Twinchantment by Elise Allen (review)

Princess Flissara of Kaloon has a secret: she’s really Princesses Flissa and Sara, twin sisters who have to take turns being one person because of Kaloon’s stringent rules against potentially magical phenomena (such as twins, left-handedness, and black cats). When a malicious curse endangers Queen Latonya’s life, the girls rely on each other’s complementary strengths as they undertake a journey to find the culprit—the only person who can undo the spell. Making their way into the sinister, chaotic district called the Twists, where banished “dark” mages live, the twins learn that there’s more to Kaloon’s anti-magical history than they’ve been taught. Details are more than a little twee (the girls’ tutor is a talking songbird), the emphasis on Sara’s incessant clumsiness is wearying, and the girls’ discovery of their own magical abilities comes as no surprise. However, it’s rewarding to see the princesses (brown-skinned, according to the text) uncovering the real villain and saving the day. Flissa and Sara’s divergent interests, as well as their different reactions to a boy-obsessed fellow princess, could prompt conversations about the many excellent ways there are to be a girl, and about the fact that being twins doesn’t mean you have to be the same person—even if it’s politically expedient to pretend you are.