Magic Lessons for Margo

Magic Lessons for Margo is a novel about overcoming childhood trauma, about a bond between two sisters, and an epic road trip from New Orleans to Galveston and Houston in search of ghosts, culinary adventures, and ultimately healing.

To shield herself from her volatile mother and the sinister secrets lurking in the house she grew up in, Marga develops a love of science, order, precision, and comforting rituals. Later, as a pre-med student at UCLA, she reinvents herself as Margo, a stellar student who loves chemistry, albeit a socially awkward young adult reluctant to step out of her comfort zone and explore the world around her or even her own identity. But a Christmas with her long-estranged sister changes everything. Ana is only sixteen, but rather sophisticated. She loves elegant meals, expensive clothes, the nightlife in Madrid, and seems determined to inspire Margo to have more fun and indulge in occasional frivolity. But the dazzling younger sister also has a dark side - no surprise, considering the difficult childhood she refuses to talk about. Among other secrets, Ana hides a men's Rolex watch in her bedside drawer, something Margo suspects she's kept as a souvenir from a rebellious teenage escapade nobody in the family wants to tell her about. Worried for her sister's well-being as well as her own ability to fully be herself, Margo embarks on an unforgettable journey, challenging herself to face what she fears most: the magic of places such as New Orleans, Galveston, Houston, and ultimately Bucharest, the city she grew up in, but which she was always afraid to revisit. Along the way, Margo is determined to learn her sister's secrets, but also her own. What she doesn't bargain for is a newfound desire to understand the mother she was often fearful of and embarrassed by in childhood, a woman whose short, tumultuous life experience reveals itself as more complex, sadder, and much more relatable than Margo would have thought.

Magic Lessons for Margo is a novel that can be read on its own, or in conjunction with The Adventures of Miss Vulpe, a book written from the perspective of Margo's younger sister, Ana, in which she sets out to uncover the mystery surrounding their mother's death.