Graceling

American author Kristin Cashore’s literary debut Graceling (2008), a young adult fantasy, earned a place on the Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year 2008. A companion book, Fire, soon followed. The sequel to Graceling, Bitterblue (2012), takes place eight years after the events of Graceling. Graceling was shortlisted for the American Library Association’s William C. Morris YA Award and is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. It was also a Cybils finalist in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category and a finalist for both the Andrew Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Indies Choice Book Awards in the Best Indie Young Adult Book Buzz category. The novel won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance 2009 Young Adult SIBA Book Award. It also was included in the School Library Journal Best Books of 2008, Booklist’s 2008 Top Ten First Novels for Youth as well as Booklist’s Editor’s Choice for 2008, the 2009 Amelia Bloomer List, and was on the Bulletin’s Center for Children’s Books 2009 Blue Ribbon List. It was a 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist, won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award For Children’s literature in 2009, was nominated for the 2010 Washington Evergreen Award and the 2011 Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Award, and won the 2012 California Young Reader Medal.

As the book begins, Katsa is sneaking into a dungeon, preparing to overpower a group of guards nearby. Katsa has a kind of overpowering force about her called her “Graced power.” She attacks, knocking out several of the guards and giving them sleeping pills so they will not disrupt her. Katsa moves past the guards, eventually coming upon the old Lienid man, Tealiff, who is trapped in a jail cell. Soon Katsa’s secret Council accomplice, Giddon, arrives to pick the lock to free Tealiff. As Katsa is about to leave, she meets a Graced Lienid fighter. She fights with him and wins, knocking him out. She decides not to kill him even though he has seen her and discovered her identity.

Though Katsa is a part of the secret Council organization, she must outwardly obey King Randa no matter what his will is. She is made to kill and maim people that King Randa dislikes. Katsa soon returns to the Middluns court, where she meets Po, the Lienid fighter she had chosen not to kill. She fights with him but eventually decides to bring him to see his grandfather, Tealiff. The two young people become friends and sparring partners.



One day, openly defying King Randa, Katsa agrees to go with Prince Po to figure out who had kidnapped Tealiff. Katsa discovers that Po is a Graced mind reader, and feels misled and resentful that she didn’t know the truth. But his powers are limited only to when people are thinking about him. Katsa decides to go through with the plan.

Katsa leaves for her journey through the woods of Sunder, hot on the trail of the kidnappers. Po’s mind-reading powers turn out to be quite useful; he finds out that the merchants at the inn know that King Leck of Monsea has committed crimes. They swear that he is not behind the kidnapping, however. It is decided that King Leck, a one-eyed man, must be secretly Graced with the power to make people believe him even when he is lying.

Katsa and Po want to rescue Po’s aunt, Ashen, and her daughter, Bitterblue, from King Leck. Leck flees, but not before killing Ashen. Katsa is overwhelmed by Leck’s power; they must flee, but they find Bitterblue hiding in the forest. Po confronts Leck but is wounded and must flee again. Katsa and Bitterblue, meanwhile, run away through a mountain pass. They find a ship at the port of Suncliff and convince the ship’s captain to let them aboard in the name of Prince Po; they make for the castle.



At the castle, Leck has taken control. Katsa’s love for Po allows her to kill Leck, but she is still deeply overwhelmed by him. When he dies, all of his lies are revealed, and Bitterblue is set to become the new queen. Po is found in the woods, alive but blinded by his wounds. Because of his power, however, he has convinced everyone that he can see. Katsa and Po are reunited and resume their love, but Katsa must depart in order to continue her mission to teach the girls and women of the seven kingdoms about self-defense. They promise to meet again in a few months.