The bone fire /

At the start of this evocative work of magic realism from Dragomán (The White King), 13-year-old Emma, who's been living since the death of her parents in an orphanage in an unnamed city and country that's recently overthrown its Communist government, is claimed by a grandmother she didn't know existed. The grandmother convinces Emma with a bit of magic that they're related. At her grandmother's house, Emma regularly observes and participates in minor bits of domestic magic, such as interacting with her grandfather's ghost and engaging in homely rituals. At school, she faces mean girls as she tries to find where she fits in, eventually becoming part of the long-distance running team. Some accuse her grandfather of having been an informer for the previous regime, but others dismiss that as nonsense. Below the surface, violence is still simmering from the revolution that could strike close to Emma. One small incident follows another until some dramatic action in the final pages. The striking mix of magical elements and post-Communist setting compensates for the lack of much of a plot. Fans of Gabriel García Márquez may want to have a look. Agent: Chris Parris-Lamb, Gernert Company. (Feb.)

A widow and an orphan seek solace in each other's company. Thirteen-year-old Emma was raised to believe her mother had no living relatives, but six months after a car accident kills her parents, her maternal grandmother arrives at the orphanage to claim her. Emma is initially dubious, but the unnamed woman explains she and her daughter had a falling out long ago, and she only recently learned of Emma's existence. Fate brought them together, she insists, as she, too, has been alone since her husband died during the bloody political revolution that ravaged their unidentified Eastern European nation. Emma can't deny the family resemblance, so she packs her bags and lets the old lady take her home. There, she meets the ghost of her grandfather; learns the mystical, old-world ways of her grandmother; and grapples with the difficult truths of her family's fraught history. Hungarian author Dragomán employs elements of magical realism to literalize the power inherent in superstition and ritual. Contrasting narrative styles illustrate the strikingly different manners in which the two characters process their respective traumas. Emma's first-person-present narration holds the reader at a remove, echoing her own sense of detachment, while her grandmother's tales of World War II unfold in the second-person-present, reflecting her inability to move on. Discursive plotting allows Dragomán to draw parallels between Emma's adolescent growing pains and those felt by her country as it tries to rebuild itself in the wake of communism's collapse. A poignant coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of regime change. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.