The Blazing Unicorn

Alice Hemming's The Blazing Unicorn is a dark fairy-tale fantasy for 11 year olds about a kind girl whose wish goes horribly wrong.

What happens

Marie is twelve and lives in a cottage deep in Brume Forest with her big brother Wyll and their father, Jacob. There's never enough to eat. Her dad and brother argue every night, and Marie is always the one smoothing it over.

One evening she follows a strange ringing sound down to a waterfall. Standing on the rocks is a unicorn whose mane and tail are made of flames. She's called Blaze, she can talk, and because Marie heard her song, Marie gets three wishes.

So, what would your reader wish for? Marie really tries to think it through. She wants to help her family and she wants to set Blaze free. But the way she words one wish hands all of Blaze's power to her father, and he has no intention of stopping at three.

You can see it coming a page before Marie does, which makes it very tense. Then the story jumps forward five years. Jacob is now King Jacob, the kingdom has sunk into poverty and the forest is filling up with people who can't pay his taxes.

From there the story follows Banes, an innkeeper's daughter who walks all night to join the rebels hiding in the forest. She talks non-stop, tells ENORMOUS tall tales round the campfire and gets put in charge of the chickens (she's not a fan of chickens). She's also the first one to say out loud that the king must have some hidden magic helping him.

There are a few things to know. Marie's mum died of an illness before the story begins, and Wyll blames their father for refusing to pay for a healer. Jacob drinks, shouts and scares Marie into keeping his secret. Poor Blaze ends up tied in the woodshed with a filthy rope.

Banes is nineteen, so from that point the main character is a young adult rather than a child, and there's ale round the fire. None of it is graphic. But a reader who wants a gentle, sparkly unicorn story might find the cruelty and the grown-up cast a bit much.

If your reader loves a proper fairy tale with a sting in it (be careful what you wish for!), this is a clever one. It's a story about greed and about finding your voice, and Banes is terrific company.

What to read next

If they're after unicorns with even more bite, Skandar and the Unicorn Thief is in the library too. Its unicorns are wild and bloodthirsty, and thirteen-year-old Skandar has spent his whole life hoping to become a rider anyway.