Read September 4, 2013
YA: Newbery Honor. Bloody-Mary-era England mysterious castle and well-built fae.
Picked up a slightly-damaged paperback at the 10-for-$2 table at the Greenville Literacy Society's Really Big Book Sale.
I
somehow missed this when I was younger, and I'm sort of sad that I did.
It's very Willow/Labyrinth/Dark Crystal feel, and the fae are
beautifully done.
Kate and her sister are handmaidens to the Princess
Elizabeth in exile while Bloody Mary rules, until Kate's impetuous
sister writes a letter to complain of their treatment. The sister gets
dragged into Mary's court, but Kate (blamed for the complaint because
she's not the pretty one) is exiled even further, to the Perilous Gard,
all the way out near the Irish border.
The castle is eerie and filled with servants who
seem to have a divided loyalty. The village is filled with traumatized
peasants. The forboding woods are filled with ancient oaks. The lord
and his younger brother are hiding a sad, dark secret. Headstrong,
stubborn, logical Kate is determined to find out how they're all
related, even if it gets her kidnapped Underhill.
Really truly very good. If I had been younger when I
first encountered it, I have a feeling it would end up in the supreme
favorites who-can-do-no-wrong list with The Hero and the Crown and the
Alanna books. As it is, as an adult, I notice the seams, so it
downgrades to merely extremely solid.
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