Hunger of Thorns

Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic – and her best friend. Storytelling is her only gift that remains. Odette always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she's missing, and everyone believes she's dead. Everyone except Maude.

Merriwether Morgan doesn't need a happily-ever-after. Her life in the 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 upholding backward thinking and suspiciously supernatural traditions – and she is determined to stop him. Even if it means teaming up with her academic arch-nemesis, Caraway Boswell, an ice-cold snob who hides his true face behind a glamour.