Death in the Cards
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The young adult debut from the award-winning author of Arsenic and Adobo! When a high school tarot reader’s latest client goes missing after a troubling reading, she must apply everything she’s learned from her private investigator mother to solve a case of her own.
“Delightfully layered. The tarot readings bring a fresh and bright angle to this modern mystery. Mia P. Manansala has created an endearing voice in Danika—an intuitive, intelligent, and emotionally sharp amateur sleuth.” —Elle Cosimano, New York Times bestselling author of Finlay Donovan is Killing It
Danika Dizon is a natural problem-solver. Thanks to her private investigator mom and mystery author dad, she's equipped with the skills to offer guidance to anxious classmates who come to her for a tarot reading between classes. For a price, of course.
But when one of her clients vanishes shortly after they're dealt a death card, the girl’s younger sister Gaby begs Danika to figure out what went wrong. Danika takes on the case, thinking it's the perfect way to prove to her parents that she should be an official investigator in the family’s detective agency.
What starts off as a compelling challenge quickly devolves into something darker as Danika and Gaby peel back layer after layer of the secret life the missing girl has been living. A life that those involved would do anything to keep from being revealed…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Manansala (Guilt and Ginataan, for adults) injects a grounded mystery with spiritual tarot elements in her YA debut, a detective story about a high school student investigating a classmate's mysterious disappearance. When 17-year-old Danika Dizon isn't assisting her mother at the family's detective agency, she runs a thriving side hustle as a tarot card reader, charging peers in exchange for readings. After popular girl Eli Delgado goes missing, her well-to-do parents deliberately avoid informing the police, instead hiring Danika's mother to locate her, hoping to keep a low profile and circumvent any potential scandal. Danika, too, becomes embroiled in Eli's case, and she finds herself growing closer to Eli's cute younger sister Gaby, who proves distracting to Danika's investigation. But as Eli's secrets come to light and Danika further entrenches herself into her classmates' personal lives, this seemingly simple missing persons case takes a dark turn. Though the conflicts lack tension and the overarching mystery becomes somewhat buried by various subplots, Manansala's snappy prose and the characters' sharp banter make for an enjoyable read. A wealth of classic teen sleuth conventions recalls Veronica Mars's charm. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 12–up.
