Briar Girls

Lena has grown up knowing that her touch can kill. Living apart from others with her father, she sees her curse as a barrier to any ordinary future. Then she meets Miranda, a girl who offers the possibility of breaking it if Lena will help wake a sleeping princess. The bargain draws Lena toward the city of Gather and a struggle larger than she first understands. Her feelings for Miranda deepen as discoveries about her family and her own power unsettle everything she has been told. This young adult fantasy reworks fairy-tale elements around a girl deciding whom to trust and what freedom should mean for her.