Get ready to be swept away, seduced, and swindled in the wickedly vicious third and final installment in the Bloodleaf series that Laura Sebastian called “enchanting, visceral, and twisty.”
EBONWILDE
(The Bloodleaf Trilogy, Book 3)
by Crystal Smith
HMH Books for Young Readers, Summer 2022
(via Park & Fine)
Welcome to Ebonwilde. Come and find me. Aurelia’s last words haunted Zan. Left with the task of finding and reviving Princess Aurelia, Zan sets off on his own adventure to find her and return the gift she sacrificed for him—her life. But not all is what it seems, and Ebonwilde is more dangerous than anyone can predict.
After Bloodleaf and Greythorne, this book concludes the Bloodleaf series, a roar of a dark and luscious epic fantasy that’s layered with heady romance, bloodthirsty magic, and ghostly intrigue—an absolutely wicked delight.
« The plot is breathlessly fast, complete with creepy spirits, a satisfying romance, and complex but clear political twists and turns….Political, romantic, magical, timely, yet also traditionally appealing. » —Kirkus
« Bloodleaf has a good chance of becoming your next YA obsession.” —Entertainment Weekly
« Smith has created a world full of intricate magical properties and rules where nothing is as it seems and the game is constantly changing….[Readers will] be pulled to the edge of their seats….abruptly awesome. A worthy addition to any fantasy collection. » —School Library Journal
Crystal Smith is a writer, photographer, and artist who developed an early love of storytelling in a family of voracious readers. She married her high school sweetheart in 2005, and they now reside in Utah with their two sons. When she isn’t writing or creating, she can be found re-watching Jane Eyre or reading ghost stories with all the lights on. EBONWILDE is Crystal’s third novel.
Josslyn Drake, former First Daughter of Ironport, doesn’t know much about magic. She only knows that it’s dangerous, rare, and completely illegal. So when she’s infected by a mysterious piece of magic confiscated from Lord Banyon, one of the most infamous criminals alive, Joss’s life turns upside down. She begins to have visions, not of the future, but of the past—Banyon’s past. All Joss wants is for things to go back to normal, but the cost for doing magic is death, and there’s nobody she can trust to help her. So when wanted criminal and blackheart Jericho Nox offers her a deal, a way to extract the magic and give it to him instead, she’s forced to accept.
From myths and legends 500 years old, comes a fantastic adventure, even though Archibald was not looking for one… Exploring his grandma’s creepy manor, he just stumbled upon an ancient terrestrial globe, which turns out to be much more than an old relic. When he unlocks the storm trapped inside, Archibald gets whisked into the unknown, a mysterious land where a battle born in the Middle Ages is still unfolding. In the world of Lemurea, mostly forest, home to small wonders and great scares, it’s light versus darkness, magic versus fire… witches versus dragons. But not any kind of witches, an army of young girls, lost in time. And not your usual dragons, but the most intriguing creatures, half human, half beast. Through this unforgettable journey, Archibald will learn the true meaning of courage, friendship and tolerance. Meanwhile, left behind, his sister Hailee sets out on a quest across London to find out what happened to him, uncovering a dark secret and going through her own coming of age odyssey. Two stories, two plot threads, running parallel but tightly intertwined. Two worlds, on a perilous collision course…
In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline—her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman—he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother. As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.
Adelle and Connie have been best friends for years, united by their love of a little known novel called