The Magician of Tiger Castle

National Book Award–winning YA author Sachar (Holes) makes his adult debut with this melancholy, heartfelt, and utterly immersive Renaissance-esque fantasy. Anatole, a confessed coward who self-deprecatingly considers himself “a hairless man who studied plants and bugs,” serves as the court magician of Esquaveta at a time when “science and magic were virtually indistinguishable.” After Princess Tullia falls in love with the new apprentice scribe, Pito, and refuses to marry Prince Dalyrmpl of Oxatania, Anatole has six weeks to save the marriage, the kingdom, and his foundering career. His initial plan to brew a memory potion to make Pito and Tullia forget each other brings up recollections of his own lost love and how he failed to defend her from a capricious nobleman. The ensuing crisis of conscience leads Anatole to feats of courage and magic he had not believed himself capable of. There’s a lovely sparsity to Sachar’s fairy tale–esque prose that belies the careful scaffolding underneath, which sketches out a gentle love story and offers fascinating commentary about the fallibility of received wisdom, the nature of memory, and the lost histories of common people among the more publicized narratives of monarchs. Readers who grew up with Sachar will be especially thrilled, but even those new to his work won’t be able to put this down. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Aug.)