And the River Drags Her Down

A grieving Korean American teen accesses forbidden magic and must contend with the spine-tingling results in this chilling YA debut by Yun (Some Are Always Hungry, for adults). Seven years after 17-year-old Soojin Han’s mother died in a car accident, the drowning of Soojin’s older sister Mirae leaves the teen alone with her grief as her father travels for work. When the loneliness grows too intense, Soojin uses her family’s magic to resurrect Mirae, disregarding previous warnings that she never use necromancy to reanimate anything larger than a small animal. Soojin’s joy at their reunion is short-lived: Mirae doesn’t remember her own name and seems plagued by a mournful bitterness, while Soojin struggles to recover from the physical and mental backlash of the powerful magic. Suddenly, their largely white coastal home of Jade Acre is beset by relentless rain and flooding, and drowned corpses begin mysteriously appearing throughout town. Soojin must now choose between keeping her sister by her side or saving the rest of her community in this grisly tale, which triumphs in its depiction of sisterhood and grief. Lyrical prose renders meaningful, tear-jerking sequences and propulsive horror alongside frank examinations of the cycles of generational trauma. Ages 14–up. Agent: Serene Hakim and Annie Hwang, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Oct.)