Books for Teens

In the first covid lockdown, Polly was meant to be writing her next historical mystery for adults, but a persistent voice kept whispering in her ear.

Eventually, she had no choice but to listen to it. And so began her first novel for teens…

Control the story, control the world...

Nesta believes in the fairy tales - the true stories of powerful magical women who shaped and ruled the world decades ago.

But the world has changed since then, and now, she is forbidden from wandering too far from the isolated woodland cottage where she lives with her grandmother. Nesta longs more than anything to see the city that lies beyond the forest, and when her grandmother is abducted, she gets her chance, journeying there in the hope of rescuing her.

But once there, she is horrified to see her grandmother's warnings were true: girls are forced to wear certain clothes and punished if they don't behave in certain ways. The city's Authorities have rewritten history, replacing the fairytale heroines with weak girls who must rely on men.

Worse still - everyone believes this is how the world has always been.

Only Nesta knows the truth. But truth is a dangerous thing, and suddenly she finds herself a target. Can she evade the Authorities long enough to rescue her grandmother and liberate everyone else, bringing magic back into the world?

• The Handmaid's Tale meets The Brother's Grimm in this thrilling dystopian fantasy

• A feminist fairy tale retelling which will make you rethink traditional stories forever

• YA debut from Polly Crosby, the much-loved author of Vita and the Birds The Unravelling and The Illustrated Child

• A stunning cover by Noma Bar, the illustrator of Margaret Atwood's book covers