DCP Stories Collection

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The Secret of a Heart Note

Sixteen-year-old Mimosa is one of only two aromateurs (love witches) left on the planet. She possesses an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell allowing her to perceive individual scentprints (like distinctive fingerprints) and craft customized love elixirs to help others fall in love while remaining incurably alone herself. As one of the world’s last aromateurs, Mim is bound by a sacred rule: falling in love would render her nose useless, destroying her one great talent and ending the ancestral profession, so she is destined for a lifetime of weeding, mixing potions, and matchmaking while protecting her own heart. However, Mim dreams of a normal high school experience with friends, sports, debate club, and even a boyfriend, and when she accidentally gives her algebra teacher’s love elixir to the wrong woman—the recently divorced mother of Court, the school soccer star—she must enlist Court’s help to undo the damage before her mother discovers her mistake. Through this situation, Mim begins to realize that falling in love isn’t always a choice you can control, and she navigates the forbidden attraction while discovering what it truly means to find her place in the world through this richly evocative coming-of-age story infused with the magic and vivid sensory descriptions of botanical fragrances.

Review

What’s Done Well

  • Donor conception is a fact of life. Donor conception does not play a large role in this book. Instead, it is just a facet of Mimosa’s identity, as it can be for donor-conceived youth.

What Bothered Us

  • Single motherhood as a lonely experience. In order to continue the family line of aromateurs, Mimosa’s mom used a sperm donor to conceive her, and it is implied that using donor sperm to conceive will be in Mimosa’s future. Mimosa is against this, and refers to single motherhood to be a lonely life, and the fact she has a single mom is looked down upon by Mimosa at times. While this is not the main focus of this book, it could potentially be othering for the children of single mothers by choice.

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