Not Good For Maidens
Ages 14+
Salem’s Lot meets The Darkest Part of the Forest in this horror-fantasy retelling of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.
They’ll lure you in with fruit and gems and liquor and dancing, merriment to remember for the rest of your life. But that’s an illusion. The market is death itself.
Beneath the streets of York, the goblin market calls to the Wickett women — the family of witches that tends to its victims. For generations, they have defended the old cobblestone streets with their magic. Knowing the dangers, they never entered the market — until May Wickett fell for a goblin girl, accepted her invitation, and became inextricably tied to the world her family tried to protect her from. The market learned her name, and even when she and her sister left York for Boston to escape it, the goblins remembered.
Seventeen years later, Lou, May’s niece, knows nothing of her magical lineage or the twisted streets, sweet fruits, and incredible jewels of the goblin market. But just like her aunt, the market calls to her, an echo of a curse that won’t release its hold on her family. And when her youngest aunt, Neela, is kidnapped by goblins, Lou discovers just how real and dangerous the market is.
To save her, both May and Lou will have to confront their family’s past and what happened all those years ago. But everything — from the food and wares, to the goblins themselves — is a haunting temptation for any human who manages to find their way in. And if Lou isn’t careful, she could end up losing herself to the market, too.
'Not Good for Maidens is a hauntingly enticing and bloody spectacle of a book. It’s the type of story that sits heavy on your bones after reading and haunts your nightmares.' – Nerd Daily
'A violent and voluptuous adventure.' – Kirkus
'An exciting new take on Christina Rosetti‘s Goblin Market, Not Good For Maidens has me VERY excited.' – The AU Review
Tori Bovalino, author of The Devil Makes Three and Not Good for
Maidens, is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and currently lives in London with her cat, Sir Gordon Greendige II. She holds a BA in English and anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA in Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently a student in Royal Holloways’s creative writing and practice-based PhD program. Tori is obsessed with good chai, oversized sweaters, and talking about Pittsburgh.