Mary is a normal high school student, she lives in Oregon as the book begins, but her mother always seems to find the bad boyfriends. Her latest boyfriend, Joe, is a police officer. But Mary and her mother, Fiona, hadn't realized that he's been selling Fiona's paintings and pocketing the money without telling her. When he hits Mary, Fiona decides that that's the end of their relationship and decides to move to Arizona to get away from him. Mary has to start at a new high school not knowing anyone, but she meets Kelson pretty quickly. He seems to be a popular boy and he keeps turning up wherever Mary is. Just as Mary decides to trust him a little bit, he shows up, takes her mother captive and disappears. Mary is kind of concerned, because he did what appeared to be a form of magic and just vanished. Mary discovers that she too can do magic, but she must not have gotten it just right, because when she lands, she's not in the same place that Kelson and her mom are. She lands in a chicken coop in a land very strange to Mary, she must learn the language, she must protect herself and she must find her mother. I really enjoyed this book. The story was fun and engaging and I really liked the characters.