A Chalice of Wind: Balefire, #1 -- Cate Tiernan
Clio Martin was born in New Orleans, and has lived there with her grandmother for her whole life. They're witches, and Clio has been practicing magick for as long as she can remember.
Thais Allard was born in Boston, and until very recently, lived there with her father. Now she's an orphan, and she's been sent to live in New Orleans with an old friend of her father's that she's never even heard of.
When the girls run into each other on the first day of school, they immediately know that they were separated at birth: because, except for hair length, they're completely identical, right down to their strawberry birthmarks.
Which means that Thais is also a witch. She's just never known about her potential.
Oh, also? Due to their Wonder Twin Magick Power (that they don't know about yet) and a spell that went down centuries ago, someone wants them dead.
I really dislike it when 'magic' is spelled 'magick'. It always smacks of Trying Too Hard To Be Mysterious to me. But, whatever. Personal issue. Moving on.
I picked this one up because I'm still waiting for my library system to get the sequel to Immortal Beloved. Turns out, Balefire is kind of a cross between that series and Tiernan's Sweep series: teenaged witches (as in Sweep) and immortals who are dealing with the less-positive aspects of being immortal (as in Immortal Beloved). It's more on par with Sweep in terms of quality (enjoyable, but pretty disposable), though it has a bit more depth, and it was cool to see that the themes explored in Immortal Beloved were percolating in Tiernan's brain long before the book came out.
The girls alternate the narration. Luckily, the chapter headings identify the speaker, because while the girls are different personality-wise, other than Clio's habit of using the occasional French word, their voices are pretty indistinguishable. Some readers might have trouble with the chapters that act as quick cut glimpses of the numerous secondary characters—they felt extraneous as they were happening, but by the Big Reveal at the end, I was glad they were there.
Recommendation-wise, as long as a bit of steam is in their comfort zone—both girls are carrying on semi-secret lurrrve affairs, though Clio's is much more physical and Thais' is much more emotional—I'd easily recommend it to fans of paranormal series authors like Laurie Faria Stolarz.
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Book source: ILLed through my library.