I read Verdigris Deep / Well Witched when I was a kid, and it really made its mark on kid me. I was never able to find any more of her books then, but I reread it a few years ago and it was somehow even better than I remembered, so I looked her up and not only are there more books... the premises!!! I can't believe I didn't read more of these as a kid, but I'm so, so excited to read them now. I just finished Cuckoo Song (read it all in one sitting, with a brief stop to eat because that book made me so hungry). 💕 Trying to decide which one to read next!
Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge: Anyone who lives in the marsh-woods of Raddith can be given the power to curse someone, if they hate them enough. Only Kellan can unravel those curses and restore the cursed.
Cuckoo Song (2014) by Frances Hardinge
Fiction | Middle Grade | Fantasy, Horror, Historical, Mystery, Paranormal
When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; she keeps waking up with leaves in her hair, and her sister seems terrified of her. When it all gets too much and she starts to cry, her tears are like cobwebs...
Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family - before it's too late...
Tess of the Road (2018) by Rachel Hartman
Fiction | Young Adult | Fantasy, Adventure, Coming of Age
In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can’t make a scene at your sister’s wedding and break a relative’s nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy.
Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it’s a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl—a subspecies of dragon—who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she’s tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.
