Cerrie Burnell: Swifter than Starlight (Puffin Books 2023)
Wild Rose, the girl who was raised by wolves, and Aurelia, the cursed princess, fled Silverthorn with the forest folk and all who feared the Queen. They set up camp in the forest of another kingdom, and since then their camp has welcomed everyone who has been ostracized by society for some perceived or real fault. Seven years have passed like this. Lilac also ran away from her evil stepmother and left her sister Clover behind. Hester is Aurelia’s sister, who finally got her lost sister back and found a new friend in the camp. Their fate is intertwined with the future of the kingdoms, when the relative peace ends with the disappearance of the prince.
The story is again a new interpretation of European folk tales and Grimm’s tales, in which the classic fairy tale elements – the forest, the crumbs scattered on the path, the glass slipper and the dream lasting for years – are mixed with the gender issue and the problem of disability or deafness. Our heroes are fighting for the same thing that many people in our world are struggle for, to accept everyone as they are and not have to pretend to be someone else for the sake of society. I think there will be a continuation of the series, since the source of the tales is inexhaustible and the different threads are interwoven as if this story were the ancestor of each of them, from which the others were formed.
Cerrie Burnell is a British author, actress and TV person. She often appears in children’s TV shows. She was born without a right forearm and was confronted with the fact that she was different from the others as a child. However, she was very good at presenting stories. She used this ability in TV series. And her desire for storytelling was so strong that she’s been writing ever since she could write. So far, she has written 12 books for children and dedicated all of them to her daughter, Amelie. Swifter than Starlight is the sequel of Wilder than Midnight.