cover image The Shadow Hunt

The Shadow Hunt

Katherine Langrish, Harper, $16.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-111676-6

British author Langrish (the Troll trilogy) shifts venue to the British Middle Ages, when Christianity holds sway but Pagan elements also thrive. Wolf, bound to monks at age six, runs away after one beating too many and finds himself on a haunted moor, fleeing wolves, hounds, and men on horseback. In the melee, he catches sight of a strange creature, soon revealed as a naked, terrified girl child, who Wolf is convinced is an elf. The two are taken up by the local lord, Hugo, whose daughter, Nest, sees the elf-child as a last chance to achieve something special before her arranged marriage. Like Nest, Langrish is ambitious: she seeks to create a moment when all beliefs hold a kernel of truth, and supernatural creatures of any origin can overlap. Christian spirituality proffers moments of beauty (on Christmas morning Wolf and Nest witness angels dancing in the sky), while underlying the book's instances of abuse and social oppression. It's a lot of metaphysical freight for one story, but Langrish hasn't lost her touch for vivid action and sympathetic characters. Ages 10–up. (June)