Helen and Rachel McCallister, who live in a town called Roam, are as different as sisters can be: Helen older, bitter, and conniving; Rachel beautiful, na├»ve-and blind. When their parents die an untimely death, Rachel has to rely on Helen for everything, but Helen embraces her role in all the wrong ways, convincing Rachel that the world is a dark and dangerous place she couldn't possibly survive on her own … or so Helen believes, until Rachel makes a surprising choice that turns both their worlds upside down. In this new novel, Southern literary master Daniel Wallace returns to the tradition of tall tales and folklore made memorable in his bestselling Big Fish. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a wildly inventive, beautifully written, and big-hearted tale of family and the ties that bind.
"There is much magic in Daniel Wallace's superb new novel-curses, caves,
even a haunted wood-but the most impressive magic is Wallace's
understanding of the human heart's depths and vagaries. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a fairy tale for adults."
"An imaginative, sentimental modern-day tall tale…Wallace's
far-fetched, rollicking yarn, written in the vein of Manly Wade Wellman
and Fred Chappell, consistently engages the reader."
"Brimming with his brilliant visions and wise observations about life.
Part fairy tale, part myth and legend, the city of Roam and her
inhabitants-both living and dead-materialize in ways that are equal
parts comedy and tragedy."
"I paused just as often to savor the beauty of Wallace's sentences as I
did to wipe away tears at his characters' predicaments. An epic and
modern fairy tale of sisters and friendship."
"Reading The Kings and Queens of Roam is like living, for a few
hundred pages, in another world: beautiful, epic, tragic, and ultimately
redemptive. In Roam Daniel Wallace has created his own Macondo. This is
his best novel yet."
"Wallace's eerie fairy tale for grown-ups is a melancholy yet enchanting pastiche of love, loss, redemption, and revenge."
