Animal Spirits

Suzanne DuBois, a graduate student in New York City, is toughing it out on the Lower East Side. Calling herself “The Most Tragic Person” after her family – all adepts with occult powers – vanished with no trace when she was a teenager. She has long given up on finding them. That is, until she meets an intriguing computer search guru David DuBois. She and David learn they are distantly related from centuries earlier in France. And, that both of their families vanished overnight. Having no occult powers besides their keen intellects, they team up to piece together the history of their families' supernatural talents and disappearances. But despite their shared craving to find their families, Suzanne is wary of David, who annoys her with his French sophistication and culture. As for David, he finds Suzanne too snarky and American for his tastes. He is obsessed by memories of his cousin Sophie, who disappeared years ago with the rest. But a bond grows between Suzanne and David as they uncover unsettling information about their families and shadowy entities Suzanne names "the animal spirits." Caught in a dangerous biological cycle, Suzanne and David try to escape their families' fates, a cycle - based on a fateful bargain - that's been going on in ice-age caves in the south of France for thousands of years. Animal Spirits is a snappy page turner, and would be enjoyed by those who liked the smart self-aware heroine in Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, with urban fantasy, and supernatural romance elements. “…smart and engaging…the characters are both quirky and accessible and I became quite involved with them and with this world.” Maureen Brady, author of Ginger’s Fire.