A Rush of Wings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Serpent & Dove and A House of Salt and Sorrows comes a “transportive and beautiful” (Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights) romantic fantasy about an untrained witch who must unlock her power to free her brothers from a terrible curse and save her home.
Rowenna Winthrop has always known there’s magic within her. But though she hears voices on the wind and possesses unusual talents, her mother Mairead believes Rowenna lacks discipline, and refuses to teach her the craft that keeps their Scottish village safe. And when Mairead dies a sinister death, it seems Rowenna’s only chance to grow into her power has died with her. Then, on a fateful, storm-tossed night, Rowenna rescues a handsome stranger named Gawen from a shipwreck, and her mother miraculously returns from the dead. Or so it appears.
The resurrected Mairead is nothing like the old one. To hide her new monstrous nature, she turns Rowenna’s brothers and Gawen into swans and robs Rowenna of her voice. Forced to flee, Rowenna travels to the city of Inverness to find a way to break the curse. But monsters take many forms, and in Inverness, Rowenna is soon caught in a web of strangers who want to use her raw magic for their own gain. If she wishes to save herself and the people she loves most, Rowenna will have to take her fate into her own hands and unlock the power that has evaded her for so long.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
