The Jinn Daughter

In Hanna’s mixed-bag debut, a desperate mother destroys her family in an effort to keep her daughter alive. As a Hakawati Jinn, it’s Nadine’s duty to “tell the stories of the dead and send the souls to final—and hopefully, peaceful—death.” She does so by collecting pomegranate seeds that each represent a recently deceased soul, pressing them into a juice that gives her visions of their lives, and then turning these visions into short fables. These folkloric stories, scattered throughout the text, are the strongest part of the novel and would have worked nicely as a collection. Unfortunately, the overwrought and repetitive frame narrative is less successful. When the pomegranate seeds stop appearing one day, Kamuna (i.e., Death herself) comes to claim Nadine’s daughter, Layala, as Death’s successor. Layala willingly dies to take on the role, but Nadine refuses to accept this turn of events. In her desperate quest to bring Layala back to life, she sacrifices Layala’s grandfather; Layala’s love interest, Rami; and Layala’s father—and ultimately must take on Mother Earth herself. This choppy plot builds to an abrupt and unconvincing climax. There’s little to make this stand out in the crowded marketplace of dark, folktale-inspired fantasy. Agent: Kaitlyn Katsoupis, Belcastro Agency. (Apr.)