★We Need No Wings. Ann Dávila Cardinal. Sourcebooks Landmark. Sept. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781728258508. pap. $16.99. F

Sixtysomething professor Teresa Sanchez is suffering, mourning her dead husband, on leave from her university in Vermont, and feeling unmoored. One day, while watering the peonies that her husband planted for her, she begins to levitate—tethered to the ground only through her hold on the garden hose. This terrifying occurrence is followed by more incidences of Teresa losing touch with the earth, until, exhausted and terrified by her flights, she is forced to make more of her family’s legacy than she ever cared to before. (She is a descendant of St. Teresa, who also levitated.) Teresa decides to travel to Ávila, Spain, the hometown of St. Teresa, in search of answers. There she encounters a myriad of people—her cousin, a nun; a bike shop owner; a real estate agent; and a homeless young man—all of whom help in her inquiry and in her grief. VERDICT Cardinal (The Storyteller’s Death) deftly blurs the boundaries between literary and relationship fiction, crafting a novel full of magical realism that unfolds with leisurely grace as it traces a plot that is deeply engaging. Swift yet reflective, intimate yet universal, this is a novel of deep rewards.