New Releases by Merrie Haskell

A young blacksmith must piece together a ruined castle—and its mysterious past—in this “graceful and enchanting fantasy” (Rae Carson, author of the Girl of Fire and Thorns series). When Sand wakes up alone in a long-abandoned castle, he has no idea how he got there. Everything inside is torn in half or slashed to bits—and beyond the walls, a vicious, thorny bramble prevents Sand from leaving. In order to survive, the blacksmith’s apprentice does what he knows best—he fires up the castle’s forge to mend what he needs. But the things he fixes work somehow better than they ought to. Is there magic in the mending? Or have the saints who once guarded this place returned? When Sand finds the castle’s lost heir, Perrotte, they begin to untwine the dark secrets that caused the destruction. Putting together the pieces—of stone and iron, and of a broken life—is harder than Sand ever imagined, but it’s the only way to regain their freedom.

When a bookish princess goes on the run, she discovers her inner strength—and a talent for slaying dragons—in this middle-grade fantasy adventure. Political upheaval sends thirteen-year-old Princess Tilda fleeing from her kingdom in the company of two hopeful dragon slayers. The princess never had any interest in chasing dragons. The pain from her crippled foot was too great, and her dream was to write a book. But now the princess finds herself making friends with magical horses, facing the Wild Hunt, and pointing a sword at the fire-breathing creatures. While doing things she never imagined, Tilda finds qualities in herself she never knew she possessed. Handbook for Dragon Slayers is a satisfying coming-of-age tale wrapped in a magical adventure story.

Merrie Haskell’s middle-grade fantasy novel Princess Curse is an imaginative retelling of the fairy tales The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Beauty and the Beast. In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Sylvania, the prince offers a fabulous reward to anyone who cures the curse that forces the princesses to spend each night dancing to the point of exhaustion. Everyone who tries disappears or falls into an enchanted sleep. Thirteen-year-old Reveka, a smart, courageous herbalist’s apprentice, decides to attempt to break the curse despite the danger. Unravelling the mystery behind the curse leads Reveka to the Underworld, and to save the princesses, Reveka will have to risk her soul. Princess Curse combines magic, suspense, humor, and adventure into a story perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine.