All Our Hidden Gifts

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I read this book as it came up as a dark academia rec online. It’s definitely not dark academia and I would class it as more of a paranormal, witchy mystery with hints of horror and folklore.

I enjoyed the concept of this book when Maeve discovers a tarot deck and the mysterious housekeeper card appears in said deck, with a haunting vibe to it. When she gives a tarot reading to her ex best friend Lily and this particular card is drawn. There’s a fight and then Lily disappears. When Lily goes missing your immediate thought is how is this linked in any way to this tarot deck. What is so special about this card and where did it come from?

As Maeve tries to solve this mystery, she delves deeper into witchcraft and the paranormal. She was once a pretty normal teenager and she embraces the supernatural quite quickly. Maeve’s intuition is telling her the housekeeper is involved but she just has to convince her friends that this is real. There are nightmares involving the housekeeper that continues to haunt Maeve’s dreams.

I thought the characters had so much representation from the Filipina best friend Fiona, and Roe exploring his sexuality. There was definitely heavy topics covered in this story and considering this is a YA read, it gave the teenage characters more maturity. You will need to check the triggers as it does deal with homophobia in parts of the story, as well as racism towards the end when Fiona mentions her experience.

There were times when Maeve was frustrating and bratty but she’s a teenager, so I kind of expected it. I enjoyed Fiona and Roe more than Maeve. I thought the characters were developed well and I like them enough to want to keep reading the series.

The book was slow in some parts but overall the story flowed well. I am not sure how the story will continue as I can only suspect that we haven’t seen the last of the housekeeper. Liked how folklore was tied into the story which made it an interesting read.