Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.
Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.
But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.
The real antagonist of Uprooted is the Wood, not the wizard. Novik makes the forest a character, and its creeping corruption drives the plot harder than any romance does. Kate Nepveu called it a wonderful antagonist, and she's right.
The book is a standalone that packs a kingdom's worth of events into one volume. It draws on Polish folklore, with a Baba Yaga nod and a protagonist whose name echoes a Polish children's story. Novik wrote it after her daughter was born, as a way into her mother's family history. The magic is emotional and improvised rather than a system of rules, and wizards differ by temperament, not gender. Agnieszka tells it in first person, and her voice gets stronger as the book goes on. The weak spots are real: a slow first half, a Dragon who is thinner than she is, and final revelations that arrive in a rush.
It won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a 2016 Hugo finalist. Readers mostly love the voice and the fairy-tale feel. They split over the romance with the much older Dragon and over a slow first half.
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Historical alternate fantasy featuring dragons during the Napoleonic Wars introduced readers to a distinct blend of military history and speculative fiction. Naomi Novik established her reputation with the nine-novel Temeraire series before expanding into award-winning standalone folklore reimaginings and dark magical academy fiction.
An avid reader of fantasy literature since age six, Novik combines a lifelong love of speculative worldbuilding with rigorous historical interest. Her works have won the Nebula, Locus, Mythopoeic, and British Fantasy awards, and have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Born in New York in 1973 as a first-generation American, Novik was raised on Polish fairy tales, stories of Baba Yaga, and the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. She developed a deep fascination with the Napoleonic era alongside a fondness for the literary works of Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Brown University and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Columbia University. Novik initially worked in the computer games industry as a programmer and designer, contributing to Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide at BioWare in Edmonton, Canada. Recognizing that she preferred creative storytelling over computer programming, she returned to New York to focus full-time on writing novels.
Novik made her publishing debut in 2006 with her Temeraire series, reimagining nineteenth-century naval and aerial warfare with intelligent dragons serving in military aviator corps. Following the conclusion of the nine-book series in 2016, she turned to standalone fairy-tale retellings and later developed the dark academic Scholomance trilogy. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughter, and many purring computers.
Novik's writing frequently merges intricate historical detail, folk mythology, and subverted speculative tropes. In her folklore-inspired standalones, she draws upon Eastern European motifs and classic fairy tales to explore themes of isolation, magical bargain dynamics, and systemic power. Her characterization often highlights pragmatic protagonists navigating harsh environments, complex political alliances, and dangerous magical institutions.
