Outside the Bones

Fina is a big girl with a big mouth. She's the neighborhoodbruja, or "spirit worker" as she likes to call herself, casting spells for her neighbors in Manhattan's Upper West Side. She can't believe it, though, when she puts an accidentalfufú-or spell-on Chico, the irresistible trumpet-player who lives upstairs. "With so many scraps of his clothing . . . sprinkled with blood, gunpowder, sugar, spit, and God knows what else, poor Chico's body didn't know if it was being cursed or blessed."

Chi...