Cuckoo Song

Frances Hardinge

Ages 12 to 16

2015 Nominee

The CILIP Carnegie Medal

2015 Winner

British Fantasy Awards Best Fantasy Novel

2015 Nominee

BSFA Award for Best Novel

22 March 2018
9781509868155
432 pages

Synopsis

Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, the Costa Award-winning author of The Lie Tree, is a fantastically eerie and beautifully written novel, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal.

The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak.

'What are you doing here?' It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. 'Who do you think you are? This is my family.'

When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out.

Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it's too late . . .

'Everyone should read Frances Hardinge. Everyone. Right now' - Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls.

A deliciously sinister read full of mayhem and menace. Frances Hardinge is a very powerful and poetic writer – weaving a very dark and magical tale to entrance and enthral her readers.
An enticing mystery from the first page . . . The story, full of tension and danger, explores grief, revenge and forgiveness as well as misguided parenting and sibling rivalry.