{"product_id":"thornwood-isbn-9780593178867","title":"Thornwood","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe first book in the Sisters Ever After series! Sleeping Beauty's  younger sister has always lived in her shadow—until now. Perfect for anyone  who loves fairy tale retellings about sisters and princesses!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor years, Briony has lived in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Rosalin, and the curse that has haunted her from birth—that on the day of her sixteenth birthday she would prick her finger on a spindle and cause everyone in the castle to fall into a 100-year sleep. When the day the curse is set to fall over the kingdom finally arrives, nothing—not even Briony—can stop its evil magic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know the story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut here's something you don't know. When Briony finally wakes up, it's up to her to find out what's really going on, and to save her family and friends from the murderous Thornwood. But who is going to listen to her? This is a story of sisterhood, of friendship, and of the ability of even little sisters to forge their own destiny.★ \"The heart of the story lies in the utterly authentic relationship between the sisters, who squabble, tease, and hurt each other—and love one another with a fierceness that absolutely demands a happily-ever-after. \u003cb\u003eEffervescent, thrilling, and practically perfect in every way\u003c\/b\u003e.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ “This retelling adds an \u003cb\u003eoriginal twist\u003c\/b\u003e to a \u003cb\u003ebeloved classic\u003c\/b\u003e and gives a younger sister a chance to earn a little of the \u003cb\u003espotlight\u003c\/b\u003e. A \u003cb\u003efun, compelling\u003c\/b\u003e story…recommended for \u003cb\u003eyounger siblings\u003c\/b\u003e, fans of \u003cb\u003eprincess stories\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003efantasy lovers\u003c\/b\u003e.” —\u003ci\u003eSLJ\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A \u003cb\u003efantastically dark\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003etwisty\u003c\/b\u003e Sleeping Beauty retelling, full of secrets, danger, fairies who are truly scary, and a complicated sisterly relationship that I \u003cb\u003eadored\u003c\/b\u003e.” —Stephanie Burgis, author of \u003ci\u003eKat, Incorrigible\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A \u003cb\u003ecompelling\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003edelightful\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003etopsy-turvy\u003c\/b\u003e Sleeping Beauty retelling. Princess Briony is not one to wait for wake-up kisses, she’d rather head straight out into an adventure. \u003cb\u003eSuch a fun read!\u003c\/b\u003e\" —Sarah Prineas, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Magic Thief\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWinterling\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Incorporating \u003cb\u003esurprising twists\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003esubverting tropes\u003c\/b\u003e to emphasize sibling bonds over romance, Cypess creates a \u003cb\u003efun tale\u003c\/b\u003e with a \u003cb\u003estrong heroine\u003c\/b\u003e...\" —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"In this \u003cb\u003efunny\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003ecompelling\u003c\/b\u003e retelling of the classic fairytale, readers will enjoy untangling the mystery even while they explore ideas about how complicated sister relationships can be.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Children's Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eLeah Cypess is the author of \u003ci\u003eThornwood, Glass Slippers\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Piper’s Promise\u003c\/i\u003e, the first three books in the Sisters Ever After series. She lives in the kingdom of Silver Spring, Maryland, with her family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVisit her at www.leahcypess.com and follower her on Twitter @LeahCypess1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve always known what would happen to my sister on her sixteenth birthday. Her doom has been hanging over her head since before I was born.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo when I woke that morning, I went straight to her room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was before sunrise, so Rosalin was still alone. Soon everyone would descend upon her—­her ladies-­in-­waiting, our parents, the royal wizard. This was the day she would be struck down by her curse—­the spell that, even more than her astonishing beauty, made her the center of attention everywhere she went. Today would be like every other day of her life, except a million times more intense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd nobody but me would know how much she hated it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the door, my sister looked like she was still asleep, her head turned to the side and her breathing soft and even. But Rosalin is the one who taught me how to fake being asleep. I wasn’t fooled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI padded across the room, past delicate wooden tables piled with birthday gifts, and hopped up onto her bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hi,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe didn’t move. She didn’t open her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Come on,” I said. “Today, of all days, you want to pretend to be asleep?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosalin’s eyes popped open, then narrowed. “That is an incredibly insensitive thing to say! What is wrong with you?” She pulled herself to a sitting position and snorted. “Aside from your hair, I mean.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI touched my hair instinctively. I hadn’t brushed it before I came—­not that it would have been less of a frizzy tangle if I had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And your face. You have chocolate on your eyelashes, Briony. How did you even manage that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe knew how I had managed it. We had sat up late last night going through her boxes of birthday chocolates, laughing and stuffing ourselves and arguing over who got the cream-­filled ones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet somehow, even though I hadn’t left until she was nearly asleep—­when I knew my plan to distract her had worked—­Rosalin’s face this morning was smooth and clear, unmarred by the slightest hint of exhaustion or chocolate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It got you up, didn’t it?” I said. “We need to talk before everyone else gets here. You’re going to make sure you’re never alone today, right?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosalin’s face went tight. “Yes, Briony. I will have one of my ladies accompany me everywhere. I’m sure that’s all it will take to defeat a fairy curse.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI winced. I wasn’t used to hearing her refer to the curse out loud—­even though everyone in the castle, everyone in the kingdom, knew what was supposed to happen to her today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the day she turns sixteen, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall asleep. She will sleep for one hundred years, and the entire castle will sleep with her. The curse will be broken only when a brave and noble prince fights his way through the thorns around the castle and wakes her with a kiss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that was better than her original fate. The curse the fairy queen had put on my parents, long ago, had said that their firstborn daughter would be beautiful, but would prick her finger and die on her sixteenth birthday. Rosalin’s fairy godmother had managed to change the curse from die to sleep for a hundred years, which was an improvement, but still not exactly ideal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one knew why the fairy queen was so angry at my parents. Supposedly it was because they hadn’t invited her to their wedding, but it had been decades since the fairies had attended any royal parties. According to the court minstrel, it was the fairy queen herself who had commanded that all fairies withdraw from the human world and stop meddling in human affairs. My parents had assumed inviting them was just a formality, and they hadn’t gotten around to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then the fairy queen had taken offense and cursed their first child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wanted to reach for Rosalin’s hand, but the way she held herself—­like her body was made of porcelain—­told me she would slap me away if I tried.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The guards have been pulling extra patrols for weeks,” I said. “There’s not a single spinning wheel left in the kingdom.” Now I was just parroting what my father said. “You’re going to be all right, Rosalin. Really.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe did her best to smile, but she didn’t meet my eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn my fantasies, I was always coming up with plans to save her. Ways to lift the curse and change everything. Sometimes I dreamed that I bargained with the fairy queen to place the curse solely on me and spare the rest of the castle. I imagined everyone gathered around my sleeping form, amazed at my sacrifice, while Rosalin thanked me through her tears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wasn’t sure, deep down, that I was brave enough to sacrifice myself to save my sister. But I liked to think I was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rosalin—­” I began.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door flew open, and half a dozen ladies-­in-­waiting poured into the room, arms full of ribbons and cloth. They fluttered around the bed, and Rosalin pasted a far more convincing smile on her face for their benefit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir gazes slid right past me. I pushed myself off the bed, and one of the ladies stepped on my foot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ouch!” I said. She sighed heavily, annoyed that my foot had been in her way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey gathered my sister up and swept her in the direction of the bath. I stood staring after them until she was out of sight, but Rosalin didn’t look back at me even once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI trudged back toward my room, to rouse my own ladies and convince them that I had to get ready for the party, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs far as I could recall, that was the last thing I did that day. That year. That century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and shifting uncomfortably on a cold, hard floor. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I must have; my mind felt fuzzy, and my muscles slow and sluggish, as if I hadn’t moved them for . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e. . . a hundred years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy eyes snapped open.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last thing I remembered was walking out of Rosalin’s room, striding down the hall as the early-­morning light began to filter through the windows. But now the sunlight was beating strong and bright on my face, and the floor beneath me was bare stone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich meant . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI closed my eyes again, as if I could change what I was seeing. Then, reluctantly, I opened them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was on the floor of a large, drafty room. In the center was a crooked wooden table with a wooden wheel perched precariously on top of it—­\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA spinning wheel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh, curses,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat sort of language would have gotten me yelled at (even though it was the literal truth) if anyone else had been in the room. But no one was. I was all alone, just me and the spinning wheel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m sorry, Rosalin, I thought. I’m so sorry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut something was wrong. Even more wrong than the obvious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf this had happened because of the curse, it should have been Rosalin here. Why was I in the room with the spinning wheel? Where was my sister?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA chill slithered up my spine. I turned my hands over and checked all my fingertips. No blood. No sign of a prick. They were my own stubby, scratched fingers. These weren’t the fingers cursed to be pricked. I had no curses hanging over my head—­and no blessings, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI should have been waking up in my bed. Or in the courtyard. Or in the kitchen, or on the roof of the stables. Any of the places where I spent my time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, I was in a room I had never seen before, with a very large, very illegal spinning wheel casting a shadow on the floor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I couldn’t remember how I had ended up here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFear climbed up my throat. I tried to swallow it and managed to reduce it to a churning sense of wrongness in my chest. It made it a little hard to breathe, but at least it was possible to think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClearly, the curse had struck. And just as clearly, it was now over. If I was awake, the prince must have come, and that meant everyone was awake. Including my sister.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had to find her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI got up, and my muscles creaked painfully, like I had been in the same position for hours and hours. How many hours were in a hundred years? Twenty-­four hours a day multiplied by—­\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot now, I told myself firmly, and started toward the door.","brand":"Yearling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305273544933,"sku":"NP9780593178867","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593178867.jpg?v=1767742544","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/thornwood-isbn-9780593178867","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}