Forestborn (Forestborn #1)

A Tolkienesque fantasy realm populated with characters of varying skin tones mixes uneasily with modern realpolitik and trauma in this debut. Olive-skinned, wilderness-born shape-shifter—and royal spy—Rora can become a goshawk, a mouse, or a lynx, or wear another person’s face. But she is shunned by her neighbors for her powers—and her part in an ominous Prediction. When a carefree prince, her blond, queer best friend, contracts a mysterious and virulent plague, the king assigns Rora and the standoffish elder prince to fetch a powerful miracle cure in the perilous magic-laced land of her birth—and investigate an authoritarian neighbor kingdom’s threats of war. Dogged by plague and her own difficult memories, Rora, and her selfless brother Helos, must escort Prince Weslyn across the land that they once desperately fled. But when they uncover a disturbing secret, Rora’s shame may stymie her ability to save all she holds dear. Becker’s series opener gives its ambitious subject matter an archetypal handling that centers graphic depictions of torture as a mounting pile of threats swings Rora through video game–style landscapes described in a breathless first-person narration. Ages 13–up. (Aug.)