Description de l’éditeur
Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns. The fluffy, sparkly, friendly “horses” so popular the world over don’t exist. Real unicorns are killers.
Beasts the size of elephants, with cloven hooves that shake the earth, hides impervious to bullets, and horns that contain a deadly poison, unicorns can outrun a sports car and smell a human from a mile away.
And they can only be killed by virgin warriors descended from Alexander the Great.
Sixteen-year-old Astrid Llewelyn has grown up with her mom Lilith’s tall tales about unicorns and their exalted family heritage, but figures her mom’s crazy. But the scary stories her mom told her about the monsters in her formative years left her with a firm phobia about unicorns, even the cutesy kind popular with young girls.
But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend in the woods—thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to prom—Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter.
“As swift and sure-footed as a killer unicorn, Rampant weaves a vibrant new mythology from venerable threads.”—Scott Westerfeld, bestselling author of the Uglies series
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This compelling new adventure, Peterfreund's (Secret Society Girl) YA debut, introduces an international cast of strong young women, virginal descendants of Alexander the Great, who hunt an unusual breed of monster: unicorns. Sixteen-year-old narrator Astrid Llewelyn never believed her mother's stories about unicorns portrayed as bloodthirsty, venomous and near impossible to kill until one impales the boy she's seeing. Sent to Rome (unwillingly) to train with other huntresses in response to the "Reemergence" of the supposedly extinct creatures, Astrid makes new friends and enemies, hones her powers and finds time for a little romance, while coming to grips with her new life ("Forgive me if enforced lifelong celibacy and possible death by dismemberment and poisoning don't exactly get me excited," she gripes). But she soon suspects (as will readers) that the war against the unicorns isn't so cut-and-dried. With an atmospheric setting, personable ensemble cast and some reasoned discussions about virginity, this gripping page-turner evokes the same grrl-power spirit as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, packed with action, mystery and a complex and intriguing mythology. Ages 12 up
