Marthe Jocelyn has written before about the smoke-and-mirrors world of carnival entertainers: her 2003 novel Earthly Astonishments followed the fortunes of a girl in a Coney Island sideshow in the 1880s. In her new YA novel the Toronto-born writer shifts forward to 1924 for the story of a mother-and-daughter team of freelance faith healers.

Annie and her mother, the beautiful clairvoyant Madame Caterina, have always been partners, but at 15 Annie is hungry for something else. Now that they’ve moved to a new town in upstate New York, Annie wants an education, friends, the attention of that nice-looking Sammy Sloane. She doesn’t want to be trapped her whole life in a humiliating supporting role in her mother’s drama. By now she knows all the tricks of the trade inside-out: the covert information-gathering, the emotional manipulation, the bells, candles, and invisible threads. She is finding out that she too can play her mother’s game – but does she want to? More and more she is dismayed by her mother’s unscrupulousness and dubious judgment. Her mother’s flirtatious involvement with a shady local widower has all the makings of a disaster.

Jocelyn makes us aware that Madame Caterina hasn’t had an easy life as a single woman, but she’s still not a likeable or even interesting character. Quirky minor characters like Peg, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Newman, the truant officer, compete more compellingly for our attention. The ending is never really in doubt: though Annie is torn between filial loyalty and her expanding teenage ego, we know she’ll break free. It’s how she’ll manage it that keeps us reading.