Juneberry Blue

Taking inspiration from Sleeping Beauty and rural settings, this contemporary magical realism novel includes a mistaken destiny, a dying town, and a determined ghost cat.

Eleven-year-old Andie Jennings, of Morning Glory, Virginia (population: 8), is set to inherit a matrilineal gift on Test Day, and she plans to use it to bring her dad home for good from his long-haul trucking job. Except her gift doesn’t come.

Instead, Andie starts seeing and hearing unexplained things, and a see-through cat seems to be following her. Turns out, she didn’t fail Test Day. Her gift just isn’t what anyone expected. But Andie’s ability to communicate with the ghosts at the town’s shuttered Juneberry Blue factory may be the very thing that Morning Glory—and her own family—needs.