Blanca & Roja / Anna-Marie McLemore.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Award-winning author Anna-Marie McLemore retells Swan Lake in this spellbinding YA story of sisters who are each other's best friends--and worst enemies.

The biggest lie of all is the story you think you already know.

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they're also rivals, Blanca is as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.

But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans' spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them.

Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

McLemore (Wild Beauty) offers another lushly written fairy tale retelling, this time intermingling hints of "Snow White" with "Swan Lake" and other classic tales of girls turned into swans. Devoted sisters Blanca and Roja are as different physically as siblings can be. Roja has hair as dark as "coffee grounds, but red... a red so dark it looked wet" and skin "as brown as the almond's skin"; Blanca's skin is pale, her hair "as fine and blond as a duckling's down." They grow up under a curse: in each generation of sisters, swans take one sister during the bloom of adolescence to become a swan for life. Rather than turn the sisters into rivals, McLemore tells a love story between siblings reticent to betray the other, both equally determined to outsmart the curse and the eager swans along with it. Two additional protagonists populate the novel: Barclay, a blue-eyed boy who becomes a bear by a different name and falls for Roja, and Page, a gender-non- binary teen who turns into a cygnet and grows captivated with Blanca. The four protagonists' family drama and secrets help to compel the narrative forward in this twisty, allusive story. Ages 13-up. Agent: Taylor Martindale Kean, Full Circle Literary. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up-Magical realism extraordinaire McLemore crafts a queer, Latinx mash-up of "Snow White," "Wild Swans," and Swan Lake told from four perspectives. Blanca and Roja del Cisne are sisters, destined to be ripped apart by a curse that will turn one of them into a swan. Enter a blue-eyed boy named Yearling, who can turn into a bear, along with his best friend Page, who is sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes in-between. Real-world problems of small-town life, family betrayal, and developing crushes among the quartet are entangled with the very eminent danger of the curse of the swans. Reflective dialogue among and in the minds of each character results in meandering action. The expansive, magical tone of McLemore's writing leaves readers invested not just in the multidimensional characters' stories, but in their own unfolding paths and questions about identity. Colorism within the Latinx community and nonbinary gender representation are adeptly explored in McLemore's prose with nuance. The most magical element of this fairy tale is the focus on very real identities and how they intersect. The chapter endings of the four alternating perspectives sometimes abruptly tug readers from one thread to another. Any fan of McLemore's body of work, Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, or Malinda Lo's fantasy will revel in this novel. VERDICT A magical and lovely first purchase for all YA shelves.-Angela -Wiley, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Sisters Blanca and Roja del Cisne have grown up understanding their family's curse. Long ago, their ancestor bargained with the swans for a daughter. Every generation, the Del Cisnes have two daughters, but eventually, the swans always take one back. Roja, fierce and willful, has always believed she'd be the sister turned into a swan, while graceful, compliant Blanca would remain a girl. But if there's anything Blanca is willing to fight for, it's her sister. As their days together wane, two boys with curses of their own enter their lives. Barclay Holt, once the son of a wealthy, treacherous family, who has been trapped for a year in the body of a bear; and his best friend, Page Ashby, child of apple farmers, who identifies as a boy but finds that the pronouns she and her fit comfortably as well. As the four come closer together, their fates may become unalterably linked. In her fourth novel, McLemore (Wild Beauty , 2017) is at her finest; she twines Latino folklore through the fairy tales of Swan Lake and Snow White & Rose Red to create a story that is wholly original. She writes openheartedly about families found and families given, the weight of expectation and the price of duty, and in the end offers up something that's vibrant, wondrously strange, and filled to the brim with love of all kinds.--Maggie Reagan Copyright 2018 Booklist

Horn Book Review

Blanca and Roja, the del Cisne sisters, have grown up knowing their family is cursed as a result of a bargain made generations ago, and that eventually either Blanca or Roja will be trapped in the body of a swan and live among them. Blanca, fair-haired and sweet, and Roja, flame-haired and difficult, spend their lives trying to become more like each other so that they will be intertwined and ultimately impossible to separate when the swans finally arrive to claim their due. When a bear who is also a boy called Yearling arrives on their doorstep, followed by his friend Page (who uses both he and she pronouns), their story becomes more complicated and their fates much less clear. This tale reimagines Snow White and Rose Red as young Latinx women, and it mixes their stories with details and themes from The Ugly Duckling, Swan Lake, and The Wild Swans. Depth of character is sometimes sacrificed in order to incorporate so many threads (e.g., Yearlings story of dealing with family corruption is less well drawn than other narrative elements). But McLemores vivid descriptions create a tale rich with visual detail, and readers will be compelled to keep reading to find out the fate of these sisters. christina l. dobbs (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Sisters Blanca and Roja attempt to escape their family curse in this mashup of "Snow-White and Rose-Red" and Swan Lake.As long as anyone in the Latinx del Cisne ("of the swans") family can remember, there have always been two daughters: One is destined to be transformed into a swan shortly after the younger sister's 15th birthday, while the other is left behind to live as a human. Fiery, darker-skinned, redheaded 15-year-old Roja has always believed she's the one the swans will claim, while kind, fair-skinned, golden-haired, 17-year-old Blanca has always promised Roja they would do everything to fight the curse. Despite being considered opposites, the sisters share a seemingly unbreakable bond that's tested when two missing local high school boys reappear in the woods near their home as a cygnet and a bear. White best friends Yearling, a boy from a rich but toxic family, and Page, a trans boy whose family are apple farmers, hide in the del Cisne home after returning to their human bodies. As love blossoms between the sisters and the best friends, they attempt to avoid a heartbreaking destiny. As with her other stories, McLemore (Wild Beauty, 2017, etc.) weaves in powerful themes of identity, family, and first love, but there are also much-needed messages about overcoming hurtful stereotypes and expectations.McLemore's poignant retelling is a must-read for fans of fantasy and fairy tales. (author's note) (Fantasy. 13-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.