October 13, 2007

A Gift of Magic is a thriller written by Lois Duncan, who is also the best selling author of I Know What You Did Last Summer. The story is about a young girl named Nancy. Nancy’s grandmother was an extra-ordinary woman with magic powers who died when Nancy was very young.

The old lady left for each of her three grandchildren some special gifts. Nancy’s older sister Kirby was given the talent for dancing, her younger brother Brendon received the talent of music and she herself was provided with the most beautiful yet dangerous gift of all… magic. Nancy could read people’s minds, predict events in the future and know just what they were feeling. In other words, she had extra sensory perception (ESP). Ten years later, after the divorce of their parents, Nancy and her siblings settled with their mother in their grandmother’s house.

While Kirby and Brendon both began their new lives happily, the challenge of accepting the divorce of her parents and the new environment was hard for Nancy. She was worried for her mom, who was in love with her childhood friend, Mr Duncan. Then it was her sister’s passion for dancing. An excellent dancer having no match, Kirby’s aim of life was to take up dancing professionally; she was willing to sacrifice her education and normal activities for it. Kirby’s obsession with ballet was a great deal of annoyance for Nancy who wanted to see her pretty sister as a popular high school girl.

To add to her worries was her social studies teacher who seemed to have developed a grudge against her. While these problems were making her life quite difficult, she also began to learn a lot more about the magic privately. Slowly she discovered that she was capable of controlling the lives of others with her magic and make them do whatever she wanted. This could be a way of dealing with the attitudes of her mother, her sister and her teacher. But with time, she also realised that the consequences of this strange power could be quite scary.

Through Nancy’s eye, the book reveals to us several important lessons of life. It tells us how all of us have a different attitude towards our talents and our lives. And managing other people’s lives isn’t such a good idea as every person has his own way of dealing with life. Over all a good storybook particularly if you are in search of some light fiction with a captivating plot.