Once Upon a Marigold [Paperback]

Who knew love could be so amazing—and stupefying? Not Christian. He was clueless when he started spying on the royal family through his telescope. He lives in a cave with a troll for a dad, after all. If his dad had only warned him about all that mind-boggling love stuff, maybe things wouldn't be such a mess. But then, maybe, Princess Marigold would be dead.

But Christianwasn'twarned. And now that he's fallen for the princess, it's up to him to untwist an odd love triangle—er,rectangle—and foil a scheming queen who wants to take over the kingdom, even if it means bumping off her own daughter.

With echoes of William Goldman's modern classicThe Princess Bride,Jean Ferris's hilarious parody of "Once upon a time . . ." overflows with oddball characters and sage observations—and ends with a slapstick happily-ever-after that's full of surprises.

Jean Ferris overturns fairy tale clichés in an offbeat, hilariously quirky novel that's part comedy, part love story, and part everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.

JEAN FERRIShas written more than a dozen popular books for teens, including several ALA Best Books for Young Adults and one YALSA Teens' Top Ten Best Book. She lives in San Diego, California.

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Edric knew he should head for home. It would be dark soon, and even though he was as familiar with his part of the forest as he was with the back and the front of his hand, there were dangers when the lights went out-wild animals, evil spirits, big glowing eyes attached to who-knew-what, stuff like that. But Beelzebub and Hecate were having such a good time sniffing under every bush and barking all the grouse out from their hiding places that Ed was reluctant to spoil their fun. Besides, he'd been having a very good day of gathering.
Some days there was nothing; nobody passing through the forest dropped a thing. But todal“&