The haunting new novel fromNew York Timesbestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mothers beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mothers world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere’s childhood isn’t the enchanted idyll her mothers readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods theyve made their playland. As Edith Sharpes books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fameuntil the night it all goe