Laura Schlitz - Splendors and Glooms

I could not have consulted two more generous experts. And any mistakes in the manuscript are my own.

LAURA AMY SCHLITZ is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, illustrated by Robert Byrd and recipient of many best-book honors in its year of publication. Her debut novel, A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama, won an inaugural Cybil Award, and The Night Fairy, illustrated by Angela Barrett, was named an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year. Other credits include a retelling, The Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Max Grafe, and a biography of an eccentric amateur archaeologist, called The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy, illustrated by Robert Byrd. Laura Amy Schlitz lives in Maryland.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 by Laura Amy Schlitz

Cover illustration copyright © 2012 by Bagram Ibatoulline

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First electronic edition 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schlitz, Laura Amy.

Splendors and glooms / Laura Amy Schlitz. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: When Clara vanishes after the puppeteer Grisini and two orphaned assistants were at her twelfth birthday party, suspicion of kidnapping chases the trio away from London and soon the two orphans are caught in a trap set by Grisini’s ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it is too late.

ISBN 978-0-7636-5380-4 (hardcover)

[1. Puppets — Fiction. 2. Orphans — Fiction. 3. Kidnapping — Fiction. 4. Witches — Fiction. 5. Blessing and cursing — Fiction. 6. London (England) — History — 19th century — Fiction. 7. Great Britain — History — Victoria, 1837–1901 — Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S347145Spl 2012

[Fic] — dc23 2011048366

ISBN 978-0-7636-6246-2 (electronic)

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