Give me a book about kickass magic wielding ladies set in an incredibly built world, and I’ll fall in love. And I fell head over heels into a portal leading to Los Lagos. Zoraida Córdova’s Labyrinth Lost was the type of book where, had I read it as an actual teenager, I would have reread it every day until I got sick of it. (Spoiler: I would never get sick of it.)
Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives.
I fall to my knees. Shattered glass, melted candles and the outline of scorched feathers are all that surround me. Every single person who was in my house – my entire family — is gone.
Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange markings on his skin.
The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…
I can’t tell you how incredibly excited I was for this book when I first heard about it, some few weeks ago. I had tried desperately to get a review copy (but Edelweiss is so not user-friendly), and was unsuccessful. Then I learned that Zoraida would be at BookCon and signing ARCs of Labyrinth Lost. And I definitely did not let that opportunity pass by!
So once I had my copy, I couldn’t put it down. I was so immediately invested in Alex’s journey through Los Lagos to save her family, rooting so hard for Alex and Rishi, desperately needing to know what was going to happen.
Labyrinth Lost was the book I needed as a kid; to know that it was okay to accept one’s culture and still accept their queerness.
I loved every last minute while reading it and it’s definitely the type of book where I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and experience it all again for the very first time. Though I am incredibly glad that it’s a series, and there’ll be more of Alejandra and more of her family and friends in stories to come.
Labyrinth Lost releases September 6th, 2016.
Goodreads . Amazon . B&NÂ . Author’s Page
