The Tarnished Garden

Ages 8 to 12

In this sparkling companion to the middle-grade fantasy The Gilded Girl, Maeve and Izzy must adjust to a new life together, but when Maeve's magic goes awry and their school is in danger, they'll need to lean on each other to make things right.

The Manhattan School for Magic is the newest kindling school in New York, but Maeve O’Donnell knows she doesn't deserve her place there. Though her sister, Izzy, is one of the school's founders and a hero to those who can now kindle, Maeve can't control her magic—and one day it goes rogue, leaving her desperate to repair what she's broken. Then she discovers a garden in the tenement neighborhood of the Tarnish, a hidden place where her magic actually works. She befriends talking kittens (that is, house dragons) who need her help to find their missing mother. But someone else is searching for the kittens, someone who doesn’t care how many magical sites they destroy to stop magic’s expansion. And Maeve’s unstable powers might be the only way to save her sister’s school from being snuffed out next.

About the Author

Alyssa Colman is the author of The Gilded Girl. She won the 2013 Primary Stages ESPA new play competition and was a semifinalist at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference. She has participated as both a mentee and a mentor in the Author Mentor Match program and is a member of SCBWI. Alyssa lives in Los Angeles with her family. alyssacolman.com