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Summary
Summary
Seventeen-year-old Twylla lives in the castle. But although she's engaged to the prince, Twylla isn't exactly a member of the court. She's the executioner.As the Goddess embodied, Twylla instantly kills anyone she touches. Each month, she's taken to the prison and forced to lay her hands on those accused of treason. No one will ever love a girl with murder in her veins. Even the prince, whose royal blood supposedly makes him immune to Twylla's fatal touch, avoids her company.But then a new guard arrives, a boy whose easy smile belies his deadly swordsmanship. And unlike the others, he's able to look past Twylla's executioner robes and see the girl, not the Goddess. Yet Twylla's been promised to the prince, and knows what happens to people who cross the queen. However, a treasonous secret is the least of Twylla's problems. The queen has a plan to destroy her enemies, a plan that requires a stomach-churning, unthinkable sacrifice. Will Twylla do what it takes to protect her kingdom? Or will she abandon her duty in favor of a doomed love?
Author Notes
Melinda Salisbury was born in the 1980s in a landlocked city, before escaping to live by the sea. As a child, she genuinely thought Roald Dahl's Matilda was her biography. When she's not trying to unlock the hidden avenues of her mind, she's reading, writing, or traveling. She lives in the UK and can be found on Twitter as @AHintofMystery, though be warned she tweets often.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This dark fantasy, Salisbury's debut, transports readers to a kingdom ruled by a terrifying mad queen, the product of generations of incest, who has her enemies hunted down and torn apart by hounds. Seventeen-year-old Twylla, the prince's betrothed and the human embodiment of the daughter of the gods, endures her duties at court-which include executing traitors with a mere touch of her poisonous skin-in hopes that money sent home will better her younger sister's life. Though the clear-sighted prince hopes to enlist her as an ally against his cruel mother, Twylla begins to fall for her fearless and skeptical new guard, Lief, who reveals a shocking twist about Twylla's position. In a triumph of characterization, Salisbury makes the path of duty represented by the prince and that of passion represented by Lief equally compelling. In addition to creating vivid and varied characters, Salisbury has a talent for worldbuilding, populating her world with shiver-inducing legends, original customs, and political and religious debates. First in a trilogy, this novel leaves many questions unresolved, but the open ending is nonetheless satisfying. Ages 14-up. Agent: Claire Wilson, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
As the goddess Daunen Embodied, Twylla, the Sin Eater's daughter, is ordered to execute traitors with her poisonous touch. Merely a pawn in the cruel queen's plot to assert control over the kingdom, Twylla's entire belief system is tested as she uncovers layers of betrayal and lies. A twist in loyalty will surprise readers and adds further complexity to Twylla's plight. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Debut author Salisbury has served up a tale as ruthless as it is compelling. As a child, Twylla was handpicked by the queen of Lormere to marry her son, after his sister and betrothed dies. In addition to being engaged to the prince, Twylla is destined to be Lormere's Sin Eater, and at 17, she now lives permanently in the castle, embodying a goddess. But her powerful role comes with an awful price: Twylla proves her godliness by demonstrating her immunity to morningsbane, a deadly toxin, every month. Owing to the sheer volume of poison in her body, she can kill another human with a single touch, and now the queen employs her as executioner, against her will. For all her privilege, Twylla is a pawn, isolated and despised. As Twylla struggles to unravel complicated allegiances, as well as her own destiny, she is forced to face some unpalatable truths about her beliefs. In Twylla's world, the crosses and double-crosses come fast and often, which keeps the pages quickly turning in this dark fantasy.--Dean, Kara Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHAT HAPPENS DURING summer vacation has a lot to teach us about children and reading. Librarians and teachers are very aware of the "summer slide." This friendly-sounding phrase describes the loss of reading skills during the long break. After two months of not reading, a student experiences a gap in learning that, by the time she reaches middle school, might add up to a two-year lag in skills. We also know that children who choose reading as a leisure activity will do well on those dreaded tests of comprehension, vocabulary and reading speed. But how do you get them to want to read? One thing is hardly shocking: Children who choose their own reading material read. This means that required summer reading lists don't work to keep kids reading. What does work is taking them to the public library and signing up for summer reading programs. What does work is surrounding kids with all kinds of books - comics, how-to-make-paper-airplanes books, fantasy series - and letting them choose what they like. Nonetheless, there are always books that adults are well advised to put within the reach of children - subtly - in the hope that they'll be drawn in. The books under review here are all examples of the genre called "speculative fiction," and they are all first books in a series. They are also books I can picture a young reader choosing. In the end, though, it will be up to her. Trust her choices. AN EXCELLENT NEW SERIES asks for a commitment. As readers, we enter into an agreement with the author. We take the time to get to know the characters, the setting and premise. We understand that we might have to wait to continue this journey, but we also insist that this book be whole and stand on its own. Gordon Korman has a strong track record with middle-grade and young adult series, including several turns writing books in the best-selling "39 Clues" adventure series. He is the king of voice and setup, and he never fails to make me laugh out loud. His latest, "Masterminds," a high-stakes tale told from varying points of view, is set in the tiny planned community of Serenity, N.M. - a place of "honesty, harmony and contentment" where, supposedly, kids can grow up safe, carefree and happy. There is no crime, no unemployment, no poverty and no homelessness. The narrators are a cohort of 13-yearolds. Eli Frieden is the son of the principal of their small public school, who also happens to be the town's mayor. His dad, like all the parents in Serenity, constantly reminds him to be grateful to be growing up in this perfect environment, but Eli isn't quite sure. For one thing, he doesn't feel right about the fact that he's never once stepped foot outside Serenity. Amber Laska, however, has no problem being grateful. With her impressive mathematical abilities and unquestioning grace, she happily conducts her scheduled life of achieving outstanding test results while keeping up with piano and ballet lessons. Then there's Malik, the biggest kid in town. He's an outspoken malcontent, making fun of the town sayings, traditions and rules. He bullies Hector, the smallest of the group, who senses things are not quite as they seem on the surface and understands that Malik might have the right idea with his plan to leave town as soon as he's old enough. Korman slowly reveals details that suggest the utopian community is something else altogether, and Eli and his friends find themselves caught up in a conspiracy. Suffice it to say that what's really going on in Serenity involves the cloning of incarcerated criminals and a carefully orchestrated government plot. The teenagers, for their part, must grapple with their growing realization that there is almost no one they can trust, including their seemingly benign parents. Another middle-grade series off to a great start is "The Keepers: The Box and the Dragonfly," from the debut novelist Ted Sanders. Despite the familiar motifs - an outsider with untapped special talent, a gang of friends united against forces of evil - what we have here is a winding fantasy adventure that will appeal to readers of J.K. Rowling and Rick Riordan. Horace F. Andrews, age 12, is traveling on a crowded city bus when he spies a tall and narrow building sign with his name on it, in faded old-fashioned lettering, preceded by a list of words. The only ones he catches are "Artifacts. Miseries. Mysteries." Impulsively, Horace leaps out of the bus. "What possible reason," he wonders, "could any business have for putting 'Miseries' on its sign?" As Horace looks for the building, a strange, malodorous man blocks his path and sneers a cryptic pronouncement: "Watch where you roam, Tinker....Curiosity is a walk fraught with peril." The creepy stranger is not far wrong, as the building Horace enters turns out to be the House of Answers, a warehouse of wonders that would give Diagon Alley competition for the most fantastical architectural structure. The House of Answers contains an archive of curious bins with odd labels like FLAT and SUBTLE. The bins hold objects like scissors with sharp outer edges, a two-foot-long corkscrew and an ice cream scoop as big as a head. The most fascinating is a small box, its meaning and purpose shrouded in mystery. Horace is drawn to it and cannot let it out of his sight. A physical longing that he cannot explain compels him to keep the box close by. The proprietor, Mr. Meister, lets him have the box, warning him not to allow it into the sight of the dangerous stranger. Soon after, Horace meets Chloe, also 12, who received her own transformative item, a dragonfly pendant, at the tender age of 5. These objects, we learn, are instruments called Tanu that bond to their "Keepers." The device chooses the Keeper, who must find the object's powers on his or her own through experimentation and discovery. There were moments when I felt bogged down in the details of the series's setup. But those who stick with it will find a satisfying and original quest tale. We cheer on Horace as he painstakingly refines his newly found talent to enable objects to travel in time. Meanwhile, Chloe is also strengthening her own unique gift for hiding in plain sight. Horace, Chloe and their new companions - Neptune, who can float, and Gabriel, who can temporarily blind - set out to rescue Chloe's father. He is being held hostage by the malevolent race of beings called the Riven, who hunger to claim all Tanu for their own. I was left longing for the next episode. "A School for Unusual Girls," by Kathleen Baldwin, is enticing from the first sentence: "What if Sir Isaac Newton's parents had packed him off to a school to reform his manners?" Our protofeminist teenage protagonist, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam, known as Georgie, utters those lines. Possessing the robust intellect of a promising scientist along with a lack of interest in conforming to the societal norms of early 1800s England, she's banished to a boarding school with a reputation for "reforming" recalcitrant girls into compliant companions. This first installment of the Stranje House series has all the markers of a Regency romance - elaborate manners, rigid social hierarchies and historical accuracy about the fine points of clothing and culture. Baldwin has an ear for period dialogue as she draws us into this world of sharp, smart young ladies who are actually being trained and deployed for the British war effort by the mysterious headmistress, Miss Stranje. It's speculative historical fiction, with a trace of steampunk inventiveness: Would a refinement of invisible ink in 1814 have changed the course of history, helping the British evade spies in the war they were fighting on multiple fronts? Swoony moments also abound ("An instant later, his mouth found mine....It felt as if he poured years of hunger and longing, thousands of heartbreaking secrets into me, into this one urgent moment"); after all, this is a romance as well. Yet gender stereotypes are turned upside down as the women, who each have an unusual talent, plan a daring spy mission. Georgie literally flies to the rescue of her beloved Sebastian, taken captive in an enemy stronghold. "The Sin Eater's Daughter," another debut novel, combines the compelling world-building narrative style of Kristin Cashore's "Graceling" with the political intrigue of Megan Whalen Turner's "The Thief." In this well-imagined fantasy world, we meet Twylla, who is the "chosen one," identified when she was still a young child by royal leaders as the hand of the ancient gods. Narrating the novel in a rueful voice, she slowly reveals her situation: As the embodiment of the gods on earth, she is able to survive the intake of poison and then kill another with a poisonous touch. Promised to be wed to the prince, whom she hardly knows since he has been on diplomatic missions for years, she lives in the palace, feared by all who come in close proximity. She can touch no one. But according to the lore, the prince's royal blood will protect him from the poison contained in hers. Twylla's days are spent in prayer, though she is occasionally called upon to perform an execution by merely laying hands on the guilty party. She witnesses the casual cruelty of the queen but knows she has no power to prevent the terrible punishments the queen relishes. Melinda Salisbury wraps the horror of Twylla's situation in the complex spiritual traditions of the kingdom. Besides her poisonous role as the chosen one, she is also the daughter of the Sin Eater, whose duty is to be present after a death to consume a meal that contains the sins of the departed, thereby saving the person's soul from damnation. "I'd watched my mother Eat coddled eggs for thieves and boiled horse liver for scolds and nags," Twylla says, and she was raised to expect to take her mother's place, since it's a hereditary position. Coming of age in the palace, cloistered from people and deprived of an education, Twylla believes without question her spiritual purpose. It is only when she's seduced by the seemingly guileless charm of her newly appointed guard, Lief, that the veil of naïveté lifts. Once she sees the darker truth of the kingdom, she begins to imagine a different kind of future for herself. "I don't live in the stories of old," she says in an epilogue as she begins a new life, and we wonder what stories are ahead for her. All of these books offer a chance to experience the new and anticipatory pleasure of starting a series. As the best series have always done, they suggest future bingereading: getting through all of Narnia in a week, visiting Earthsea and staying for a long while, and reaching to the very end of Middle-earth only to begin again. LISA VON DRASEK is the curator of the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota. She writes about children's and young adult books at www.earlyword.com.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Part dark fantasy and part romance, this is the story of Twylla, whose destiny has been predetermined. Once in line to become the Kingdom of Lormere's next sin eater, she is handpicked by the ruthless queen to be the Goddess embodied. Her new path will let her marry the prince but also deems her the kingdom's executioner. Her divine powers let her withstand poison but make her touch deadly, allowing her to be a pawn in the queen's treacherous games. When a new guard is assigned to protect Twylla, her 2eyes are slowly opened to the world she is living in. However, as lines blur, she is left to stand on her own and must fight for her destiny. While the middle of the story sags a bit under the details of Twylla's romantic trysts and the end seems underdeveloped, fans of romantic fantasy will be able to overlook these slight issues. Narrator Amy Shields does a fine job with tone to engage listeners. VERDICT Purchase this where fantasy and fairy tales are in demand.-Rebecca Flannery, Lyman Memorial High School, Lebanon, CT © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A peasant girl transplanted to the royal court repeatedly confronts death in her new life as executioner, entertainer and bride.Raised as the Sin Eater's daughter and apprentice, Twylla expected to deal with the deceased by eating food symbolizing their sins (to free their souls) and to grow morose and morbidly obese like her mother. But four years ago, she came to the court of Lormere and became Daunen Embodiedthe king and queen are the other divine representativesonly to find herself delivering death instead of salvation. Petrified that Lormere will become like Tregellan (a science-minded democracy) or Tallith (abandoned for 500 years), mad queen Helewys controls the court through fear and religion (and even darker means). Twylla is literally untouchableher skin seemingly made poisonous through a mystical ritual and mysterious potion. She misses her sister and still mourns her dead friend, but she nevertheless longs for companionship. Accordingly, two men vie for her affection: her new, Tregellian guard, Lief, who encourages her to question her faith, and her betrothed, Prince Merek, who pushes for political upheaval. Torn between the boys and her beliefs, Twylla suffers identity crises, court conspiracies and cruel revelations before being able to redefine herself. Through Twylla's deliberate, present-tense narration, Salisbury weaves a complex tale of romance, religion, fairy tales and politics. A slow but satisfying read with impressive depth and emotion. (Fantasy. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
When I first came to the castle, many, many moons ago, I was awed by it, by the decor and the beauty and the richness of it all. Everything is faultless and pristine; everything is kept ordered and beautiful. The roses in the tall crystal vases are all cut to the same length, all the exact same color and. There is no room in the castle for things that are not perfect. My mother used to say that gold is not all that glitters. She was right, sometimes other things do glitter. Eyes glitter, at least until the life leaves them. My guards walk carefully at my sides, holding their bodies rigid and keeping a good distance between me and them. If I raised an arm to reach for one of them, they would recoil in horror. If I tripped, or fainted, if reflex sabotaged them and made them reach to save me, it would be a death sentence for them. They would find themselves with their throats slit where they stood as an act of mercy. Compared to a slow death by my poisonous skin, a slit throat would be lucky."Are you ready, my lady?" Dorin, the elder of my guards, asks, his face eerily pale in the torchlight. I nod and we walk to the stairwell, Dorin at my right and the second guard, Rivak, to my left. And then we descend to the dungeons where the prisoners wait. For me. Excerpted from The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
