Seven Years Awesome Luck

Book excerpt: Seven years ago, Trick’s mother made a deal with a witch. In exchange for saving his little brother’s life, the witch would turn Trick into a cat and he’d become her familiar. Now, the witch is dead and Trick is human again. And he hates it. Denneka isn’t looking forward to eighth grade. Of course, since she has no friends and gets bullied at school, she never looks forward to any new school year. But this time it’s different. This year, there’s a very strange new boy who keeps hanging around her for some reason. He’s super cute, and even though he doesn’t talk much, he seems to like her. But he also chases birds and sits in boxes and talks about seeing their missing teacher in a grave. But then Trick disappears, and a black kitten shows up on Denneka’s doorstep. She knows she should find its owner, but it reminds her of her missing maybe-friend, so she takes it in. As time passes with no sign of Trick, she fears she’ll never see him again—until she wakes up one morning to find him naked in her bed, claiming to have been there all along and confused about why she’s upset. It turns out there are other witches in the world, and some of them are pure trickster.