Enter the Graceling Realm with the beloved story that started it all, from New York Times best-selling author Kristin Cashore.

Katsa is a Graceling, one of the rare people born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she lived a life of privilege until the day her ability to kill a man with her bare hands revealed itself during a royal banquet. Now she acts as her uncle's enforcer, traveling the kingdom and threatening those who dare oppose him.

But everything changes when she meets Po, a foreign prince Graced with combat skills who is searching for the truth about his grandfather's disappearance. When Katsa agrees to help him, she never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace--or about a terrible secret that could destroy them all.

Author: Kristin Cashore

Paperback, 512 pages, Ages 13-17. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, September 7, 2009.