Splinter & Ash
by Marieke Nijkamp
Intermediate, Middle School    Greenwillow    368 pp.
9/24    9780063326262    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780063326286    $9.99

Princess Ash, feeling alone at court and conspicuous with her cane and braces, makes the daring move of taking Splinter as her squire—Splinter, who isn’t a boy, but “not a girl, either” (referred to with she/her pronouns in the story), and who feels most like herself wearing her brother’s armor. The course of study required of squires isn’t easy, particularly because Ash’s older brother Lucen, the crown prince, makes it his mission to drive Splinter away. Meanwhile, Ash is asked by her mother, the queen, to spy on one of the noble families to try to discover who among them is working against the crown. Due to Lucen’s interference, Splinter is absent when Ash is abducted by the conspirators, and Splinter and a guilt-stricken Lucen set out together to rescue her. The action takes many breathtaking turns, from Ash’s attempts to escape from her captors to Splinter and Lucen facing peril while working out their fraught relationship, culminating in a gratifying reveal at the climax. Greater geopolitical forces swirling around the characters raise the stakes, and the close relationship between Ash and Splinter, Lucen’s efforts to remake himself into a person worthy of knighthood, and Splinter’s determination to never be anyone but herself make this homage to Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series fully worthy of readers’ admiration and delight.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.