Our Crooked Hearts

When unusual events start to take place around Ivy, she begins to question what she knows to be true. First, Ivy has a mysterious interaction with a naked woman in the woods. Then she finds a mutilated rabbit in her driveway. And her mom goes MIA – what is going on? As Ivy searches for the truth, she discovers that magic exists and, in fact, has played a large role in her life. Along with this, Ivy unveils family secrets that force her to confront past relationships as well as form new ones.  

Each chapter alternates between Ivy’s present-day perspective and a flashback perspective of Dana, Ivy’s mother, teenage years. Both the present day and the past are equally covered throughout the book. Best friends Dana, Fee, and Marion began practicing magic in their teens and were enchanted by the wonders and possibilities of it. However, after a disagreement, a rift is formed, and Marion practices dark magic. Dana becomes unsettled by the dangerous magic that Marion wants to unleash and does what she feels is needed to protect herself.   

Determined, Ivy begins to unveil the dark witchcraft that her mother has kept from her and begins to put together the missing pieces of her life. However, she still can’t find her mom or Aunt Fee anywhere, but her curious and strong-willed nature won’t let her quit. Ivy soon realizes that they are in danger, and she must save both from enemies who are seeking revenge. Will she be able to save them from powerful witches seeking vengeance? 

As a teenager, Marion Peretz introduced Dana and Fee to magic. For her whole life, Marion has felt lonely and has lacked a real connection with those around her. Once she discovered magic, Marion was infused with confidence. Her thirst for magic reflects her desire to feel empowered, causing her to take magical risks. However, this comes at a cost, and Marion’s selfish tendencies lead her to put herself, Dana, and Fee in danger. Readers are likely to find Marion’s vindictive behavior and actions grating as she only grows worse throughout the book. 

This magic-filled book explores the possibilities that magic has to offer and how it can be abused. Many of the characters struggle with immense curiosity, guilt, and selfish tendencies. Because of this, the story takes unexpected turns and keeps the reader in suspense. Moreover, the events that take place display the author’s imagination as well as a peek into the world of witchcraft. For example, one imaginative element is the occultists book. “You couldn’t look for things in the occultists book, couldn’t read it cover to cover . . . it worked. . . like a tarot deck, delivering the pages you needed to see.”  

The changing perspectives throughout the book provide the necessary background information for the plot and help to connect the past with the present. These perspectives make the reader wonder about Ivy and Dana’s strange relationship. Dana is very distant from her family, especially from Ivy. So, reading about Dana’s teenage years allows for the reader to understand her behavior and the events that led up to this. The author transitions from each perspective seamlessly, and it does not get confusing for the reader switching back and forth. Overall, the changing perspective adds to the story. 

Our Crooked Hearts’ eerie events grab the reader’s attention from the start, and the tension escalates, making the book hard to put down. The book’s creative storyline will leave readers impressed and searching to read another book by the same author. In particular, the unique content regarding the supernatural world makes the story all the more appealing. The author explores the ideas of friendship and betrayal but focuses on the importance of trust. This is a must-read for those interested in the world of magic and witchcraft. Its creative storyline will leave readers impressed. 

Sexual Content     

• Ivy and her neighbor Billy, who happens to be her romantic interest, find themselves in Billy’s backyard treehouse, the same one that they used to play in as kids. They are lying beside each other, and they begin to kiss. “We smiled at each other, and when he kissed me, we were still smiling. Until we weren’t. He was beside me, then above me, propped up on one arm. He ran a hand firmly down my body, rib cage to thigh, then held me there and pulled me up closer. We kissed and kissed.” 

Violence 

• During their teenage years, Marion, Dana, and Fee performed a spell that involved the death of a rabbit. “[The rabbit] was wild this time, and skinny despite the season . . . It fought and fought, twisting in Marion’s grip, finally jerking its head into a broken angle to bite her. Even through the pain of its yellow teeth she was silent. The rest of us hissed in dismay as her blood hit the wax. With a decisive stab her knife went in . . . Dying, it twisted free; Marion wrestled it back. She held it more efficiently this time, sawing away so fiercely a spurt of arterial blood hit my knuckles.” 
• During the same spell, the three girls slice their palms with a knife. “[Marion] signaled to us and we sliced our palms, dropping to our knees to press them to the floor.” 
• When Marion’s spell does not go to plan, she blames Fee and begins to go after her physically. Dana steps in, protecting Fee. “I pulled Marion off my best friend by her hair… Fee socked her in the gut to make her let go. Marion went at her again and I caught her around the stomach, hauling her down and pressing an arm to her throat.” 

Drugs and Alcohol     

• At a high school party, Ivy and her best friend, Amina, discussed Ivy’s ex-boyfriend, Nate. “‘Did you see what he was drinking last night? Absinthe.’ Amina had big tattletale energy. ‘To be fair it was probably vodka with green food coloring, but still.’”    
• Ivy and Billy illegally buy alcohol one evening. Ivy is using her fake ID to prove to Billy that it works. Ivy “marched him over to the liquor aisle and considered what I could afford, settling on a bottle of strawberry wild vines.” 
• Marion, still stuck in the mirror world she had been bound to, drinks liquor, although she cannot get drunk because of the magical world she is in. “She couldn’t get drunk, but she drank anyway . . . Marion drank from every one of those bottles . . . Their liquors were bitter or treacly or sharp as a lightning bolt.” 

Language   

• Profanity is used often, including fuck, motherfuckers, fucking, fucked, shit, bitch, asshole, and bullshit. 
• The naked woman who appeared in the woods attempts to lure Ivy and Nate out from behind the trees they are hiding behind. In this creepy scene, the woman says, “Come out, come out, whoever you are . . . I said show yourselves, motherfuckers.” 
• In response to the naked woman in the woods, Ivy and Nate are increasingly scared. “I felt the terror in Nate as he saw how this was gonna go. ‘Fuck this,’ he muttered.” 
• When Dana and Fee discover that Marion is a witch, they are fascinated and want her to show them what she knows. When Marion asks what specifically they would like to learn, they respond with, “just… all of it. Fucking all of it.”  
• Dana and Fee meet another witch, Sharon, and begin to learn a little bit about her past. Sharon tells them briefly about her brother, “He saved me when nobody else could be fucked to try.” 
• Marion, Dana, and Fee get into an argument, and Marion grows increasingly angry. “Marion’s flat blue eyes came alive with rage. ‘You bitch,’ she said to Fee and charged her.” 
• In a flashback, Dana and her future husband, Rob, meet for the first time at a bachelorette party. During their flirty banter, Dana says, “Don’t be the asshole quoting Tennyson to girls at the party.” 

Supernatural     

• Two older, creepy men bother Dana, Fee, and Marion at the restaurant where they worked as teenagers. Marion performs a spell. “Marion went still . . . When she spoke, the words came low. A cadenced murmur that played havoc with my heart. ‘Let all his thoughts be seen . . . Let their dark matter touch the air. Let them trouble him from without.’”  
• As the two men began to leave the restaurant, weirded out by Marion and what she is saying, cicadas begin landing on the men, one by one. “He [went] down, he was screaming with his lips closed, he was mashing his face into the sand. I didn’t know whether the insects were stinging or biting or just crawling over his skin, but they kept coming.” 
• Marion shares her occultist book with Dana and Fee. Marion explains, “You couldn’t look for things in the occultists book, couldn’t read it cover to cover . . . it worked. . . like a tarot deck, delivering the pages you needed to see.” 
• Marion, Fee, and Dana do their first spell together. “It began with a purification ritual. For three days we stayed inside, playing sick so we could avoid mirrors, direct sunlight, and human touch. We drank herbs steeped in spring water, briny with rock salt, and performed ablutions once an hour between sundown and sunup. . .  At sundown on the fourth day we gathered the spell’s ingredients.” This was meant to prepare them and their space for future spells.  
• As Dana and Fee discover the world of magic and the power that it gives them, they practice with the occultists book. “We learned the many uses of moonlight. Every piece of magic the book gave us worked like a gateway drug, until we couldn’t imagine our lives without that thrill, that bend, that shock of the world giving way beneath our hands.” 
• Marion describes the dead owner of her occultists book: Astrid Washington. Astrid is referred to on numerous occasions. Marion said, “Astrid was amazing. She wasn’t just an occultist; she was a healer.” 
• Fee, Dana, and Marion perform a love spell, but the spell does not go as planned due to Marion’s deception and alternate agenda; summoning Astrid Washington. “The occultists book showed us a love spell. Its ingredients were for a wedding bouquet: ribbons, roses, lavender . . . In the middle of the spell Fee screamed. She reached under her shirt for the necklace that always nestled just below her throat’s hollow. . . When she pulled up her shirt to look, there was a fine cross-shaped mark where the crucifix had lain.”  
• Marion proposes that they do a spell to increase their magical force. “Marion pinned the page with her finger and read aloud. ‘A blessing of power for those bold enough to take it. That my gifts may not stagnate . . . A spell for eight hands . . . Increased magical force. That’s the spell.’” However, due to Marion’s deception, the spell that they perform does not increase their magical strength but instead puts them in danger. 
• Marion tricks Fee and Dana into doing a summoning spell. Fee says, “We were dragging Astrid Washington out of, what, Hell? Mother of God, Marion!” At the last minute, Dana and Fee figure out how Marion was deceiving them, and they put a stop to it.  
• As Dana, Fee, and Marion begin another spell, they could feel that “Astrid was with [them], a presence at [their] backs, ahead of [them], pressing in from the sides.” 
• Marion once again tricks Dana and Fee into casting a binding spell. “Holding the drifting veil above the manhole of mirror, [Marion] began to speak. ‘I charge you Astrid Washington, to do my bidding. To serve me. I charge you to bind yourself to me. To be my helpmeet and my familiar.” During the spell, Astrid begins to rise out of the mirror world. “Astrid hefted herself through the glass, crouching on its edge with her toes still dipped into mirror world.”  
• Once Fee and Dana realize what is going on and see how angry Astrid feels, they try to break the spell and save Marion from Astrid’s resentment. Fee said, “Draw tight the power of three, add blood to a loving cup, and if ever the three should part, let the river swallow them up.” The spell begins working, and “the chant, multiplied by three, fizzing with the unwieldy charge of Astrid’s borrowed magic.” They are then pulled into the magic circle/mirror world, where Astrid was trapped, and they are forced to face her.  
• Astrid threatens Fee. To stop the binding spell, Dana has only one choice. Since Marion and Astrid are bonded together, Dana thinks that “maybe I could steal just enough time to kill Marion. If she died, Astrid died, too. The circle broke. We were free.” Dana heaves Marion’s body through the mirror. Marion and Astrid are trapped in the mirror world and cannot be released without a spell.  
• Ivy has magical abilities. She has lucid dreams and pulls other people into her dreams.  
• Dana explains magic to Ivy. Dana says, “Some kinds of magic are just for you – the magic that grows in your blood. Everyone is well fed by different springs, different traditions. Folk magic, myth magic, we’ve got lots of that in our tree. You have to be careful, you’ve gotta keep your eyes off of other people’s paper . . . [Fee and I] learned when we were young not to siphon off springs that don’t belong to us.” 
• Dana travels to see Mr. Lazar, an old man who sells obscure magical objects. She buys a forgetting box, which is used to make Ivy forget that she is a witch and can use magic.  
• Dana gets fired from her waitressing job and stumbles upon Linh, an old friend of hers who can talk to the dead. Linh explains, “It’s never a good thing when a spirit comes looking for me. It’s way, way better when I’m the one doing the courting.” 
• Ivy performs a spell in her room. “Ivy propped a mirror against her footboard. She pressed a blend of clarity oils into seven crucial places. She looped a thread of dark hair around her right ring finger – spirited off of her best friend Billy’s shoulder – and incanted as she used that fingertip to trace a sigil over the mirror. Mist spilled into the glass, displacing her reflection.” She can now see what Billy is doing through the mirror.  
• Ivy discovers a man not moving in the home that Marion had broken into. She panics and asks Marion what is wrong with him. Marion explains what she had done to the man. “They’re not dead. While they’re sleeping, they won’t die, or age, or thirst. They’re as safe as it’s possible to be in this world. Their house fulfills a need, and I’ll give it back when I’m through.” 
• Marion gives Ivy the forgetting box that Dana used on her years ago, hoping Ivy will regain her memories. Ivy attempts to open it, “The box didn’t glow or hover or hum. It just warmed to my skin, loosening like a tablet of wax. I could see the seam now, and the catch, as easy as if they’d always been there.” 
• Marion performs a scrying spell. “Steadily Marion poured water into a heavy silver bowl. She sprinkled its surface with Dana’s blood and spoke the words and waited to see what would come. There was a haze, pearlescent, then a figure came into view: Dana’s red hair.” This spell allows Marion to see the real world and escape her entrapment.  
• Astrid Washington and Marion perform a spell together to release them from the world they have been trapped in. “Astrid began the incantation that would unwind their world. As she incanted Marion closed her eyes against a cast melancholy.” 
• There is a scene that essentially tells the entire story of Ivy’s life, which was trapped in the forgetting box. It recounts all her experiences with magic, Billy, and the life she was forced to forget.  
• When Ivy finds her mom and Fee under a spell, she tries to save them. “If they [are] sleeping, there [is] a chance I could reach them. I could fall asleep right here and pull them out of Marion’s nightmare, and into a dream of my own.”  
• Ivy puts Marion’s soul into the forgetting box, ultimately saving both her mom and Aunt Fee from Astrid and Marion. “I . . . pulled out the golden box, and pressed it to the place I’d drawn [Marion’s] blood . . . the box opened its hungry mouth.” 

Spiritual Content     

• None