Who will guard the living when the dead arise? Sabriel is sent as a child across the Wall to the safety of a school in Ancelstierre. Away from magic; away from the Dead. After receiving a cryptic message from her father, 18-year-old Sabriel leaves her ordinary school and returns across the Wall into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands for her father is none other than The Abhorson. His task is to lay the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father's title and duties to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible challenges whilst discovering her own supernatural abilities and her destiny.

 

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards

This book features in the following series: Old Kingdom, The Abhorsen Trilogy .

This book has been graded for interest at 12-16 years.

There are 368 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2003 by HarperCollins Publishers .

The two Australian authors, Anna Fienberg and Garth Nix, live in Sydney. Anna is known for her popular stories for all age groups. Garth is known for his teenage fantasy novels.