We Can Never Leave

Edgmon (The Flicker) dazzles in this supernatural mystery novel in which a traveling caravan hidden from human society provides community for magical creatures with no memory of who they are or where they’re from. Then, the morning after the caravan celebrates a new moon, Bird—the pale-skinned half-human grandchild of the caravan’s leaders—wakes to find that most of the community has disappeared without a trace. Left behind are pessimistic, pyrokinetic Hugo and his reality-manipulating brother Felix; Calliope, a wolf girl with a venomous bite; and Eamon, a boy made of shadow. Each of them is harboring feelings of frustration, resentment, and distrust, as well as hiding secrets from the others. As they try to solve the mystery of the caravan’s disappearance, they must also navigate fraught relationships and the fallout of uncovering the community’s darkest truths—all while being hunted by a horrific entity. Alternating POVs are interspersed with occasional cryptic, unaddressed messages and nonlinear flashbacks from before the vanishing. Depictions of the ripple effects of people’s choices on their community’s most vulnerable members are at the core of this captivating fable of belonging and intergenerational trauma. Ages 14–up. (June)