Ormeshadow

A young man and his parents must relocate to the family farm in a desolate land home to a sleeping dragon in this coming-of-age fantasy.
Winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Novella Award
Winner of the 2020 BFS Award

Acclaimed author Priya Sharma transports readers back in time with Ormeshadow, a coming-of-age story as dark and rich as good soil. Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.


Uprooted from Bath by his father's failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow Farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.

Praise for Ormeshadow

"A welcome, complex road." —Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box

"A gorgeous fantasy in the tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books, grounded in emotional honesty and agrarian realism. . . . Orneshadow shows us exactly why Priya Sharma is one of the most exciting new writers in the field." —Nathan Ballingrud


"If you like graceful writing in your fantasy fiction, depth off character, and a connection to real-life issues, this is a perfect read." —Jeffrey Ford


"Sharma's . . . combination of dragons and sorrow set against a brutal country backdrop separates itself from the pack with a combination of solid writing and original mythology." —Kirkus Reviews