Rose by Holly Webb

Rose is a ten-year-old orphan, and she's able to create moving pictures on shiny objects. She doesn't think much about it until she's adopted into the home of a great alchemyst, a magician. It turns out she has magical powers, but she doesn't want anything to do with it. She thinks it would be too hard to learn, and she's happy just being a servant, free from the orphanage. Rose decides to keep her powers secret from Mr. Franklin, the alchemyst, but that may be impossible as she unexpectedly creates magic spells from time to time. Things get more serious for her when she pays a visit back to the orphanage and finds her best friend has disappeared. The director says the friend was adopted, but things don't seem right. The woman is behaving strangely, Mr. Franklin is behaving strangely, and there are reports of children disappearing across the city. Rose suspects her friend was kidnapped, and she's determined to find the missing children.

The first half of the book describes Rose's life as a new servant, and as she slowly realizes she has magic in her that is not going away. It was unusual to read about a character who wanted to get rid of her power, because it was annoying. I wasn't totally sure about the direction of the plot until I was halfway through the book. It became more focused once Rose tried to visit her friend. Mr. Frankin's distracted behavior added a twist to things and created more uncertainty.