Age range: Older teen/adult

From Amazon:
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL • Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

HUGO AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR | BuzzFeed | Tordotcom | BookPage | Library Journal | Publishers Weekly

“Uprooted is confidently wrought and sympathetically cast. I might even call it bewitching.”—Gregory Maguire, bestselling author of Wicked and Egg & Spoon

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Released to the fox run little free library at 25 Burgess Farm Rd.

I found this book in the Little Free Library in Dracut, while dropping off some books of my own. I've enjoyed other works by Novik, including her marvelous "Temeraire" series and her superhero-school graphic novel, and look forward to this one.

Later: Unusual and often very grisly spin on several fairytale tropes, including the dragon-who-requires-virgins. I liked some of the elements, including the increasingly-horrific power of the woods, but didn't get as caught up in this one as in other of the author's works.

[There's a TV Tropes page on the novel with some entertaining tidbits.]

I left this book in the Little Free Library near the rail-trail (via the driveway connecting to the MSPCA at Nevins Farm); hope someone enjoys it! (Check out the cute painting on the LFL, and the bear-statue near the trail!)

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***