Coyote's Daughter (Corie Weaver)

Coyote's Daughter
(The New Legends of the Southwest series, Book 1)
Corie Weaver
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Maggie never wanted to move to Albuquerque. The New Mexico desert and a neighborhood full of strangers make poor substitutes for the ocean beach and her old friends. But, of course, as a 12-year-old she didn't get a say in the matter. She's happy that her mother gets to work her dream job, but that doesn't make her summer any easier.
While out walking her dog, Jack, down to the river, Maggie finds a strange boy with yellow eyes, tangled up in an odd snare. When she helps free him, she makes her first new friend... but Ash is a very peculiar friend, indeed. The village he comes from doesn't appear on any map, and the story he tells - of an evil wizard turning people into crows - doesn't make sense. When Maggie starts dreaming of an old woman and a coyote who walks like a man, she realizes that she's caught up in a story of her own, with dangers and wonders straight out of legend. But how can a modern California girl hope to prevail against an enemy that holds even the trickster Coyote at bay?
A Kindle-exclusive title.

REVIEW: Coyote's Daughter takes the standard modern-kid-stumbles-into-a-magical-adventure formula to the deserts of the American Southwest. Maggie's not always the brightest of heroines, needing to be led through more than one phase of her adventure by the obligatory friendly strangers (a formula staple), but she manages to come through in the end. The Native American trappings lend a little exotic spice to this otherwise lukewarm rendition of a standard story. I've read far worse stories, but I don't expect this one to linger long in my memory.

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