This delightful fantasy by Meg Shaffer imagines a world where specially trained people, Book Witches, can go into stories and save characters and story lines from bad actors in the real world, Burners. Rainy March--yes that's her name and not a weather forecast--has been a 3rd generation Book Witch since she was 15. She is an orphan, never having known a father and a mother who died when she was just 6 months old. She was raised by adoring grandparents and Pops--as she calls her grandfather--is still alive and living with her in Fort Meriwether, Oregon. Book Witches live by a series of rules which include the rule saying real people belong in the real world and fictional characters belong in works of fiction. So it is extremely against all the rules when Rainy falls in love with a character, a detective called the Duke of Chicago, when she is on a mission to save one of his books. Worse yet, the Duke falls in love with her, too. When her grandfather goes missing and the book her mother left her--her only inheritance--is stolen, there is no one Rainy trusts to help her solve the mystery except the Duke. The resolution of the book is a total surprise, or at least it was for me. Rainy will end up "uncovering secrets that could change the course of Rainy’s life" (Kirkus). Kirkus goes on to say that Shaffer's writing style, while "a touch too cutesy to mine real emotional depths, the charms of the heroine and the conceit itself make up for it in spades. Catnip for anyone who ever wished they could walk around in their favorite book." There are lots of literary references and adventures inside other books on Rainy's mission to solve the mystery. Booklist calls it "magical, emotional and charming."
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