This is a book that I won in a Goodreads First Reads contest.
The story follows Krystal Bull whose mother is a psychic. At the beginning the main characters and their situations are seamlessly introduced allowing you to get into the story immediately. There's Krystal whose 13th birthday it is, her mum who is single now and dieting, and Mr. Wormley, the French teacher from school who "is all bad breath and B.O."
Krystal's character is well-written. She comes across as being very much a teenage girl, with her "oh puh...leeeeze!" type of language, the way she terms boys as fit or not and how she worries about what people will say about her when she does embarrassing things.
At the beginning Mr. Wormley has a sitting with Krystal's mum and that goes wrong with a flash of lightning bringing it to an end. After that Krystal meets a cowgirl called Jessie who is her spirit guide. Jessie tells her "You've inherited special psychic powers today, your thirteenth birthday. They're extra special on account of who you are."
And so Krystal learns she is the first female descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, along the English line, and he has left her something, only another spirit guide, Red Tomahawk, is after it too.
The "rain dancer" part of the title refers to what the gift is, it is a recording of Sitting Bull's rain dance chant, and because of Krystal's special powers when she hears it she can't control herself and starts to dance (these moments being highlights in the book).
Some bits of the book could have been better, such as a terrifying car ride to Heathrow that was over before it got started, and I don't know how necessary it was to put in a scene about Krystal getting her period, but overall this should appeal to teenage girls as Krystal is very much one of them.
(This book is available on Amazon UK HERE.)
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