SHORTLISTED: 2025 AUREALIS AWARDS, Best Young Adult Novel
READINGS BEST OF THE BEST 2025: Readings community’s favourite young adult book

‘More fun than cheesecake on a stick!’ Jodi Meadows, co-author of My Lady Jane

A blacksmith’s daughter with a secret.

We’re in for one unforgettable knight …

Gwen has spent the past several years manning the blacksmith’s in place of her father, an open secret in the village in which she lives. A much more covert secret, however, is that she knows not only how to craft but also how to wield a sword, and an incognito stunt at the local jousting tournament manages to catch the eye of the wily Lady Isobelle.

Isobelle has secret dreams too, but she’s been promised in marriage to the winner of the whole stupid tournament, which means an end to any freedom or choices for her. Desperate to avoid this fate, when she connects the newcomer knight to the female smithy she saw earlier that day, she begins to hatch a scheme …

Petty knights. Backstabbing noblemen. A prison breakout. Cheesecake on a stick. One particularly large and angry dragon.

Will our ladies survive the night? And can our knight save the day?

‘Sparkles with wit and charm … Kaufman and Spooner will leave you breathless.’ C. S. Pacat, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Rise

‘Will inspire readers to take up their swords to fight dragons and the patriarchy.’ – F. T. Lukens, New York Times bestselling author of So This Is Ever After