THE RIVER HAS ROOTS
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Timesbestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic.
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Timesbestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.
But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
- Tor
- Hardcover
- March 2025
- 144 Pages
- 9781250341082
Buy the Book
$24.99
About Amal El-Mohtar
Amal El-Mohtar is a Hugo Award-winning author of science fiction, fantasy, poetry and criticism, and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller This is How You Lose the Time War, written with Max Gladstone, which has been translated into over ten languages. Her reviews and articles have appeared in the New York Times and on NPR Books. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.
Praise
“El-Mohtar’s ethereal prose paints a clear picture of the unbreakable bond between her worthy heroines.” —Publishers Weekly
“Half delicious murder ballad, half beguiling love story, Amal El-Mohtar transports us to Faerieland so seamlessly it seems as though she just stepped out of it.” —Holly Black, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“This extraordinary novella is El-Mohtar’s solo debut, after the splendid This Is How You Lose the Time War (2019), coauthored with Max Gladstone, went viral. It’s a marvelous story that pulls on old Grimm fairy tales of violence and truth telling, of what it means to be sisters in a story of fae and folklore, and of the kind of true love that exists between sisters.” —Booklist, starred review
“El-Mohtar’s solo debut (after cowriting This Is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone) is a heart-wrenching fairy tale about the bonds of love and family. It’s a murder ballad in book form that will linger long after the final page is turned.” —Library Journal, starred review
“When it comes to storytelling, Amal El-Mohtar is like one of the grammarians of Thistleford, a magician capable of deftly transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar and the numinous into the humane. The River Has Roots is an utterly enchanting tale of love and longing, language and song, and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood.” —Fonda Lee, author of the Green Bone Saga