Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw is a very different kind of fantasy story: the tale of a family dealing with the death of their father, of a son who goes to law for his inheritance, a son who agonizes over his father's deathbed confession, a daughter who falls in love, a daughter who becomes involved in the abolition movement, and a daughter sacrificing herself for her husband.

Except that everyone in the story is a dragon, red in tooth and claw.

Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses . . . in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which society's high-and-mighty members avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby.

"Have I mentioned how much I love this sly, witty, fast-paced, brilliant little book?" —Jane Yolen

"Books as full of delights and excellent writing as Tooth and Claw are the rarest of prizes." — The New York Review of Science Fiction

"Plot strands come together just as they should, with delightful triumphs, resolutions, revelations, and comeuppances." — Locus