HERE IN AVALON, Tara Isabella Burton's third novel (following SOCIAL CREATURE and THE WORLD CANNOT GIVE), is her most magical, sincere book yet.

Once there were two sisters. Cecilia, the elder, is rarely washed or brushed, her tights are always full of runs, and she has never once been on time. In her sister Rose’s eyes, she is a revolution, an ephemeral creature who is as likely to do shots and smoke cigarettes with you on the lid of a grand piano as she is to make a security guard at a museum cry with her earnest, probing questions.

Raised by an eccentric mother who believes that childhood is an “oppressive illusion thrust upon young people by the repressive bourgeoisie,” Cecilia and Rose turn to the great city of New York to be their parent. Often left on their own, they immerse themselves in everything the city has to offer. Cecilia’s uttering of her trademark refrain --- The city will provide --- acts as a sort of spell, a magical combination of words that challenges the city to deliver them unto magic, wonder and awe. And because it’s Cecilia, the city always delivers. Of course it does.

"Crackling with tension and magic, and full of poignant questions about dreams and desires, HERE IN AVALON is Burton’s best book thus far."

Rose’s childhood ends on Cecilia’s 18th birthday, when Cecilia abruptly leaves and does not return for three years. She has fallen in love with a sort-of poet online who has promised her open skies and beautiful freedom in Montana. Although Cecilia learns only five months later that her pseudo-poet lover is actually a divorced father of two, she still does not come back to New York, or to Rose. Thus begins a long history of departures and arrivals, estrangement and reunion. For the next decade, Cecilia jets from continent to continent, monastery to music festival, and lover to lover. Rose, meanwhile, throws herself into her education and sees her mother through a cancer diagnosis. Cecilia does not attend the funeral.

When we meet the girls, they are now women. Rose is a successful programmer working at a start-up called OptiMyze that helps people make better choices by inputting their values into an app and receiving road maps for how to apply these values to achieve their goals. Rose, a college boyfriend tells her, reacts to spreadsheets the same way that most girls react to sex. This seriousness, this methodicalness, is what Rose believes makes her special, if not as magical as her wayward sister. She has even gotten engaged to a man as steadfast and serious as she is, and her life seems set on a clear, programmed line. But chaos comes crashing into Rose's life when her sister returns. Cecilia, who is reeling from a sudden marriage and an even more sudden divorce, vows to become stable and reliable, like Rose.

Rose is hesitantly excited for this new iteration of Cecilia, one who is dependable and responsible, who doesn’t need Rose to drop everything to comfort and console her. But then Cecilia comes home one night with a mysterious card penned in elaborate cursive: Another life is possible. THE AVALON CABARET. For further particulars: please send details of your situation. Discretion is paramount. Rose writes it off as a performance piece or marketing scheme, but then Cecilia slowly starts to regress. She acts irrationally and walks around in a daze, hurriedly speaking about a red ship, a beautiful cabaret and a band of performers who whisk her away into a dreamland. And then, just as she always has, she disappears, but this time for good.

Joining forces with her sister’s ex-husband, Rose takes it upon herself to be noticed by this Avalon Cabaret and invited into whatever cult-like, magical or devious scheme they are running. But where Rose has always believed herself to be certain of everything, her journey into Avalon reveals that she is much more like her sister than she ever imagined. Since Avalon is never wrong about who it targets and admits, Rose may have more magic to her than she ever dreamed possible.

Already accomplished at tying together religious fervor with dark mystery, this time Tara Isabella Burton uses fairy tale tropes as her foundation, gracefully and assuredly upending and warping them to create something glittering and dark, inviting and chilling. Rose reads like Alice down the rabbit hole, Wendy flying to the second star to the right, and Sleeping Beauty pricking her finger all at once. As her journey to Avalon contorts what is real with what is illusion or fantasy, the novel takes on a riveting, unputdownable pace. Readers are invited into a world where dreams coexist with reality, and one choice can maroon you in one land or the other.

Grounding the novel in reality is the relationship between Cecilia and Rose, which naturally has transformed from the innocence and devotion of their childhood into one of power imbalances and critical observation. The sisters, both individually and as a unit, are written beautifully and are fully realized portraits. Although Cecilia provides the danger and magic of every scene, it is Rose who is most transformed by both New York and Avalon. Her journey is exactly the stuff fairy tales are made of: enchantment and beauty, magic and sincerity.

Crackling with tension and magic, and full of poignant questions about dreams and desires, HERE IN AVALON is Burton’s best book thus far. Perfect for readers of fractured fairy tales, novels involving sibling dynamics, and anyone who wants to escape their woes for a night, this is a treat as decadent and dangerous as a poisoned apple.