After 12-year-old Sarah’s mother leaves, her depressed father takes Sarah to stay with her grandparents, whom she’s never met. In the old castle where her grandmother lives, Sarah discovers her grandfather is a beast in a cage. Once a vain prince, he chose the prettier of two foster sisters to wed for her beauty rather than love. The other sister cast a spell: He would become a beast if he ever fell in love with his wife. Now his wife, Sarah’s grandmother, is bound to him; she will die if she leaves. In retaliation Sarah’s grandmother turned her foster sister into a white raven, a curse that will last until the death of the one her sister loves the most: her daughter, Sarah’s mother. Meanwhile Sarah’s father, who inherited his father’s curse, has turned into a beast beyond reason because he lost his love, while Sarah’s mother has turned into a wren. The magic and curses are thick and capricious in this fast-paced story, and that’s part of the point: Jealousy and revenge weave thorny, tangled, complex webs, and cutting through them to the heart and the truth of things isn’t easy. Cat Hellisen’s immensely satisfying offering doesn’t end with happily ever after, and it’s richer for it. But smart, spirited Sarah, discovering she, too, has inherited the beastly curse, finds balance and peace, learning to live with the wild inside her. (Ages 11–14)

Sarah has always been on the move. Her mother hates the cold, so every few months her parents pack their bags and drag her off after the sun. She's grown up lonely and longing for magic. She doesn't know that it's magic her parents are running from.

When Sarah's mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents—people she has never met, didn't even know were still alive.
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.