Honestly, I cannot recommend this book enough. I first read it when I was fifteen and it changed my life. I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but Old Magic was the first book I'd read that perfectly combined history and fantasy, that expertly weaved a medieval tapestry with timeless themes of love, family, longing, acceptance, and belonging.

The two protagonists, Kate Warren and Jarrod Thornton, are awe-inspiring. Kate's unique worldview of logic and compassion is a fantastic model of any child wondering how to be, and I definitely appreciated that her empathy is always treated as a strength, never a weakness, unlike in other fantasy/sci fi novels. Jarrod's character arc and exponential growth is brilliantly realistic, and readers can both identify with Kate's impatience and his understandable and numerous doubts. The plot is quick and engrossing; the poetical language lovely; the characters, even the minor ones, three dimensional. In the first week I owned the book, I read it five times.

tl;dr: this is an awesome book for any YA readers and I highly, highly recommend it.