wrestling with her dissertation on 18th-century literature, has decided enough is enough. In the interest of pulling Serena out of her black hole, Jamie's finally going to tell her mom her big secret: Jamie is a witch.
But teaching Serena some nice, wholesome, positivity-based magic misfires, because Serena is prickly, powerful, and pissed at the world. Learning magic proves hazardous, to her and to Jamie. As the younger witch attempts to teach her mother the rules of magic (which self-taught Jamie has defined for herself), the women must confront relationships past and present, with each other and with their partners. Serena and Jamie are a prickly and troubled duo but are earnestly trying to come together. They will face challenges to their love as well as to their personal safety, as the stakes rise in a world of bigotry and social injustice, but they will also form stronger bonds with each other and other strong women.
Anders (Never Say You Can't Survive; All the Birds in the Sky) excels at dialogue and the portrayal of relationships both loving and thorny. Amid the profoundly serious dangers, there are frequent notes of joy, fun, and intimacy throughout. Lessons in Magic and Disaster features the magic of spells and charms but also that of human connection, and readers will be richer for the experience. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia