THE RIVER'S GIFT

New fantasy, with few and tiny pages, from the author of The Black Swan (p. 496), etc. Beautiful 15-year-old Ariella of Swan Manor likes to don workaday clothes, run off into the forest, and use her magic gifts to heal sick and injured animals. One day a magical Kelpie named Merod rises from the river; from his foot Ariella withdraws the iron nail that’s poisoning him, and the two become friends. Soon, Ariella is healing outlandish Faerie creatures as well as animals and the local serfs. Then her beloved father Lord Kaelin drops dead. Females can’t inherit, so Kaelin arranged for a cousin, Lord Lyon, to marry Ariella. But Lyon is large, loud, brutal, and cares nothing for Faerie or Swan Manor; he drugs the confused, grieving Ariella and carries her off to his own castle, where he restrains her and prepares her for marriage. At last, using magic given him by a Great One, Merod arrives in human guise to rescue Ariella by transforming them both into swans. Fluffy no-brainer evidently aimed at a younger—much younger—fantasy audience.