Magic or Madness Trilogy
The whole trilogy:
Magic or Madness, Magic’s Child, and Magic Lessons
are available
in the US of A and Australia
as well as other countries.
Magic or Madness is about fifteen-year-old Reason Cansino. Reason’s lived all her life in the outback with her mother, Sarafina, on the run from her evil grandmother, Esmeralda. Esmeralda believes in magic and practices horrifying dark rituals. But when Sarafina suffers a mental breakdown, Reason is sent to the one place she fears most—Esmeralda’s house in Sydney.
Nothing about the house or Esmeralda is what Reason expected. For the first time she finds herself questioning her mother’s teachings. Then when she walks through Esmeralda’s back door in Sydney and finds herself on a New York City street, Reason is forced to face the truth. Magic is real. And Reason is magic.
Magic Lessons and Magic’s Child continue the story of Reason Cansino and her friends Jay-Tee and Tom.
Magic or Madness won the 2007 Andre Norton Award. It was shorlisted for the Ethel Turner Award, one of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards for 2006, as well as an Aurealis Award for best Australian YA book and a Ditmar Award for best Science Fiction or Fantasy novel. It was also nominated for The Teen Services Division of the Michigan Library Association’s Thumbs Up Award. Magic or Madness was a best book of the year selection for School Library Journal, Tayshas (the Young Adult Round Table of the Texas Libary Association), the Australian children’s literature magazine, Magpies, as well as making the ALA (American Library Association) 2006 Best Books for Young Adults list, the Locus Recommended Reading List and the Bank Street best teen books of the year list.
The sequel, Magic Lessons, was shorlisted for an Aurealis Award for best Australian YA book as well as a Locus award. It was a best book of the year selection for Insideadog and the CCBC Choices List as well as making the 2006 Locus Recommended Reading List.