New graphic novel coming May 20, 2025, from Algonquin Young Readers – available for preorder now!
Can Millie solve the puzzle of fate in time to save her family—and all of reality?
Twelve-year-old Millicent Graves’s life is a mess. Her little sister loves bad jokes and gross experiments. Her dad is having some sort of mid-life crisis. Her new neighbor, Samuel Smolt, is overdramatic and kind of obsessed with her. And the reason she even has a new neighbor is because her mom sank all their money into a fancy fishtank business, so they had to move to an apartment with three creepy landladies. Someone has to clean up this chaos, but no one else seems to see the problems. Then fate (or, actually, the Fates) leads Millie to discover a room full of jigsaw puzzles representing people’s lives, and she changes a few pieces to fix the imperfections in everyone she knows. Soon, her sister is sensible and her mom is successful. Dad still needs some work, and Sam Smolt is still annoying—but he’s kind of becoming her best friend anyway. And if some pieces don’t fit right? Eh… And if there are mysterious new cracks in the universe in the exact shape of those mismatched pieces… That’s not a problem, right? Okay, maybe it is. But Millie is sure if she just makes a few more tiny tweaks, her rearrangements will be perfect.
What could go wrong? It’s not like literally all of reality is about to unravel. Right? . . . Right?