2024 Ditmar Award for Best Novel (nominee)
Age range 13 to 18
Don’t go out onto the lake. Wyann trees search the shallows to spear passing prey with their roots. Giant water-ants hunt anything that moves on the water-skin. Sala’s village survives hidden behind a wall of poisonous ivy, because everyone agrees: don’t go out onto the lake.
But when her village refuses to listen to sense, and continues squeezing beautiful pond-bred ‘keeiling’ fish to death for their precious saliva oils, Sala has no choice. She will risk it all to prove herself one last time, else leave everything behind for the dark shaded swamps beneath the towering hillfarms of Palude.
At least that’s the plan before a strange comet crosses the night sky, throwing her and her pet pointer into a race through wyann-infested swampland to unearth long-hidden truths and stir rivalries into a terrifying conflict set to change the world of Palude forever. Sala must do whatever it takes to face the truth of who she is: to save her village, to save her family, to save herself.
If only they had listened.
‘When Dark Roots Hunt is a great read - fresh, action-packed and utterly compelling. I loved it.’ — Ian Irvine, author of The Gates of Good and Evil series
‘Shapter has created an immersive, fantastical world with tension poised to snap at any moment. I couldn’t put it down.’ — USA Today bestselling author Dionne Lister, author of The Circle of Talia
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Don’t go out onto the lake. Wyann trees search the shallows to spear passing prey with their roots. Giant water-ants hunt anything that moves on the water-skin. Sala’s village survives hidden behind a wall of poisonous ivy, because everyone agrees: don’t go out onto the lake.
But when her village refuses to listen to sense, and continues squeezing beautiful pond-bred ‘keeiling’ fish to death for their precious saliva oils, Sala has no choice. She will risk it all to prove herself one last time, else leave everything behind for the dark shaded swamps beneath the towering hillfarms of Palude.
At least that’s the plan before a strange comet crosses the night sky, throwing her and her pet pointer into a race through wyann-infested swampland to unearth long-hidden truths and stir rivalries into a terrifying conflict set to change the world of Palude forever. Sala must do whatever it takes to face the truth of who she is: to save her village, to save her family, to save herself.
If only they had listened.
‘When Dark Roots Hunt is a great read - fresh, action-packed and utterly compelling. I loved it.’ — Ian Irvine, author of The Gates of Good and Evil series
‘Shapter has created an immersive, fantastical world with tension poised to snap at any moment. I couldn’t put it down.’ — USA Today bestselling author Dionne Lister, author of The Circle of Talia
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Used availability for Zena Shapter's When Dark Roots Hunt