Finding Jade

Jasmine Guzman expects her first day of ninth grade at a new school to be relatively uneventful, despite living with her terminally ill mother and mourning the disappearance of her twin sister, Jade, years ago. Jasmine’s assignment to Beaconsfield Collegiate, which has an unusually high number of twin students, begins of a series of events that challenges everything she knows. She, like many other twins, is actually a powerful Seer, responsible for protecting the world from demons, and she must find Jade, who now lives in the demon-riddled Place-in-Between. Though Payne’s (Since You’ve Been Gone) story takes place sometime in the future after much of the world has been ruined by climate change, leaving refugees to seek asylum, the setting is largely irrelevant. Most of the action occurs in the Place-in-Between, a changing landscape that mirrors tragic events in human history. Competing mythologies, including Armageddon, angels, demons, and African folklore create confusion, and although there are many promising elements in Payne’s first entry in the Daughters of Light series, they don’t come together in a cohesive way. Ages 12–up. Agent: Amy Tompkins, Transatlantic Literary. (Mar.)