This Tale Is Forbidden

Control the story, control the world...

Nesta believes in the fairy tales - the true
stories of powerful magical women who shaped and ruled the world
decades ago.


But the world has changed since then, and now, she is forbidden
from wandering too far from the isolated woodland cottage where
she lives with her grandmother. Nesta longs more than anything to
see the city that lies beyond the forest, and when her
grandmother is abducted, she gets her chance, journeying there in
the hope of rescuing her.



But once there, she is horrified to see her grandmother's
warnings were true: girls are forced to wear certain
clothes and punished if they don't behave in certain ways.
The city's Authorities have rewritten history, replacing the fairytale
heroines with weak girls who must rely on men.


Worse still - everyone believes this is how the world has always
been.


Only Nesta knows the truth. But truth is a dangerous
thing, and suddenly she finds herself a target. Can she evade
the Authorities long enough to rescue her grandmother and liberate
everyone else, bringing magic back into the world?





The Handmaid's Tale meets The Brother's Grimm in
this thrilling dystopian fantasy

A feminist fairy tale retelling which will make you rethink traditional
stories forever

YA debut from Polly Crosby, the much-loved author of Vita
and the Birds The Unravelling and The Illustrated
Child

A stunning cover by Noma Bar, the illustrator of Margaret Atwood's
book covers