Fly By Night

HARDINGE, Frances. Fly By Night. [NY]: HarperCollins [2005]. 8vo, [viii] 487pp. Color pictorial paper wrappers. Light rubbing to spine ends and corners, else a fine copy, with publisher's press release and comment reply card laid in.

Advance Reader's Edition, being issued to reviewers in a very limited quantity prior to the release of the first printing. The first book by this celebrated and award-winning British author. Mosca Mye's father insisted on teaching her to read—even in a world where books are dangerous, regulated things. Eight years later, Quillam Mye died, leaving behind an orphaned daughter with an inauspicious name and an all-consuming hunger for words. Trapped for years in the care of her cruel Uncle Westerly and Aunt Briony, Mosca leaps at the opportunity for escape, though it comes in the form of the sneaky swindler Eponymous Clent. As she travels the land with Clent and her pet goose, Saracen, Mosca begins to discover complicated truths about the world she inhabits and the true power of words.