A Hundred Vicious Turns (The Broken Tower Book 1)

Ages 12 And Up, Grades 7 to 17

The heir to an arcane bloodline must outwit their ambitious rival to stop a ruthless magical adversary in Lee Paige O’Brien’s A Hundred Vicious Turns, a YA fantasy debut—first in The Broken Tower series—perfect for fans of A Lesson in Vengeance and Hell Followed With Us.

Rat Evans, nonbinary heir to one of the oldest magical bloodlines in New York, doesn’t cast spells anymore. For as long as Rat can remember, they’ve been surrounded by doorways no one else sees and corridors that aren’t on any map. Then one day, they opened a passage and found a broken tower in a field of weeds—and something followed them back.

When Rat is accepted into Bellamy Arts, all they want is a place to hide and to make sure they never open another passageway again. But when the only other person who knows what really happened last year—Harker Blakely, the dangerously gifted trans boy who used to be Rat’s closest friend—turns up on campus, Rat begins to realize that Bellamy Arts might not be as safe as they’d thought. And the tower might not be through with them yet.

Soon, Rat finds themself caught in a web of secrets and long-buried magic, with their friend-turned-enemy at their throat. But the closer they come to uncovering the truth about the tower, the further they’re drawn toward the unsettling powers that threaten to swallow them whole.

About the Author

Lee Paige O'Brien (he/they) is an author and literary agent from New York, where he writes queer fantasy books about strange magic and monsters of all kinds.