Singer in the Snow

“Remember the first time you read Le Guin’s Earthsea novels or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? All that timeless magic and wisdom is just as powerful in Marley’s latest—an instant classic.”—Paul Goat Allen, Explorations
 
On Nevya, summer comes once every five years, and to be outside after nightfall is fatal. Its people rely on their Cantors and Cantrixes, men and women with the ability to channel psi energy through music, creating heat and light. Mreen is possibly the most talented Cantrix on Nevya—but she is unable to make a sound. When she travels to her first posting at the house of Tarud, she is accompanied by a younger Singer, Emle, who will help the Cantrix, teach Tarus’s Housemembers the Cantrix’s finger-symbol alphabet, and try to come to terms with her own flawed Gift, her inability to channel her psi. The two young women then find out about Gwin, a young girl whose abusive stepfather wants to exploit her psi-Gift talents—and in reaching out to help her, both Mreen and Emle learn how to help themselves.