The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Back then, they were going to save everyone who needed saving in Fairfold. When they were little, Ben and Hazel made him flower crowns and told him stories about how they would rescue him. No matter how many parties had been held around the horned boy-generations of parties, so that the grass sparkled with decades of broken bottles in green and amber, so that the bushes shone with crushed aluminum cans in silver and gold and rust-and no matter what happened at those parties, nothing could wake the boy inside the glass coffin. He didn't so much as stir when Ben's best friend, Jack Gordon, wrote IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS in Sharpie along one side-or when Lloyd Lindblad took a sledgehammer and actually tried. He didn't wake up on autumn weekends, when girls danced right on top of him, gyrating to the tinny sounds coming from nearby iPod speakers, didn't notice when Leonie Wallace lifted her beer high over her head, as if she were saluting the whole haunted forest.

He didn't wake up when tourists came to gape or debunkers came to swear he wasn't real. He didn't wake up during the long summers, when Hazel and her brother, Ben, stretched out on the full length of the coffin, staring down through the crystalline panes, fogging them up with their breath, and scheming glorious schemes. And no matter what anyone did, he never, ever woke up. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.Īs far as Hazel Evans knew, from what her parents said to her and from what their parents said to them, he'd always been there. Read Excerptĭown a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. The Darkest Part of the Forest is bestselling author Holly Black’s triumphant return to the opulent, enchanting faerie tales that launched her YA career.

Hazel knows the horned boy will never wake.Īs the world turns upside down, Hazel has to become the knight she once pretended to be. But as Hazel grows up, she puts aside those stories. Since they were children, Hazel and Ben have been telling each other stories about the boy in the glass coffin, that he is a prince and they are valiant knights, pretending their prince would be different from the other faeries, the ones who made cruel bargains, lurked in the shadows of trees, and doomed tourists. Hazel and her brother, Ben, live in Fairfold, where humans and the Folk exist side by side. It rests on the ground, and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives…. A girl makes a secret sacrifice to the faerie king in this lush New York Times bestselling fantasy by author Holly Black

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black