A HUNGER OF THORNS

When her childhood friend goes missing, Maude journeys to an enchanted place to search for her.

As young girls, Maude and Odette were wild and inseparable. Maude spun fairy tales of captured princesses and the handsome princes who would save them, and she promised to always rescue Odette. In the years since, Odette continued to yearn for forbidden, illegal magic, the kind that led to Maude’s mother’s death. Since losing Mam, Maude has lived with Nan and Halmoni, her grandmothers. She tries to be good and nice but has never gotten over the fact that Odette abandoned her four years ago when Maude lost her magic. Now Odette is presumed dead, and Maude is determined to find her. She sets out for Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant encased in a forgetting spell and full of dangerous magic and eerily familiar creatures. Maude has the gift of storytelling; so too does noted Australian author Wilkinson, who intricately weaves an original world full of magic and wonder that’s both cozy and treacherous. The lush, atmospheric tale slowly builds, and readers are rewarded with surprising reveals and compelling insight into complicated friendships. The story takes the notion of a fairy tale’s clear-cut good versus evil and turns it on its head, diving into the vast gray area in between. Most characters are assumed White; several characters, including Maude, are queer.

A spellbinding, leisurely paced tale with a captivating, imperfect heroine.