title: Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception
author:  Maggie Stiefvater 
description: *Starred Review* Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan, a gifted harpist who regularly plays for weddings and other events, has the kind of stage fright that makes her physically ill before a performance, which is an inauspicious way to start a romance; but while vomiting before a competition she meets a gorgeous boy who comes into the restroom to hold her hair. He is Luke Dillon, a flautist who proceeds to accompany her in a truly stellar performance. As four-leaf clovers start appearing everywhere, Deirdre develops telekinetic powers and encounters strange, unworldly people who seem to bear her ill will. Her best friend, James, also a talented musician; her beloved grandmother; and her mother all are in danger, as Deirdre is targeted by the queen of Faerie. Deirdre eventually discovers that she is a cloverhand, a person who can see the denizens of faerie, and Luke, not the only immortal who has her in his sights, is a gallowglass, an assassin assigned by the queen of Faerie to kill Deirdre but who falls in love with her instead. This beautiful and out-of-the-ordinary debut novel, with its authentic depiction of Celtic Faerie lore and dangerous forbidden love in a contemporary American setting, will appeal to readers of Nancy Werlins Impossible (2008) and Stephenie Meyers Twilight series. Illustrations by Jeffrey are fitting. Grades 9-12. --Diana Tixier Herald
zlib_text:   
  **Blue Lily, Lily Blue**
  
  **Book III of The Raven Cycle**
  
    
  
  **Also by Maggie Stiefvater**
  
  _The Raven Boys_
  
  _The Dream Thieves_
  
  The Scorpio Races
  
  _Shiver_
  
  _Linger_
  
  _Forever_
  
  _Sinner_
  
  Lament: The Faerie Queen’s
  
  Deception Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie
  
  **P RO L O G U E**
  
  ABOVE
  
  Persephone stood on the bare mountaintop, her ruffled ivory dress whipping
  around her legs, her masses of white-blond curls streaming behind her. She was
  gauzy, immaterial, something blown between these boulders and caught upon one
  of them. The wind was fierce up here with no trees to block it. The world
  below was gloriously autumnal.
  
  Adam Parrish stood beside her with his hands shoved into the pockets of his
  grease-stained cargo pants. He looked tired, but his eyes were clear, better
  than when she’d seen him last. Because Persephone was only interested in
  important things, she hadn’t considered her own age in a long time, but it
  struck her as she looked at him that he was quite _new._ That raw exp