A Rush of Wings

October 1, 2021
A young woman must calm the tempest within her to save her cursed family. Eighteen-year-old Rowenna Winthrop has waited for years to learn craft from her mother, Mairead. But her lack of emotional control gives Mairead pause in teaching Rowenna the ways of the Cailleach--and just when Mairead concedes, she's taken. Harboring the truth of the evil her mother faced and the untamed craft within her leaves Rowenna unsettled. Her foreboding grows when a fuath impersonating her mother infiltrates the family, rendering Rowenna mute and cursing her brothers to turn into swans. Determined Rowenna must travel the Highlands as she tries to expel this terrible creature. Weymouth's storytelling is lyrical and immersive: The well-woven lore is set against the coastal, cliffside village of Neadeala and the Scottish wilderness, with shadowy creatures, bloody omens, and other carnage. Cruelty and dark forces come in the form of both the magical and also human tyrant Torr Pendragon. A romance with Gawen MacArthur, a rebel seeking the help of Rowenna's craft, evolves naturally, and the story's big heartache comes from family members who meet Rowenna with doubt, disbelief, and blame. In this tale inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans," readers will appreciate in Rowenna a fierceness as she grows into her craft and her determination and sense of self strengthen. Characters read as White. An intense, darkly atmospheric, and skillful fairy-tale retelling. (Fantasy. 14-18)

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October 11, 2021
In a lush retelling of “The Wild Swans” that’s rooted in Scottish history and folklore, 18-year-old Rowenna Winthrop must hone her untrained witchcraft to break the family curse conjured by a monster masquerading as her deceased mother. Rendered mute while her brothers and new friend Gawen MacArthur live as swans, Rowenna finds uncertain refuge in an abandoned groundskeeper’s cottage belonging to dangerous warlord Torr Pendragon. There, in the guise of a swan caretaker, she secretly weaves shirts out of stinging witchnettle to unbind her brothers’ curse and her own, enduring constant agony from the crafting, honing her magical prowess, and navigating Torr’s attempts to exploit her. But she must work fast to unbind the spell before it becomes irreversible or she’s exposed as a witch and executed. Weymouth (A Treason of Thorns) hits the source material’s traditional beats, enhancing it with evocative prose, a satisfying romance, and an atmospheric setting that weaves in elements of the natural world, for example, through an eerie refrain voiced by the wind. Characters are cued as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Lauren Spieller, Triada US.

November 24, 2021
Grades 9-12 Rowenna has magical talent, but she's impatient; because of that, her mother, Mairead, refuses to teach her how to use her magic. When Mairead dies--killed by an evil creature from the depths of the sea--Rowenna is left to care for her family and to try and make something out of the power that whispers to her on the winds. When her father and brother get lost at sea, she tries to use her magic on instinct, but her wish to ""have what is lost returned"" goes awry, bringing back not only her father and brother but her dead mother. But the thing using Mairead's body is not truly Rowenna's mother, and she promises to make Rowenna and her remaining family suffer. Complicating matters is Gawen, a shipwrecked young man Rowenna encounters while bargaining for her family's safe return. Weymouth has drawn from fairy tales for inspiration in previous books as well (A Treason of Thorns, 2019), and her readers will welcome this approach in her latest. Buy for larger collections where high fantasy is popular.

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