The Gathering (review)

Though accustomed to her small town, Maya is now realizing that there are few ways to hide her secrets there: expert at keeping its own secrets, the place is determined to track those, like Maya, who turn out to be part of the reason this whole mysterious town exists. In Maya’s case, her birthmark and cloudy background point to her being a skin-walker, an ancient supernatural being that can turn into a mountain lion, heal through touch, and interact in significant ways with nature, and that scientists are now trying to secretly reactivate through genetic mutation. Maya, her hot new crush, and his mysterious sister (whose non-human tendencies demonstrate the ways in which the experiment is rapidly going awry) are all enmeshed in the plot, but Maya barely has time to sort through her own emotions about these relationships before her life is threatened. She must find a way to stay alive long enough to untangle all of the mysteries, dead ends, and family histories (Maya was adopted and is only beginning to learn about her biological ties) that suddenly make up her life. All of the teen protagonists are richly developed as they stumble through choices beyond their ages and grapple with identity both on a typical teen level and on a supernatural, scientifically altered level. The taut writing, careful backstory and exposition around the Native American stories out of which these skin-walkers emerged, and gripping cliffhanger combine to make this novel the first in a trilogy that readers will likely be anxious to finish.