"Every day with you is an adventure."
There’s Magic Between Us is a YA Fantasy Romance by Jillian Maria that was published on July 6, 2021. It follows Lydia Barnes, a spunky girl visiting her grandmother’s small town of Fairbrooke. There, she meets Eden Yu, who is hunting faerie treasure in the forest. The two kindle a friendship that quickly threatens to blossom into something more, but all is not as bright as it appears as Lydia grapples with secrets and strange townspeople.
Tropes in this work:
- Caught in the Rain: Happens to Lydia and Eden while hanging out in the forest. While no kissing happens while they take shelter, it does mark a decided turning point in their relationship from friendly to romantic.
- Cast Full of Gay: Lydia is pansexual. Eden is most likely a lesbian (while she never says the word directly, when asked about what sort of partner she’d like she uses feminine pronouns only, while Lydia makes it a point to use multiple). Florian is genderfluid, switching names and bouncing between he/him and she/her pronouns every few years, and Dorothy is explicitly stated to be attracted to him no matter what pronouns and presentation he’s going with. Florian is also stated to be attracted to multiple genders. Charlotte is the only one who can reasonably read as straight, although this is never explicitly stated.
- Cool Old Lady: Dorothy is warm, encouraging, and takes Lydia’s antics in stride — mostly because they’re not all that different from her antics when she was younger.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lydia does this a lot, both in her narration and dialogue. Eden gets a few moments, too.Lydia: Are you actually this literal or are you just screwing with me?Eden: Maybe a little of both.Lydia: A joke! I knew you had it in you.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The treasures, which are the pieces of a broken faerie staff. When retrieved and put back together, they can do magic.
- Enchanted Forest: The forest used to have faeries that would lure humans to their deaths. The forest that Lydia visits is safe and beautiful and not at all threatening, but it is a lot bigger than it appears from outside. That’s because this forest was actually created by a good faerie, Florence, to protect humans from the rest of her kind. The actual faerie world, which the main cast eventually finds themselves in, is a lot creepier and far more dangerous.
- Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Lydia’s the energetic one, where Eden is more soft-spoken.
- Fish out of Water: City girl Lydia is entirely out of her element in her grandmother’s small Midwestern town. She’s too rough around the edges to be considered a City Mouse, though. Her issue isn’t work or hygiene related, but rather a discomfort with the slower pace of life in Fairbrooke compared to Chicago, along with a lack of understanding for the more subtle and insular social dynamics.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Lydia jokes about this when she finds out her grandma isn’t straight.
- The Fair Folk: Faeries are definitely depicted as being on the “otherworldly horror” side of the spectrum (except for Florian).
- First Love: Lydia’s had crushes and even a girlfriend before, but she admits that her feelings for Eden are more intense. Played straight with Eden’s attraction to Lydia.
- Land of Faerie: While the faeries used to plague Fairbrooke, a war over a century before the book starts sealed them away in their own world. Eventually, the main cast is forced to flee there to escape a fire.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Eden has shades of this — she doesn’t wear makeup, but she does dress very femme in dresses and skirts, and wears her hair long.
- Mouthy Kid: Lydia talks without thinking, which gets her into trouble on more than one occasion.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: Florian is a gender-fluid faerie. The story makes it a point to note that this isn’t due to his non-human status, however — Florian doesn’t even call it “gender-fluid” until Lydia suggests it, at which point he expresses fondness over humans’ tendency to label things like gender and sexual identity, so it’s made clear that gender fluidity exists in humans as well. Lydia also has a human friend back home who uses they/them pronouns. As an added note, Lydia meets other faeries who seem to have a more binary presentation, so it’s likely that faeries treat gender similar to humans.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Lydia’s the impulsive, enthusiastic red, and Eden is the collected, methodical blue.
- Riddle Me This: Each treasure has a riddle etched into it, hinting at the location of the next one.
- Teen Pregnancy: Lydia’s mom got pregnant with her when she was 17.
- Uptight Loves Wild: Eden, a meticulous planner who focuses on her goal of finding faerie treasure and little else, falls for Lydia, an impulsive flake who admittedly doesn’t have any long-term goals to speak of.
