I'm always on the lookout for great middle grade science-fiction or fantasy that incorporates musical elements, string instruments are a bonus, and this duology has both!
Marah lacks magic, but she's a budding violinist in the city of Ashara, where the magical (kasir) and non-magical (halan or sparker) are segregated and prejudice against the non-magical runs rampant.
She saves a young magical girl, Sarah Rashid. Sarah treats Marah with none of the stereotypical racism or hatred of her elders and gets Marah to tell her a story. Marah doesn't finish, so Leah invites her to her house the next day, and Marah meets Sarah's brother, Azariah. He's trying to decipher a text in a language, Hagramet, he's never seen before, but Marah has. In fact, she knows some of it, and helps him to start translating it.
At the same time, a disease hits. It kills Sparkers and Kasir alike. The Council promises it is working on a cure, but as Azariah and Marah translate the book (it's a book of spells) they quickly discover it may hold the key to a cure to the disease. Because it's not a disease at all, but a side-effect of the kind of magic the kasir have been doing for decades, and it's finally built up to toxic levels.
I won't give away the ending, just know this was an exquisitely crafted book, and all the musical references (particularly to the violin) rang true!
In this book, you learn what happened to Marah and Azariah after they revealed the evil Council's plan to annihilate all Sparkers from Ashara. But it's revealed tangentially to another, new story that examines, again, the ongoing effects of prejudice, racism and segregation of magical and non-magical persons.
The new character is Rivka, who grows up a stifled child in the city of Atsan, which practices magical music making. She plays the cello and at the age of 12 is torn from her twin brother, Arik, when it's discovered he can't make magic with his violin and her father disowns the boy. Rivka breaks the law to see her brother under a bridge (once!) and her father forbids her to ever mention him again. Her mother wastes away of grief and dies, but imparts one last, vital piece of information: Arik is living with an adoptive family in Ashara!
When her father is appointed Ambassador to Ashara and they must move to the city, Rivka bides her time, showing none of her excitement and enthusiasm. She wanders the streets after school, looking for Arik. At the same time, she gets sucked into the petty politics of the girls at the private school, Firem, and meets and befriends Caleb, Marah's little brother who is also deaf.
Through Marah, Rivka begins tutoring a girl, Samira, in the cello and shows her some rudimentary music magic. Samira has been ordered to leave her non-magical family and live with a new family, but Marah has spoken up for her in the new Council asking she be allowed to stay with her birth family.
In the power vacuum created after the old Council collapsed, a new shadowy group called The Society has risen, and it single handedly enforces the racist beliefs of old. The Society kidnaps Samira and threatens to kill her, if Marah doesn't drop her petition to allow the girl to stay with her birth family. The race in on to rescue her.
Together, the kids -- magical and non-magical -- stage a coup of sorts, getting the new Council members to rescind a centuries-old law that forces magical and non-magical children to be segregated, even torn from their families.
Lots of tears at the end. Loved these two gems of stories, and all the musical -- cello, violin -- references are spot on!
