The Thirteen Child is a spellbinding, enchanting stand-alone fairy tale retelling that follows Hazel Trépas, a young healer with an inextricable connection to the gods.
Before Hazel is born, her parents promise her to one of the gods – the Dreaded End, god of Death. However, it is over a decade before her godfather comes to collect her, and Hazel spends the first years of her life as a neglected and disregarded thirteenth child.
When the Dreaded End finally does come to collect her, he has planned out Hazel’s entire, long life. She will become a celebrated healer, known kingdom wide for her skill and success rate. To aid her, her godfather has blessed her with the gift of seeing precisely the cure for every person whose sick bed she attends, but also saddled her with the curse of knowing when death has laid claim on a patient, and saving their life is not an option.
The path her godfather has pushed her onto sends Hazel across the kingdom, towards the capital and the palace itself, for she is the only one who can save the life of the king.
There, she is caught in the crossfire of oncoming war, politics, entitled royals and moral dilemmas.
Hazel must grapple with the weight of her gift and responsibility, beginning by deciding whether or not she goes against all she has been taught and saves the king marked to die.
The Thirteenth Child is a wonderful, enchanting novel, that captures you from its very first pages. Despite it being around 500 pages long, I couldn’t put it down and devoured it in only two days.
The reader follows Hazel as she grows up, learning alongside her, and sharing in her joys and miseries. She is a character who will stay with you after you close the book, inspired by her courage, fierce integrity and real, tangible humanness.
Hazel is a character who will stay with you after you close the book, inspired by her courage, fierce integrity and real, tangible humanness.
Farrah
The world Craig has created is vast and fantastical but also easily digestible, and one so vivid that you will feel fully immersed in it. In particular, the royal court that Hazel is plunged into is as vibrant and exciting as it is unnerving. Overall, if you enjoy fantasy stories, with an eclectic, striking cast of characters, a pantheon of gods with clashing agendas and questionable regard for human life, moral complexities and a delicious love story, this is the book for you.