New Releases by Robin McKinley

An outcast princess must earn her birthright as a hero of the realm—in this "utterly engrossing" Newbery Medal–winning fantasy ( The New York Times ). Aerin is an outcast in her own father''s court, daughter of the foreign woman who, it was rumored, was a witch who enchanted the king to marry her. That is, until the day that the king is riding out at the head of an army. A weary man on an exhausted horse staggers into the courtyard where the king''s troop is assembled: "The Black Dragon has come . . . Maur, who has not been seen for generations, the last of the great dragons, great as a mountain. Maur has awakened." When Aerin learns of the threat, she knows this is the moment she was born for. Her chance to prove herself worthy to lead. Saddling her horse, she heads into battle with Maur—-and discovers her destiny. . . .

From a Newbery award-winner, a woman uses her magic to confront a post–apocalypse vampire world in a novel Neil Gaiman called "pretty much perfect." Although it had been mostly deserted since the Voodoo Wars, there hadn''t been any trouble out at the lake for years. Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, head baker at her family''s busy and popular café in downtown New Arcadia, needed a place to get away from all the noise and confusion—of the clientele and her family. Just for a few hours. Just to be able to hear herself think. She knew about the Others, of course. Everyone did. And several of her family''s best regular customers were from SOF—Special Other Forces—which had been created to deal with the threat and the danger of the Others. She drove out to her family''s old lakeside cabin and sat on the porch, swinging her feet and enjoying the silence and the silver moonlight on the water. She never heard them coming. Of course, you don''t when they''re vampires.Readers will cheer for this tough and quirky heroine. In Sunshine, which won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, McKinley has a vampire novel that is "a smart, funny tale of suspense and romance" ( San Francisco Chronicle).

The Newbery award winner and New York Times –bestselling author of Rose Daughter reimagines the classic French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. When a wealthy merchant loses all his money after his fleet is drowned in a storm, he uproots his three daughters and moves to a village far away. Then the old merchant hears that one of his ships has made it safe to harbor at last and he journeys to claim it, only to encounter a fierce Beast, who walks like a man and lives in a castle. The merchant''s life is forfeit, says the Beast, for trespass and the theft of a rose—but he will spare the old man''s life if he sends one of his daughters. When Beauty hears this story—for her father had picked the rose to bring to her—her sense of honor demands that she take up the Beast''s offer, for "cannot a Beast be tamed?" This "splendid story" by the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown has been named an ALA Notable Book and a Phoenix Award Honor Book ( Publishers Weekly).

From enchanted princesses to a frog that speaks, an enchanting collection of fairy tales from the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown . The last mortal kingdom before the unmeasured sweep of Faerieland begins has at best held an uneasy truce with its unpredictable neighbor. There is nothing to show a boundary, at least on the mortal side of it; and if any ordinary human creature ever saw a faerie—or at any rate recognized one—it was never mentioned; but the existence of the boundary and of faeries beyond it is never in doubt either. So begins "The Stolen Princess," the first story of this collection, about the meeting between the human princess Linadel and the faerie prince Donathor. "The Princess and the Frog" concerns Rana and her unexpected alliance with a small, green, flipper-footed denizen of a pond in the palace gardens. "The Hunting of the Hind" tells of a princess who has bewitched her beloved brother, hoping to beg some magic of cure, for her brother is dying, and the last tale is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses in which an old soldier discovers, with a little help from a lavender-eyed witch, the surprising truth about where the princesses dance their shoes to tatters every night.

From the Newbery award-winning author of The Hero and The Crown , a magic-filled retelling of Beauty and the Beast featuring Beauty and her sisters. Once upon a time, a wealthy merchant had three daughters. When his business failed, he moved his daughters to the countryside. The youngest daughter, Beauty, is fascinated by the thorny stems of a mysterious plant that overwhelms their neglected cottage. She tends the plant until it blossoms with the most beautiful flowers the sisters have ever seen—roses. Admiring the roses, an old woman tells Beauty, "Roses are for love." And she speaks of a sorcerers'' battle many years ago that left a beast in an enchanted palace, and a curse concerning a family of three sisters. . . . The Newbery Medal–winning author''s charming retelling of the classic fairy tale weaves a tangled story of sorcery, loyalty, and love that is sure to cast a spell on readers.

From the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown, a princess flees her home to escape her father''s abuse and finds an unexpected new life. Princess Lissla Lissar is the only child of the king and his queen, who was the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms. Everyone loved the splendid king and his matchless queen so much that no one had any attention to spare for the princess, who grew up in seclusion. But the queen takes ill of a mysterious wasting disease and on her deathbed extracts a strange promise from her husband: "I want you to promise me . . . you will only marry someone as beautiful as I was." The king is crazy with grief at her loss, and slow to regain both his wits and his strength. But on Lissar''s seventeenth birthday, two years after the queen''s death, there is a grand ball, and everyone present looks at the princess in astonishment and whispers to their neighbors, How like her mother she is! On the day after the ball, the king announces that he is to marry again—and that his bride is the princess Lissla Lissar, his own daughter. Lissar, physically broken, half mad, and terrified, flees her father''s deranged desire with her one loyal friend, her sighthound, Ash. It is the beginning of winter as they journey into the mountains—and on the night when it begins to snow, they find a tiny, deserted cabin with the makings of a fire ready-laid in the hearth. Thus begins Lissar''s long, profound, and demanding journey away from treachery and pain and horror, to trust and love and healing.

The Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown brings the Robin Hood legend to vivid life. Young Robin Longbow, apprentice forester in the King''s Forest of Nottingham, must contend with the dislike of the Chief Forester, who bullies Robin in memory of his popular father. But Robin does not want to leave Nottingham or lose the title to his father''s small tenancy, because he is in love with a young lady named Marian. Robin has been granted a rare holiday to go to the Nottingham Fair, where he will spend the day with his friends Much and Marian. But he is ambushed by a group of the Chief Forester''s cronies, who challenge him to an archery contest . . . and he accidentally kills one of them in self-defense. He knows his own life is forfeit. But Much and Marian convince him that perhaps his personal catastrophe is also an opportunity: an opportunity for a few stubborn Saxons to gather together in the secret heart of Sherwood Forest and strike back against the arrogance and injustice of the Norman overlords.

Stories from the world of The Hero and the Crown and other magical places by a New York Times –bestselling Newbery Medal winner. Robin McKinley returns to the mythical setting of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword in this "thrilling, satisfying, and thought-provoking collection" featuring two stories set in the world of Damar, plus three other fantasy tales featuring adventurous, pragmatic, and heroic young women ( Publishers Weekly). There''s mute Lily, in "The Healer," who has the power to help others, and receives a startling opportunity to find her voice when a mysterious mage stumbles into town. And Queen Ruen, who is at the mercy of a power-hungry uncle until she encounters a shape-changer in "The Stagman." In "Touk''s House," a maiden who has grown up with a witch and a troll has a chance to become a princess, but she must decide whether she would really live happily ever after. When a curse follows Coral to her new husband''s farm in "Buttercups," the pair has a choice: Succumb to defeat or find a way to turn a disastrous enchantment into a fruitful new venture. Finally, travel to upstate New York with Annabelle. In the title story, her family moves shortly after her sixteenth birthday, and just as she starts to adjust to her new life in a small town, a plan to build a superhighway threatens her new home. But a strange box hidden in a secret attic in the new house may be the answer. A delightful assortment of tales from an author with "a remarkable talent for melding the real and the magical into a single, believable whole" ( Booklist).

The earthlines speak to Mirasol, but her family has lived in the demesne for centuries, and many of the old families can hear the land. She knows that the violent deaths of the last Master and Chalice have thrown Willowlands into turmoil; but she is only a beekeeper, and the problems of the Circle that govern Willowlands have nothing to do with her—although she wonders what will become of her demesne, because the Master and Chalice left no heirs to carry on their crucial duties. And then the Circle come to Mirasol, to tell her that she has been chosen to be the new Chalice; and the Master she must learn to work with is a Priest of Fire, a man no longer quite human, whose touch can burn human flesh to the bone.

Think of yourself out of your comfy chair and your nice house with the roads and the streetlights outside—and the ceiling overhead low enough that a fifty-foot dragon can’t stand on her hind legs and not bump her head—and think yourself into a cavern full of dragons. Go on. Try. Jake lives with his scientist father at the Makepeace Institute of Integrated Dragon Studies in Smokehill National Park. Smokehill is home to about two hundred of the few remaining Draco australiensis, which is extinct in the wild. There are five million acres of the Smokehill wilderness and the dragons rarely show themselves. Jack’s never seen one except deep in the park and at a distance. They stay away from the Institute—and the tourists. But dragon conservation is controversial. Detractors say dragons are much too dangerous and much too expensive, and should be destroyed. Supporters say there is no record of their doing anything more threatening than eating sheep, there are only a few hundred of them left at best and they must be protected. But they are up to eighty feet long (plus tail) and breathe fire. On Jake’s first overnight solo in the park, he meets a dragon—the thing that he would have said he wanted above everything else in the world. But this dragon is dying—dying next to the human she has killed. Jake knowns this news could destroy Smokehill. The dead man is clearly a poacher who attacked first, but that will be lost in the outcry against dragons. But then Jake notices something even more urgent: the dragon has just given birth, and one of the babies is still alive…

The evil fairy Pernicia has set a curse on Princess Briar-Rose: she is fated to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into an endless, poisoned sleep. Katriona, a young fairy, kidnaps the princess in order to save her; she and her aunt raise the child in their small village, where no one knows her true identity. But Pernicia is looking for her, intent on revenge for a defeat four hundred years old. Robin McKinley''s masterful version of Sleeping Beauty is, like all of her work, a remarkable literary feat.

When Harry Crewe''s father dies, she leaves her Homeland to travel east, to Istan, the last outpost of the Homelander empire, where her elder brother is stationed. Harry is drawn to the bleak landscape of the northeast frontier, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. The desert she stares across was once a part of the great kingdom of Damar, before the Homelanders came from over the seas. Harry wishes she might cross the sands and climb the dark mountains where no Homelander has ever set foot, where the last of the old Damarians, the Free Hillfolk, still live. She hears stories that the Free Hillfolk possess strange powers -- that they work magic -- that it is because of this that they remain free of the Homelander sway. When the king of the Free Hillfolk comes to Istan to ask that the Homelanders and the Hillfolk set their enmity aside to fight a common foe, the Homelanders are reluctant to trust his word, and even more reluctant to believe his tales of the Northerners: that they are demonkind, not human. Harry''s destiny lies in the far mountains that she once wished to climb, and she will ride to the battle with the North in the Hill-king''s army, bearing the Blue Sword, Gonturan, the chiefest treasure of the Hill-king''s house and the subject of many legends of magic and mystery.