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A Great and Terrible Beauty Spiral-Bound | 2005-03-22

Libba Bray

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The first book in the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling Gemma Doyle trilogy, the exhilarating and haunting saga from the author of The Diviners series and Under the Same Stars.

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one.

To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls--and their foray into the spiritual world--lead to?

"A delicious, elegant gothic."--PW, Starred

"Shivery with both passion and terror."--Kirkus Reviews

"Compulsively readable." --VOYA

A New York Times Bestseller
A Publishers Weekly Bestseller
A Book Sense Bestseller
BBYA (ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults)
Iowa High School Book Award
Garden State Teen Book Award
Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 432 pages
ISBN-10: 0385732317
Item Weight: 0.8 lbs
Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
A Reader's Digest Best Book for Teens of All Time!

"A delicious, elegant gothic."--PW, Starred

"A Gothic novel touched by modern conceptions of adolescence, shivery with both passion and terror." --Kirkus Reviews

"A true boarding-school drama, full of cattiness, Victorian repression, and steamy schoolgirl dreams of being ravished by virile gypsies."--The Bulletin, Recommended

"This classic boarding school drama with gothic tones deals with real issues . . . a compulsively readable story." --VOYA

"[An] engrossing, imaginative Victorian-era novel . . . An unconventional book that entertains to the end and stays with you long after." --BN.com

"A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy . . . an impressive first book in what should prove to be a fascinating trilogy."
--Amazon.com

"An interesting combination of fantasy, light horror, and historical fiction, with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure…Recommend this to fantasy fans who also like Sherlock Holmes or Mary Russell."
--School Library Journal

"There's no doubt the mystical elements, along with a touch of forbidden romance, will draw a large, enthusiastic audience." --Booklist

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A New York Times Bestseller
A Publishers Weekly Bestseller
A Book Sense Bestseller
BBYA (ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults)
Iowa High School Book Award
Garden State Teen Book Award
Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award
Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing); the Michael L. Printz Award-winning Going Bovine; Beauty Queens, an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist; The Diviners series; and Under the Same Stars. She is originally from Texas but makes her home in New York City.