THE HOLLOW KINGDOM

Paying tribute both to the elements of Victorian novels and fairy tales, first novelist Dunkle turns out a luminously polished fantasy that starts off strong and just gets better. Sisters Kate and Emily, recently orphaned, move into Hallow Hill, the estate they are to inherit; their great-aunts, dismayed at "all that book reading, all that flowery poetry," that has constituted the girls' education, plan to launch Kate into London society, as befits a modern 19th-century young woman. But others have plans for Kate as well, including her humorless official guardian and, so it seems, the goblins around whom so much local lore revolves. Kate senses danger, even before she realizes that she faces supernatural challengers—and even before the goblin king, Marak, lets it be known that he will take her by force to be his wife, to live forever in his subterranean realm. Dunkle laces her plotting with twists and surprises, at the same time staying true to archetypal themes about love and death. She introduces original developments in the construction of her fantasy kingdom, but never drops her control over the protagonists' growth, as a keen romantic tension builds between Marak and Kate, who move, credibly and engrossingly, from the roles of predator and prey to inhabiting positions of peers. The story line does not slow, offering suspense and plenty of evil to be vanquished. A masterly debut, it will almost certainly leave audiences hoping for more. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)