Alyssa Hollingsworth (The Invisible Boy) moves her talents from middle-grade to YA with All the Queen's Curses, an elegant and heartbreaking adaptation of a Scottish folktale that explores sisterhood, forgiveness, and redemption.
Kit and Catherine are stepsisters who share a name and have found true family in each other. Their home in the castle, though, is not a safe place for Kit. The king, Kit's stepfather, is abusive, and his violence has triggered a wasting sickness that Kit's mother says is a curse on their family line. Meanwhile, Catherine's betrothed, Idris, a prince from the Northern Isles, has journeyed to the sisters' kingdom to celebrate his 18th birthday. Kit and Catherine don't know that Idris's family arrives carrying a curse from the finfolk, nor that this meeting will initiate their own introduction to the Hidden Folk: Kit's mother, furious at Catherine's good fortune and desperate to save her daughter, asks a member of the finfolk to swap the sisters' bodies.
Hollingsworth plays with the folktale "Kate Crackernuts" to create a story that centers the realities of disability and family cruelty while highlighting the possibility of giving or accepting grace. The author shifts between the first-person perspectives of Idris and Kit, depicting characters learning to acknowledge the ways they have been traumatized or how their families may have contributed to other peoples' pain. All the Queen's Curses is a fascinating retelling of a folktale that will likely enchant readers who are invested in fantasy, folklore, or family dynamics. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer