Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

Title: Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic: Book One)
Author: Patricia C. Wrede
Genre: Alternate History, Sword and Sorcery, Young Adult
Publisher: Scholastic (May 2010)
Blurb:

UNLUCKY THIRTEEN . . .

Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he’s supposed to possess amazing talent – and she’s supposed to bring doom to everyone around her. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that protects settlers from the beast of the wilderness.

Eff and Lan do not know what awaits them in such a place – there are steam dragons that hover in the sky and strange creatures that undermine the settlers’ existence. Eff learns magic with the other students, but there’s always the threat of something going terribly wrong. As Eff and Lan grow older, they face challenges they never could have dreamed of. And their magic is put to the test in a standoff that will change their lives forever.

Rating: ****(4 stars)
Review:

I am a fan of Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles – though I have only ever read the first two. So when I heard of Thirteenth Child on Goodreads, I thought it sounded interesting enough to keep an eye out for. I saw a copy of it in a bookstore just after Christmas and picked it up; I was not disappointed.

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