MADreads

On a Saturday night in 1978, a man enters a Florida sorority house and systematically attacks women from room to room, leaving them for dead. He flees the sorority down the main staircase and out the front door as the sorority president Pamela Schumacher stands in the shadows, frozen in fear. She sees the killer's face and haunted by that night and the aftermath of the attack, she's determined to find justice. She's obsessed with finding the killer and eventually earns a law degree with the intention of facing him in court one day.

Children born on February 29 are rare, but what if some "Leaplings" could also travel in time? Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè and her best friend Big Ben are about to find out what happens when the future touches the present, and they'll have to hope their first time-travel won't be their last!
Contemporary and futuristic settings, neurodiverse characters, and time travel add up to a really interesting read for upper elementary readers that may challenge you!

Sylvie Cathrall's debut is an epistolary novel - a novelistic style that sometimes works for me and sometimes does not. Here it mostly does. I was immediately drawn in by the dreamy, carefully anxious letter that E. is writing to Scholar Henerey Clel. E. (you'll learn her full name later) lives alone in an underwater abode called The Deep House. She writes to Henerey and her sister Sophy and an array of others to stay in contact with the world. This world is one that is about 99% covered in water and most abodes are on floating islands.

London was rife with spiritualists and otherworldly activity in 1873, so much so that entire societies were devoted to connecting the living with the dead. Exclusive men's clubs, like the fictional London Séance Society, were all the rage. Intended as a social club where gentleman met to play cards, drink, and hone their paranormal skills, the London Séance Society also provided outreach services by hosting lectures and demonstrations.