Lyrical magical realism paints four generations of women with tragic lives until a shocking violation fixes everything. First-person narrator Ava, who isn't even born until nearly halfway through the novel, never becomes the main character. Instead, the novel opens with Ava's great-grandmother in France and follows the family through the ill-fated romances and personal calamities that chase them to Manhattan and eventually Seattle. Surrounded by death and despised by their neighbors, the Lavender women live in seclusion even from one another. Ava's grieving grandmother Emilienne sees ghosts and ignores her daughter, Viviane. Viviane pines away from blighted love while raising its fruit: twins Ava and Henry. In the metaphor-made-flesh style of the genre, both children wear their oddness on their bodies. Henry would be autistic if his strangeness and language difficulties weren't conceived as fantastical abilities, and Ava is born with wings. Isolated and, ironically, flightless, Ava longs to be a normal girl; her only real social contact is an earthy, vivacious neighborhood girl named Cardigan. The story's language is gorgeous: "I turned and spread my wings open, as wide as they would go, feeling the wind comb its cold fingers through my feathers." Disturbingly, a horrific assault acts as the vehicle of redemption, magically bringing people together for reasons that make sense only in the dreamlike metaphysics of literary device. Gorgeous prose for readers willing to be blindsided. (Magical realism. 16 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Ava Lavender, a typical girl in every respect except for the fact that she was born with wings, sits upon a family tree of doomed lovers. Her great-grandfather, her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, and her mother were either unlucky or foolish in matters of the heart. Family stories have become local legend, and Ava must explore them all to discover the two questions that haunt her: Where did I come from? . . . What would the world do with a girl such as I? What the world eventually does is to foist itself rather viciously on her. Ava is alternately shaped and trapped by her family's saga, and her voice at times gets lost in the telling. But it is a beautiful voice poetic, witty, and as honest as family mythology will allow. There are many sorrows in Walton's debut, and most of them are Ava's through inheritance. Readers should prepare themselves for a tale where myth and reality, lust and love, the corporal and the ghostly, are interchangeable and surprising.--Dean, Kara Copyright 2014 Booklist

Gr 9 Up-A girl born with brown speckled wings, as Ava Lavender was, is surely bound to be a curiosity. In the Roux family, however, Ava is not really so strange. This multigenerational saga moves from France to New York before Emilienne, Ava's grandmother, becomes the family's sole survivor. She is accompanied by the ghosts of her deceased siblings when she moves to Seattle, where she becomes a baker. Her loveless marriage produces one child, Vivianne, who lives an ordinary childhood, despite the fact that Emilienne is believed to be a witch. Emilienne's hope that teenage Vivianne will avoid the heartbreak that plagued her own youth is dashed when Vivianne becomes pregnant and the father of her twins returns to college and his college sweetheart. Vivianne is not just brokenhearted when she gives birth to Ava and Ava's mute twin, Henry, she is also a heartbreaker. Gabe, who rents a room from Emilienne, is in love with Vivianne, but receives no reciprocation. This story of unrequited love, betrayal, brutality, and healing is beautifully narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Her pronunciation of French proper names and pastries is authentic, as is her characterization of various personalities. This fantasy tale of ghosts, humans with feathers and wings, and cherries that ripen in Seattle in February will appeal to older teens.-Ann Weber, Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, CA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Walton debuts with an entrancing and sumptuously written multigenerational novel wrapped in the language of fable, magical realism, and local legend. Ostensibly about a 16-year-old born with wings, the novel is also a rich retelling of Ava Lavender's family history, including her stalwart grandmother Emilienne's journey from adolescence in rural France and 1920s Manhattan to a hardscrabble life as a widowed baker in Seattle; and Ava's mother Viviane's unrequited obsession with a childhood love and the rearing of her children. Halfway in, Ava's story moves front and center, as she longs to leave the safety of her home, sneaks out with her friend Cardigan, and begins to fall for Cardigan's brother, Rowe. Flirting with fairytalelike occurrences throughout-Viviane has a supernatural sense of smell, one of Emilienne's siblings transforms into a bird, ghosts are everywhere-Walton's novel builds to a brutal but triumphant conclusion. It's a story that adults and teenagers can appreciate equally, one that's less about love than about the way love can be thwarted and denied. Or, as Walton puts it, "the scars love's victims carry." Ages 14-up. Agent: Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Victoria Sanders & Associates. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Narrator Ava describes her life being born (in 1944) with wings. She begins with her great-grandmother's story: Maman's emigration from Le Havre, France, to "Manhatine," her husband's disappearance, and the tragedy of two of her children's deaths. A third child, Emilienne, is Ava's grandmother, who bore her own share of troubles. Lyrical language permeates this languidly told magical realism tale full of mystery and melancholy. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.