One sister must save the other from a goblin prince in this rich,
spooky, and delightfully dark fantasy!
"TERRIFICALLY TIMELESS. . . SPLENDID."--Shelf Awareness
Lizzie and Minka are sisters, but they're nothing alike: Minka is
outgoing and cheerful, while Lizzie is shy and sensitive. Nothing much
ever happens in their sleepy village--there are fields to tend, clothes
to mend, and weekly trips to the market, predictable as the turning of
the seasons. Lizzie likes it that way. It's safe. It's comfortable. She
hopes nothing will ever change.
But one day, Minka meets a boy.
A boy who gives her a plum to eat.
He is charming. He is handsome. He tells her that she's special. He
tells her no one understands her like he does--not her parents, not her
friends, not even Lizzie. He tells her she should come away with him,
into the darkness, into the forest. . . .
Minka has been bewitched and ensnared by a zdusze--a goblin. His plum
was poison, his words are poison, and strange things begin to happen.
Trees bleed, winds howl, a terrible sickness descends on Minka, and deep
in the woods, in a place beyond sunshine, beyond reality, a wedding
table has been laid. . . .
To save her sister, Lizzie will have to find courage she never knew she
had--courage to confront the impossible--and enter into a world of
dreams, danger, and death.
Rich world-building inspired by both Polish folklore and the poetry of
Christina Rossetti combines with a tender sister story in this thrilling
novel from Diane Zahler.
"Lush. . . Dreamy. . . Breath-quickening."--The Horn Book
"Resonates with emotion."--BCCB
"Believably wrought."--Publishers Weekly
"Will entice readers looking for some chills."--Kirkus Reviews
