Wayward Witch by Zoraida Córdova (review)

Fifteen-year-old Rose Mortiz survived being trapped in hellish Los Lagos (in Labyrinth Lost, BCCB 9/17) and dealing with Lady de la Muerte (in Bruja Born, BCCB 6/18), but healing her broken family and restarting their lives in Queens still feels daunting. She barely gets a chance to try before the affairs of the supernatural world pull her back in (literally, through a portal), this time to Adas, a mythical realm in the Caribbean Sea. A destructive rot is threatening to swallow the island and potentially make its way to Rose's world, and while the king of Adas is a liar and a dictator, he appears to be right when he insists that Rose's ability to steal and amplify other creatures' magic may be able to stop it. Accompanied by the kingdom's warrior princess and bookish prince, Rose makes her way through a fantastical world of beauty and danger to discover that the plague on the land may have more to do with the wreckage of the royal family than any type of dark magic. This final book in the Brooklyn Brujas series shifts focus to the youngest Mortiz sister, and Córdova yet again executes a wholly satisfying combination of deft characterization and cinematic world building. Adas includes elements of Western and Latin American folklore and fairy tales, giving readers a setting both familiar and fresh, and the secondary cast (including a nonbinary character) plays a crucial role in Rose's emotional growth as she realizes that brokenness isn't a permanent state and that scars point towards healing, not necessarily more pain. Readers will be sad to say goodbye to the Brooklyn Brujas, but they could also head back to Los Lagos to start the story again.