Deep Is the Fen

Get lost in this darkly enchanting fantasy from the author of A Hunger of Thorns, on a beguiling journey behind the closed doors of a sinister secret society. Featuring a steamy enemies-to-lovers romance and a fight for the witching world that will get your heart racing.

Merry doesn’t need a happily-ever-after. Her life in the charming, idyllic town of Candlecott is fine just as it is. Simple, happy, and with absolutely no magic. Magic only ever leads to trouble.

But Merry’s best friend, Teddy, is joining the Toadmen--a secret society who specialize in backward thinking and suspiciously supernatural traditions--and Merry is determined to stop him. Even if it means teaming up with the person she hates most: her academic archnemesis, Caraway Boswell, an ice-cold snob who hides his true face under a glamour.

An ancient Toad ritual is being held in the sinister Deeping Fen, and if Merry doesn’t rescue Teddy before it’s finished, she’ll lose him forever. But the Toadmen have been keeping dangerous secrets, and so has Caraway. The farther Merry travels into Deeping Fen’s foul waters, the more she wonders if she’s truly come to save her friend . . . or if she’s walking straight into a trap.

There’s nothing the Toadmen love more than a damsel in distress.

Lili Wilkinson is the author of nineteen novels published in Australia, including Green Valentine, The Boundless Sublime, and After the Lights Go Out. She established the Inky Awards at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. Lili has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Melbourne and spends most of her time reading and writing books for teenagers. Her fantasy novels include A Hunger of Thorns and Deep Is the Fen.