Twin sisters Ayanna and Olivia have always been a little disappointed not to share any of those mystical twin connections you always read about. Perhaps they never had a chance to nurture these psychic bonds, given that their parents divorced when they were small. Although they grow up spending their weekends together, their upbringings are very different. Olivia, who chooses to live with her mother after the divorce, is raised Catholic. Ayanna lives with her father and grandmother and is raised in a new Black-founded spiritual tradition that doesn't believe in Jesus, Mary or any of the traditional Christian tenets.

Like many other religions (or you could call them cults) that sprang up around the same time, Ayanna's father's faith focuses on the appearance several decades earlier of a series of blue doors around the world. They open periodically and seem to offer glimpses into a mystical other dimension. Is it heaven? Or hell? Or something else? Brave or foolhardy seekers are drawn to travel through the doors. Some return unscathed but hardly unchanged, while others are (seemingly at random) obliterated or "popped" the instant they step through.

"Ayanna's story is achingly specific and wondrous in its way, and also universal. It will resonate with readers on many different levels."

Part of Ayanna's religion involves a coming-of-age ceremony that culminates in a journey through their closest door, which has appeared in a field near their Michigan home. After much cajoling, their parents allow Olivia to witness this ritual. At the last minute, however, sensing Ayanna's own trepidation about what she will be doing, Olivia follows her through the door --- and then the way out disappears.

The two spend some time behind the door, exploring this new metaphysical landscape and making observations. When at last the way out is revealed, Ayanna eagerly passes back out into our world --- but she leaves alone. Although she thought Olivia was right behind her, she is nowhere to be found. A few months later, all the doors around the world disappear as suddenly as they came.

Ayanna is stunned by this turn of events and wracked with guilt over her role in what might have happened to Olivia. She turns away from her childhood faith and tries her best to focus on the next phase of her life --- going to college. There she makes friends with some of the few other Black students, and she gets a job doing research with a professor investigating the experiences of those who traveled through the blue doors. But she can't stop thinking about what might have happened to her sister. Like others before her, Ayanna is also changed by her own journey.

MEET ME AT THE CROSSROADS includes plenty of imaginative descriptions and speculation about what lies behind the doors, and about the nature of the interplay between the "spirit world" or the "beyond" and our own. But it's also very much grounded in real life. Ayanna's college experience of making friends and falling in love is thoroughly realistic, as is her evolving relationship with her parents.

Despite its supernatural elements, Megan Giddings' third novel is at its heart about the very realistic, and inevitable, experience of grief. So many of Ayanna's reflections on her ongoing grief after losing her sister ring true, as when she contends with the sadness and self-loathing that lurks behind every normal activity: "To stand in line with Stephen to buy limited-edition shoes that looked like beige sleeping bags…and somehow, this, too, was so much fun but her own brain was whispering below it all, 'You aren't the one who should be here.'"

Even those who normally might shy away from books with elements of speculation or magical realism will find much to reflect on here, especially its grappling with grief and eventual embrace of life and love, despite the fact that both are inextricably entwined with loss. Ayanna's story is achingly specific and wondrous in its way, and also universal. It will resonate with readers on many different levels.