The Words of the Wandering: The Crowns of Croswald, Book III

by D.E. Night

Overview

Ivy Lovely needs to look to the future but keeps being pulled back into the past…

As Ivy's power grows, so does the Dark Queen's intent to destroy her. Ivy has no idea where to find the third segment of the Kindred Stone, the stone which will restore all her queenly power. A circus ends in chaos, an enemy turns over a new leaf, a protector can't be trusted. Can Ivy work with friends—new and old—to recover what was lost? 

The stakes have never been higher.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781733859035
Publisher:	Stories Untold LLC
Publication date:	05/30/2020
Series:	Crowns of Croswald Series , #3
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Editorial Reviews

2020-04-17
Intrigue and danger intensify as a one-time castle maid with royal blood and magical gifts tries to claim her birthright.

A chilling prologue opens the third book of this YA fantasy series, which began with The Crowns of Croswald (2017). Set in the throne room and dungeon of the Dark Queen, what occurs is a reminder of what orphan Ivy, now 18 and the realm’s secret, rightful queen, will face if she doesn’t find the final missing piece of a legendary stone that will empower her to take the throne—especially if the Dark Queen, who thrives on the fear of others, finds the stone first. Ivy’s confrontation with the Dark Queen in Book 2, The Girl With the Whispering Shadow (2019), left a once-protected city of magic in ruins. The author now broadens the plot further with more high-stakes occurrences and shadowy markers of what is to come, leavened by entertaining worldbuilding and budding romance. Ivy, hidden from the monarch’s farsight, is back at the school that was once her royal family’s ancestral home, honing her magic skills as a student scrivenist (using ink and quill to cast spells). Her best friend, another royal, is a shape-shifter. There are dragons and giant “invisitaurs” to ride, carnivorous trees, shops filled with magical curiosities, travel by root roller (propelled underground by the roots of trees) and much more. Yes, there are the inevitable Harry Potter–ish comparisons to be made, but the author has made this series her own with an imaginatively complex world peopled by a well-drawn cast of vulnerable, villainous, sympathetic, tragic, and very human characters who come to life on the page. (Ivy herself uses her artful magic to discover her past in the pages of The Words of the Wandering, an old journal about the curse that rendered her royal family homeless and driven to wander Croswald unseen.) Unexpected death and betrayal, a revelation about the Dark Queen’s origins, and Ivy’s question-mark fate are all part of the shocking setup for the next book in the series.

A richly imagined world continues to deepen in the third book of this well-realized YA fantasy series. (acknowledgments, author bio)

Kirkus Reviews