Somebody had taken a laugh, crumpled it into a great, crackly ball, and stuffed her skull with it. With so much mystery and abstraction, it would be easy to leave readers behind, but Hardinge grounds us in intimate detail and gorgeous figurative language. Hardinge strikes a delicate balance, crafting an off-center world through the eyes of a character who doesn’t know what to believe, or what memories she can trust. But certain stories have been told so many times, it’s difficult to find a new spin.Ĭuckoo Song tackles two such classic tropes, the creepy doll story and the changeling story, but manages to upend expectations in the most delicious way. There’s a reason certain plot elements, visual cues or character traits have become tropes.
As authors, we strive to include enough familiar elements to draw readers in and put them at ease, while still adding a twist. Publisher’s description of Cuckoo SongĮvery story combines certain percentages of the familiar and the strange. From master storyteller Frances Hardinge comes the unnerving tale of one girl’s struggle to confront her darkest fears in order to triumph over a world where nothing is as it seems. There she encounters strange creatures whose grand schemes could forever alter the fates of her family. Is she going mad? Or did her accident trigger a nightmarish chain of events? In her quest to learn the truth, Triss ventures from the shelter of her parents’ protective wings into the city’s underbelly. Her memories are muddled, her sister despises her, and when she brushes her hair, out come crumbled fragments of leaves.
Following a mysterious accident that leaves her sopping wet, Triss awakens to a world that’s eerily off-kilter.
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