Trudchen grew up hearing Odette’s stories of a monster slaying and a magician’s curse. But now that Tru’s older, she’s starting to wonder if her older sister’s tales were just comforting lies, especially because there’s nothing fantastic about her own life—permanently injured and in constant pain from a childhood illness. In 1909, after a two-year absence, Od reappears with a suitcase full of weapons and a promise to rescue Tru from the monsters on their way to attack her. But it’s Od who seems haunted by something. And when the sisters’ search for their mother leads them to a face-off with the Leeds Devil, a nightmarish beast that’s wreaking havoc in the mid-Atlantic states, Tru discovers the peculiar possibility that she and her sister—despite their dark pasts and ordinary appearances—might indeed have magic after all.
Cat Winters is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novels The Steep and Thorny Way, The Cure for Dreaming,and In the Shadow of Blackbirds, the latter of which collected three starred reviews and was a William C. Morris Award YA Debut Award finalist. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
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