Infinity Alchemist
by Kacen Callender
High School    Tor Teen    400 pp.
2/24    9781250890252    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781250890269    $11.99

Ash Woods is an unlicensed alchemist, a groundskeeper at a college that will employ him but not admit him to study and train to practice alchemy openly and legally. When Ramsay Thorne, a graduate apprentice, catches Ash working a bit of creation alchemy, he proposes a deal: if Ash will help search for the Book of Source, Ramsay will teach him what he needs to know to pass the licensing exam. In the process, Ash falls for the alchemist. Ramsay (who is genderfluid and uses alternating pronouns) has her own skeletons in her past and now seeks to destroy the Book. When the quest goes awry, Ramsay abandons Ash to the authorities to find the Book herself, and Ash is taken captive, kept under the watch of—coincidentally—Callum Kendrick, who broke Ramsay’s heart back in boarding school, and whose gentleness Ash also finds irresistibly attractive. This elaborate adventure leads to some surprising places—alternate universes; a threesome involving Ash (who is transgender), Callum, and Ramsay—but readers will thrill to the high-stakes predicaments and appreciate the characters’ attempts to remain true to themselves, no matter the cost.

Pubissue-From the March/April 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.