Messenger

It's Evie Messenger's fifteenth birthday, and like all the Messengers, she's about to get her gift.  It's something different for everyone.  Her Aunt Odie has the gift of cooking, and she presides over a small empire of baking mixes with Evie as her assistant.

Evie and her mother have recently moved in her with her stepfather, JimDaddy.  The move put them in a nicer neighborhood and a better house, but it's on the other side of her Florida hometown which means she has to switch to a new high school without her best friend.  It's not all bad, though, she loves JimDaddy and her new baby sister.  Aunt Odie immediately bought a house in the neighborhood to be close by, and then there's Buddy.  Evie isn't sure if he's boyfriend material or just a lot of trouble, but he sure is good to look at.

When it turns out that her gift might be no gift at all (maybe it skips a generation?), Evie isn't sure how to feel.  The gift is part of being a Messenger, but it comes with responsibility.  You have to use your gift to make other people's lives better, and sometimes it's hard to find the boundary between the gift and your own personal life--especially when your new stepfather and almost boyfriend are still mired in grief over a tragic accident.

Carol Lynch Williams's newest book is a gentle story about family and grief with paranormal and romance elements to spice things up.