Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

“Everybody knows that a seventh son is lucky. Things come a little easier to him, all his life long: love and money and fine weather and the unexpected turn that brings good fortune from bad circumstances…And everybody knows that the seventh son of a seventh son is a natural-born magician…Nobody seems to think much about all the other sons, or the daughters. There’s nearly always daughters, because hardly anybody has sever sons right in a row, boom, like that.”

And Eff ought to know. Her twin brother is a double seventh son. Unfortunately, it also makes her the thirteenth child. And everyone knows the thirteenth child is bad luck and bound to turn bad.

This is an alternate history of earth, where people use magic. Eff and her family live on Columbia (North America) which is just beginning western expansion. It very much struck me as a Little House on the Prairie or Hattie Big Sky with magic. Wrede even uses a folksy, old-timey voice to tell the story.

I really liked the idea, and I really enjoyed Eff’s voice. I did think that it was strange that the ARC said it was for 12+, I would have placed it 10+.

There isn’t a whole bunch of action in this one, despite magic being central to the story. Eff is an extremely likeable character, even though I would have preferred more character development. She is almost as scared of turning “evil” at the end of the book as she is in the beginning. This is the first in a series so perhaps this will be dealt with in later books.