Green - Laura Peyton Roberts

Lily's thirteenth birthday starts off with a bang. Literally. A present explodes on her porch . . . and soon after, a trio of leprechauns (yes, leprechauns) appears in her bedroom. They whisk her away to a land of clover, piskies, a new friend, a cute boy, and lots of glimmering, glittering gold. A world of Green. It turns out that Lily—as her grandmother was before her—is in line to be keeper for the Clan of Green, in charge of all their gold. That is, if she passes three tests. And she has to pass them. Because if she doesn't? She may never get to go home again. She'll be stuck with the Greens. Forever.

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On the day of Lily Green's 13th birthday, she answers her doorbell to find a package, addressed to her, sitting on her front porch. A package that promptly explodes, sending her flying back, the blast also breaking a front window. When she comes to again, the neighbors have gathered around to access the situation and wait for paramedics to arrive. Excusing herself, Lily rushes to her room, where she finds three leprechauns waiting for her. They quickly inform her that she is to come with them back to their kingdom, as she is next in line to serve as this leprechaun clan's Keeper, the person assigned to manage the clan's gold stores. 

 

It's a lot of information to take in at once, so naturally Lily's first reaction is to resist going anywhere with these wee strangers but they have no intention of accepting any refusal. As they point out, they've been waiting for a number of years for her to turn thirteen, the minimum age requirement for a Keeper. Turns out Lily's own grandmother, recently departed, passed away before she had a chance to give Lily the rundown on the secret family business. 

 

Once in the leprechaun kingdom, Lily gets a little more information to take in. For one, from her father's side she descends from a long line of leplings, humans who have a small strain of leprechaun blood in them. Since the creation of leplings, it has become tradition that one in their line should always be Keeper (a kind of banker for the clan) of the gold deposits. In order to accept her role though, Lily must first pass three tests to fully prove to the clan that she is the true heir to the position. You might have heard leprechauns are pretty particular about who gets around their gold. ☺ If she doesn't pass these tests, her mind will be wiped of all things leprechaun related, including ALL memories of her grandmother. Lily accepts the challenge, but as the tests get increasingly dangerous -- the third and final test even putting her in a bit of a Catch-22 -- she starts to suspect someone might not want her to succeed after all. 

 

The first few chapters read a little depressing: Lily's parents are split up, her grandmother is dead, Lily is painted as a bit of an awkward loner, so when her birthday comes around, author Laura Roberts paints a pretty sad picture. Lily's mom refuses to take the day off from work and there seems to be only one friend in Lily's life who might be by later to do some celebrating. Also, a NOTE for sensitive readers prone to triggering material: there IS a split-second reference to self-harm in this story... not someone actually carrying out, only one character mentioning suspicion of another character, but the topic is hinted at. The story takes a few chapters to really get into (maybe because of the heavier bits in these early pages) but the pace picks up once Lily gets into her Keeper challenges. 

 

From there, everything is good fun! There's a healthy dose of humor being thrown about once Lily meets her new leprechaun relatives.  Lily getting injured by the package bomb blast, one leprechaun notes, "I didn't know you'd be so delicate." When Lily gets to the kingdom and they see her hair is damaged, a female leprechaun is sent in with some magic shears that can make hair longer rather than shorter... but when Lily voices that she's not entirely happy with the patch up results, the lady leprechaun tosses back, "It's a bit o' magic, not a miracle." Even in a leprechaun kingdom, hair stylists will set you straight on the limitations of their trade! But my favorite was Lily being teamed with the leprechaun Cain for the pisky hunt. Too bad Cain ends up being someone to give Lily a hard life lesson in trust. :-(

 

So if you are all about going on a light adventure filled with magic, chases, intrigue, a dash of backstabbing, and crowd-surfing leprechauns to boot, this one might be a fun one to while away a chill afternoon this spring! It even closes on a cute scene so you can leave with a smile!

 

As far as I know, this is a stand-alone story, but I could see potential for continuation of the storyline...I would be all for revisiting these characters as they grow up (or older, in the case of the leprechauns lol).