The Turnaway Girls by Hayley Chewins (review)

Shuttered away in the cloisters of Blightsend Island, turnaway girls are expected to transform the music the Masters play for them into gold. Twelve-year-old Delphernia has never been able to create "shimmer," but she can sing—a talent that is outlawed for girls. She keeps her singing a secret as much as she can, but one of her nightly clandestine one-person concerts is interrupted by a sound, and now Delphernia is certain someone heard her. She's suspicious, then, when an odd and mysterious Master comes to take her away. Things go from strange to dangerous when he reveals himself to be the Blightsend's shunned prince, and now Delphernia is caught in a web of politics and lies that could determine the island's ultimate fate. Chewins' poetic prose is the highlight of the novel ("The sea spits and shivers with the spines of the waves"). Unfortunately, it's not an effective vehicle for the featherweight plot, whose impact lies more in the eloquence of Delphernia's narration than the unbalanced pacing. Still, the world building lends Blightsend a chilly atmosphere of secrets untold, and the story leaves Delphernia in a position to peel them away for the greater good of her community. KQG