Goblin Market by Diane Zahler

One sister must save the other from a goblin prince in this rich, spooky, and delightfully dark fantasy!

“TERRIFICALLY TIMELESS…SPLENDID.” —Shelf Awareness

Lizzie and Minka are sisters, but they’re nothing alike: Minka is outgoing and cheerful, while Lizzie is shy and sensitive. Nothing much ever happens in their sleepy village—there are fields to tend, clothes to mend, and weekly trips to the market, predictable as the turning of the seasons. Lizzie likes it that way. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. She hopes nothing will ever change. 

But one day, Minka meets a boy. 
A boy who gives her a plum to eat. 

He is charming. He is handsome. He tells her that she’s special. He tells her no one understands her like he does—not her parents, not her friends, not even Lizzie. He tells her she should come away with him, into the darkness, into the forest….

Minka has been bewitched and ensnared by a zdusze—a goblin. His plum was poison, his words are poison, and strange things begin to happen. Trees bleed, winds howl, a terrible sickness descends on Minka, and deep in the woods, in a place beyond sunshine, beyond reality, a wedding table has been laid….

To save her sister, Lizzie will have to find courage she never knew she had—courage to confront the impossible—and enter into a world of dreams, danger, and death.

Rich world-building inspired by both Polish folklore and the poetry of Christina Rossetti combines with a tender sister story in this thrilling novel from Diane Zahler.

“Lush…Dreamy…Breath-quickening.” —The Horn Book
“Resonates with emotion.” —BCCB
“Believably wrought.” —Publishers Weekly
“Will entice readers looking for some chills.” —Kirkus Reviews

Diane Zahler is the author of many books for young readers, both fiction and nonfiction, including THE THIRTEENTH PRINCESS, PRINCESS OF THE WILD SWANS, and DAUGHTER OF THE WHITE ROSE. Her books have been Junior Library Guild Selections, Golden Sower Award Nominees, and Bank Street Best Books of the Year. A full-time writer, she lives in New York with her husband.

Author Residence: New York