Overview
A New York Times bestseller
"A bewitching gem...I absolutely loved every moment of this story." --Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series
"If you loved the Hogwarts Library...you'll be right at home at Summershall." --Katherine Arden, New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale
From the New York Times bestselling author of An Enchantment of Ravens comes an "enthralling adventure" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about an apprentice at a magical library who must battle a powerful sorcerer to save her kingdom.
All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer's Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery--magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library's most dangerous grimoire, and Elisabeth is implicated in the crime. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she's been taught--about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
Details
- ISBN-13: 9781481497619
- ISBN-10: 1481497618
- Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
- Publish Date: June 2019
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BookPage® Reviews
Sorcery of Thorns
Elisabeth Scrivener is an orphan. Raised in one of the kingdom’s six Great Libraries, she has been training as an apprentice, hoping one day to become a library warden who’s responsible for the categorization and containment of dangerous magic. The Great Libraries house not only regular books but also grimoires—books created with sorcery that contain ominous spells and rituals. These grimoires can also transform into deadly creatures known as Maleficts. Elisabeth knows not to trust sorcerers and the powerful magic that whispers to her from the shelves. In fact, she has been raised to defend humans from and contain the powerful magic.
But when disaster strikes her library and she is accused of treason, Elisabeth makes an unlikely alliance with young sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn and his Mephistophelian servant, Silas. Uncovering the true saboteur leads Elisabeth down a terrifying path of conspiracy and chaos, but also of self-discovery. As she learns more about her connection to grimoires and gets closer with Nathaniel and Silas, she begins to reassess her goals and question some of the Great Library’s teachings.
Bestselling author Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens) presents a unique twist on a magical fantasy plot, setting the novel in a 19th-century Western Europe-inspired world that’s dealing with the inheritance of medieval magic as well as the innovations of an industrializing society. Elisabeth is a charismatic heroine, and her chemistry with Nathaniel is inevitable and natural, but it is Silas’ character arc that is particularly compelling.
A race against time filled with demonic magic, vivid settings and classic romantic tension, Sorcery of Thorns is a chillingly good gothic
