Each year the Lammas Fair draws musicians and story-tellers to the grounds of the 17th-century house where Mick’s father is manager. This year a woman comes to sell herbs and candles – and offer Mick help with his music. His flute-playing blossoms, yet he is consumed by it, fading as the music swells. Grotesque incidents mar the Fair. In horror, Mick’s friend Katie understands the woman is drawing Mick into the Otherworld, to cross the boundary for ever. A compelling evocation of ancient folklore: the luring of a young man by a faery woman, and the rites of the Corn King, nurtured to full growth, then cut down.
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Reviews
This is strong, passionate writing, deep and quite unsettling
... creates a thrilling, chilling world of magic and menace
Catherine Fisher has an outstanding capacity for the spinning and weaving of the slenderest threads into a stout and flawless tapestry.
There is much to recommend in this clever updating of the legend of the Corn King
Fisher's tale is intriguing and mysterious...an engrossing read
DARKWATER HALL: 'Another novel from a seriously good author who always writes convincing fantasy without any of the accompanying overblown rhetoric ... makes for some nail-biting reading.'
Passionately exciting ... absolutely thrilling
Catherine Fisher has an extraordinary imagination, always coming up with some new twist that is both weird yet utterly convincing.
A gripping story that'll keep you guessing!