Jack Yap once had his mouth sewn shut for talking too much. His brother Pudding has to wear stone shoes or he'll just wander off. Will little obstacles like these keep the boys out of trouble? Not for the twinkling of an eye. There is magic in the hills, shapechangers and monsters, and Jack Yap has a hankering to meet them all and maybe kill a few. What he and Pudding find in the hills, however, changes both their lives, taking them out of the country and into the cruel and wonderful world, where witches and princesses await. Sometimes they are even the same person. "Stunningly delicious! Cruel, beautiful and irresistible are C.S.E. Cooney's characters and prose. Just when you thought fantasy had devolved into endless repetition, 'Jack o' the Hills' blows us all over the next hill and into the kingdom beyond. C.S.E. Cooney is a rare and exciting new talent. Whatever she offers us next, I'll waiting in line to read." – Ellen Kushner, author of Thomas the Rhymer
Author
C.S.E. Cooney lives and writes in Queens, whose borders are water. She is an audiobook narrator, the singer/songwriter Brimstone Rhine, and author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories (Mythic Delirium 2015). Her work includes the novella Desdemona and the Deep (Tor.com 2019), three albums: Alecto! Alecto!, The Headless Bride, and Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir, and a poetry collection: How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes. The latter features her 2011 Rhysling Award-winning “The Sea King’s Second Bride.” Her short fiction can be found in Ellen Datlow’s Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Sword and Sonnet anthology, edited by Aidan Doyle, Rachael K Jones, E. Catherine Tobler, Mike Allen’s Clockwork Phoenix 3 and 5, Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018), Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 12, Lightspeed Magazine, Fireside Magazine, Strange Horizons, Apex, Uncanny Magazine, Black Gate, Papaveria Press, GigaNotoSaurus, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, and elsewhere.
