• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

A brand-new edition, revised by the author, of Edward Willett's multiple-award-winning young adult fantasy.

Amarynth is a spirit singer, gifted–or cursed, as she sometimes thinks–with the ability to lead the spirits of the dead from the Lower World through the Between World to the Gate of the Upper World and the Light that lies beyond it.

While she is still an apprentice her grandfather and tutor dies, slain by a mysterious Beast in the Between World that is blocking access to the Gate. Without a Spirit Singer, her village cannot survive, so Amarynth embarks on a hazardous quest to find out what the creature is, how it can be defeated, and how she can become a full-fledged Spirit Singer — a quest that takes her not only from her tiny seacoast home to the great city of Havenheart and the haunted mountains of the south, but across the even more rugged terrain of her own soul.

EDWARD WILLETT is the author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction for readers of all ages. Marseguro (DAW Books) won the Aurora Award (honouring Canadian science fiction and fantasy) for Best Long-Form Work in English; his young adult fantasy Spirit Singer won a Saskatchewan Book Award. Several other of his books have been shortlisted for those and other awards.

Ed's most recent novel is the far-future humorous outer-space adventure The Tangled Stars (DAW Books). Other recent titles include Star Song, a finalist for both the Aurora Award and Saskatchewan Book Award for Young Adult Literature, published by Shadowpaw Press; Blue Fire (written as E.C. Blake), also from Shadowpaw Press; and the Worldshapers series (Worldshaper, Master of the World, and The Moonlit World) from DAW. His nonfiction runs the gamut from science books to biographies to history. He hosts Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers podcast (theworldshapers.com), in which he talks to other science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process, and has Kickstarted several Shapers of Worlds anthologies featuring guests of the podcast.

In addition to being a writer, Ed is a professional actor and singer who has performed in numerous plays, musicals, and operas, and sung in several auditioned choirs, including the Canadian Chamber Choir. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with his wife, Margaret Anne Hodges, P. Eng., a past president of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan. They have one daughter, Alice, and a black Siberian cat, Shadowpaw. You can find Ed online at www.edwardwillett.com.

Edward Willett's profile page

• Winner, Regina Book Award, Saskatchewan Book Awards

“…a strong, well-written book with great adventure and sympathetic characters…fast-paced adventure, sword-play, ghostly help, kidnappings, automatons who serve pure evil, royalty, and brave commoners…It is about deception, both external and internal, in the eternal search for love and acceptance. It is about the need to accept oneself to be able to move forward and achieve great things and the need to be wise and discerning about others.” - Lynn (J.R.) Wytenbroek, Canadian Literature Magazine


“This is a fast-paced, spiritual quest book, full of narrow escapes, evil masquerading as good, good appearing in nasty people (just like in real life!), adventure, dreams, and bits of wisdom. The writing is spare and the words well-chosen, so that complex characters and interesting places emerge full-blown in the reader’s mind, and the plot moves apace. I felt always in the story, and not a mere spectator/reader. Written for teenagers, but this fifty-something guy had a great time.” - David Waltner-Toews


“Clearly defined characters, setting, and plot carry a reader eagerly from page to page through adventure-filled chapters that deftly conclude with cliff-hangers…The plot is fast-paced and clever, the writing never disappoints, and the author clearly keeps his target audience in mind. A great read from start to finish.”
 - Shirlee Matheson


“…a fun novel with engaging characters and having all the basic elements of a good fantasy…young readers would likely get much more out of this book in terms of good succinct plotting and writing than they’d ever be likely to from the droves of role-playing game tie-ins and fat fantasy trilogies.” - 
Georges T. Dodds, SF Site


>p>“This book takes the reader on a magical journey to a mystical land…It is a quick, but very satisfying read; I spent any free time I had reading over the two days it took me to read the story. I recommend this book for anyone that is in the mood for an adventure…Spirit Singer definitely does not disappoint.”
 - Amy Mehta, MyShelf.com