Kayla perceives her world in vectors and variables, in quantities
given and determined. She's a prodigy. A genius. Yet there are equations
she can't solve. The vexing interactions of high school. The religious
and populist politics that engulf the country. The nuclear exchanges
that have darkened half the Earth. When the terrible tides crash into
her life, Kayla is whisked from all she's known and deposited in a home
for abandoned girls. Here, she finds love and acceptance and a sorrowful
kinship-and also, the same violent divisions that tore apart her old
life.
Rendered in lyrical prose and vivid imagery, The Magpie's Return
paints a picture of revenge, redemption, and the quest for survival of
one strong soul lost in a world gone mad.