Once There Was (Kiyash Monsef)

Once There Was
The Once There Was series, Book 1
Kiyash Monsef
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: Marjan's life has never been complete, not since her mother passed when she was eight years old. Always, there's been a sense that something is missing inside her. Now, with her Iranian-born father recently murdered in their own home, she feels even more broken, full of anger and crushed by a life that's going all wrong. His sudden death left her more or less in charge of his struggling veterinary clinic, but it was his life beyond the office that always mystified her, the strange phone calls and sudden trips that took him away for days, even a week or more at a time... and the way he'd often look at her, as even her friends sometimes look at her, as though seeing what she has felt: that missing thing she cannot name, cannot place, but which sits in the way of her life.
Then she gets a strange visitor and a phone call, very much like the one her father always received, which comes with plane tickets and directions to an estate in England - but why would anyone want a high school sophomore with no formal veterinary training? And is she really supposed to believe the patient is a griffin? Amazingly, there really is an ailing griffin... and, more amazingly, when she lays her hands on it, she feels a sudden, strange rush of sensations - as if she's touching its mind, feeling its pains and glimpsing its memories and thoughts.
Like her father before her, Marjan learns that she bears a rare genetic gift that enables her to connect with and treat beasts that most of the world believes to be imaginary. But the elite circle of people who know of these animals proves to be far more dangerous than she can imagine. Now she, too, is up to her neck, and in over her head, in a hidden world she never knew existed, among the very people who might well be responsible for her father's murder.

REVIEW: This could easily have been a simple, shallow story of a grief-stricken girl discovering a family secret and a hidden world of magical creatures. The characters could have been basic stereotypes and stock bin placeholders acting out an obvious plot extended by bouts of groanworthy stupidity. It could have had a childishly simple Moral and Lesson that pulled its punches. Once There Was is none of these things, consistently rising beyond the easy and obvious choices and following through on every emotional swing.
Rooted on Marjan's Iranian-American heritage and storytelling traditions from around the world, it starts with a girl struck numb by the second major loss in a life too full of loss for her to begin to process any of it. Her father was an often-unhappy and complicated man, more complicated than she ever expected, and though he told his daughter stories at night and welcomed her at work, he kept much hidden from her. Marjan grew up not knowing much about his past or his Iranian culture outside the stories and a few video calls with his relatives back in the old country, but doesn't realize just how much he left out until she meets the strange young woman who draws her into The Fells, the "family" of people who keep tabs on known magical animals. Marjan isn't entirely unprepared, though, because one of the many stories her father told her was the long-ago tale of a girl who rescued a unicorn from a hunter's trap and was "rewarded" with a mark and unusual blessing. In this way, the author avoids the usual trope of a character repeatedly denying the obvious and having to be spoon fed literally everything about the hidden world they discover, and Marjan is smart enough to realize the connection to Dad's tales without needing a two-by-four to the cranium. Still, there's only so much bedside stories can do to prepare a girl for a revelation like that, and the sudden burden of responsibility that lands on her shoulders by essentially inheriting a job she is ill-prepared to handle; just feeling that an animal is in pain doesn't definitively diagnose a problem or suggest a course of treatment, and knowing how much an animal is suffering without knowing what to do about it is its own sort of painful burden. Still, The Fells and their clients offer a financial lifeline to her and her father's struggling/failing veterinary practice; she knows she should probably sell it, as her dad's accountant tells her, but does her best to keep dancing one step ahead of creditors while holding onto this last piece of him and his legacy. It's a lot for one girl to deal with, and she realistically stumbles and scrambles even as she finds reserves of strength and ability under pressure.
As she becomes more and more involved with the world of magical creatures, she finds new acquaintances and possible allies, both in simply surviving and in maybe doing what law enforcement seems incapable of: solving her father's peculiar murder. It's clear almost from the start, to the reader and Marjan, that his hidden life as veterinarian to magical animals is almost certainly behind the violent death he suffered, but who did it? Or why? Could it be the Fell family, which claims to be interested in protecting the magical animals and yet also auctions them off to the "most deserving" bidder (who may not always be the most deserving, but usually has deep pockets)? The billionaire tech magnate with an extensive private collection and grand plans for a better future? Just reading that, you might guess; I know I did. But this story is never that easy or obvious, and whatever you're guessing is probably not correct. Everyone has complex motivations for what they do, and it's never so clear cut as flat out "good guys" and "bad guys". Marjan learns that even the father she loved wasn't always a great guy, and that she herself is not above morally gray territory. Even the magical beasts are rarely entirely good or evil, not in any way obligated to conform to idealized or moralized versions of themselves for the sake of humans.
The story moves well from the start, with intriguing characters and interesting creatures and nice emotional complexity all around. The ending, naturally, leaves the door open for sequels, but wraps up well enough it can work as a standalone, giving Marjan some needed closure on a number of matters even as she must accept that she never will truly know everything there was to know about those she loved the most, that there are sides to everyone, even her best friends, that aren't for her to see. I tried to think of a reason not to give it a full five stars in the ratings, and couldn't come up with a single one. I'm looking forward to the next book already, whenever it appears.

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