I didn’t read any reviews of Rachel Hartman’s delightful fantasy novel, Seraphina, before settling in to enjoy. The little I knew already felt like more than I should. A secret carried by the title character is revealed to the reader fairly early on and, I think, to be suspected well before that; still, even if a good story is often less about the What than about the How and the Why and the consequences of the What, it’s best to let the story unfold on its own terms.
Avoiding chatter about Seraphina was hard because Hartman’s novel is clearly what they call in the book trade a triumphant debut.
