The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, Book 1)

An all-new series from the masterful, #1 New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater!

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore. |

Praise for The Raven Boys

"Stiefvater is a master storyteller." —USA Today

*"It's a tour de force of characterization, and while there is no lack of event or mystery, it is the way Stiefvater's people live in the reader's imagination that makes this such a memorable read." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

*"[A] story very few writers could dream up and only Stiefvater could make so palpably real. Simultaneously complex and simple, compulsively readable, marvelously wrought...The magic is entirely pragmatic; the impossible, extraordinarily true." —Kirkus, starred review

*"[T]he book is marvelous, for not only is it filled with marvels, it is also a marvel of imagination and, more prosaically, structure. Rich, too, in characterization, this fantasy/mystery rises to the level of serious literature, leaving readers hungering for more." —Booklist, starred review

"In a young-adult market crowded with copycats, it's refreshing to find a book that blazes a path as unique as Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. The first title in the "Raven Cycle" quartet is a dizzying paranormal romance tinged with murder and Welsh mythology." —Los Angeles Times

"This first in a planned four-novel series draws readers into a world where time enfolds hauntingly, and magic informs reality." —The Washington Post

"Equal parts thriller and mystery, with a measured dash of romance sprinkled on top, The Raven Boys is an intricately layered read that will probably leave you with more questions than answers. In fact, Maggie has woven such a unique, intriguing narrative that I struggled for comparisons." —MTV Hollywood Crush

"My love for Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys is so great that I can't even write a review of it. And when I begin to think of fantasy casting options, my mind goes absolutely blank, because no actors can possibly live up to the characters I've made in my mind... Everything in this book feels so grounded and real, by the time actual magic comes into the story, it is absolutely believable. Everything." —VH1.com

| Maggie Stiefvater is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, Forever, and Sinner. Her novel The Scorpio Races was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association. The first book in The Raven Cycle, The Raven Boys, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and the second book, The Dream Thieves, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. The third book, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, received five starred reviews. The final book, The Raven King, received four. She is also the author of All the Crooked Saints and Call Down the Hawk. She is also an artist and musician. She lives in Virginia with her husband and their two children. You can visit her online at maggiestiefvater.com. |

From The Raven Boys

Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love.

Her family traded in predictions. These predictions tended, however, to run toward the non-specific. Things like: Something terrible will happen to you today. It might involve the number six. Or: Money is coming. Open your hand for it. Or: You have a big decision and it will not make itself.

The people who came to the little, bright blue house at 300 Fox Way didn't mind the imprecise nature of their fortunes. It became a game, a challenge, to realize the exact moment that the predictions came true. When a van carrying six people wheeled into a client's car two weeks after their psychic reading, he could nod with a sense of accomplishment and release. When a neighbor offered to buy another client's old chainsaw if they were looking for a bit of extra cash, she could recall the promise of money coming and sell it with the sense that the transaction had been foretold. Or when a third client heard his wife say this is a decision that has to be made, he could remember the same words being said by Maura Sargent over a spread of tarot cards and then leap decisively to action.

But the imprecise nature of the fortunes kept them from feeling complete. They could be dismissed as coincidences, hunches. They were a chuckle in the Wal-mart parking lot when you ran into an old friend as promised. A shiver when the number seventeen appeared in an electric bill. A realization that even if you had discovered the future, it really didn't change how you lived the present. The predictions existed in one world, and reality in another. They were truth, but they weren't all of the truth.