A House Like an Accordion

A gripping premise fizzles out in Burges’s underwhelming sophomore effort (after The Miniscule Mansion of Myra Malone). Billionaire Keyrth Miller has a secret: whatever she draws in her magically expanding sketchbook appears in real life. Thanks to the book, she’s drawn her way out of foster care and into a college scholarship, a family, and a fortune. But her estranged father has a talent of his own: whatever he draws in his own magic sketchbook becomes imprisoned there. When Keyrth’s hand turns invisible, she knows her father is drawing her into his book. To track him down and stop him, Keyrth must delve back into her past by traveling across the Southwest in search of the five mysterious houses where she last lived with her family. The narrative loses momentum during Keyrth’s travels thanks to ham-fisted foreshadowing about her true origins and an oddly handled love triangle between Keryth, her husband, and her high school boyfriend, Tobias, that ends with an appalling manipulation on Keryth’s part. This disappoints. Agent: Maria Whelan, InkWell Management. (May)