How do you fight fire without fire?

When a freak storm uncovers the entrance to a mysterious underground chamber, Ivy and Martin expect to find treasure. But what they discover is even more valuable: a barrow full of sleeping spriggans, magically preserved for centuries. With the vengeful piskey queen Betony determined to capture Ivy and her followers, the secret hideaway could be key to both their peoples’ survival.

But the piskeys and spriggans are ancient enemies, and when Ivy tries to make peace her own followers threaten to turn against her. Plagued by treachery, betrayal and desertion on every side, Ivy must find a way to unite the magical folk of Cornwall—or doom herself, Martin and everyone she loves to death at Betony’s hand.

Yet without the legendary fire-wielding power that marks a true piskey queen, can Ivy convince her people to believe?

Book 3 of The Flight and Flame Trilogy series.

If Monty Python’s peasant is right, and watery tarts throwing swords at you is hardly a good way to decide who’s in charge, what about electing leaders based on who creates the best fire? In Torch, the final book in R. J. Anderson’s Flight and Flame Trilogy series, half-piskey Ivy faces her greatest crisis. In the piskeys’ home tunnels, leaders seem to embrace tyrannical madness. Ivy’s few allies are weak, wavering, and maybe worst of all, conniving. Throw in familial conflicts and romantic tensions, and Ivy’s plate is quite full even before she learns that enemies whom the piskeys thought long dead may not be so dead after all. Torch blazes a solid conclusion to the series’ themes of just leadership and racial reconciliation among fairy folk.

Best for: Young adult and adults.

Discern: Some battles and fighting with injuries and deaths.