Hero and the Dead Boy

Abstract

This is the first half of “Hero and the Dead Boy,” a middle grade fantasy novel following Hero, a talented witch who feels like she doesn’t belong. It’s not just being twelve and it’s not just in her head. As a toddler, Hero was cast out by villagers who were terrified of her magic. The Uv-Savi witches who found her took her in, but Hero worries that someday they will decide that she’s too much trouble. On top of that, some Uv-Savi witches think Hero has no business joining their ranks, since she’s an orphan from the Savage North. While they can’t stop her undergoing the initiation on her thirteenth birthday, they hope that she will fail. In the build-up to her birthday, Hero stumbles on a boy under a death-like curse. Keen to prove that she belongs, and to show-off her magical abilities, Hero tries to remove the curse on her own. This backfires tremendously when the curse proves stronger than she expects, removes her powers, and intertwines Hero’s fate with the dead boy’s. The dead boy and Hero must work together to remove the curse before Hero’s thirteenth birthday, in ten days. If they fail, the curse will return the boy to an eternal sleep and Hero will never get her powers back. “Hero and the Dead Boy” is a novel about identity, family, and the redeeming powers of friendship and selflessness.