Curse Painter

Art is magic. Art is a curse. Briar can curse with the flick of a paintbrush. Her paintings maim, bewitch, and—most effectively of all—destroy. But Briar doesn't want to hurt people anymore. She has fled her family's deadly curse business to start a new life peddling nonlethal jinxes and petty revenge. Briar’s destructive powers catch the eye of a charismatic young outlaw called Archer, who hires her to help him save a kidnapped friend from a ruthless baron. Briar thinks this is her chance to make amends for her crimes, but the family business won’t let her go so easily. When her violent past jeopardizes Archer’s rescue mission, Briar must confront the dark arts she left behind—and decide what she’s willing to destroy in order to be good. Read the new fantasy adventure inspired by Robin Hood from the author of Steel and Fire, Empire of Talents, and the Fire Queen’s Apprentice! "Richly detailed, artistic, hopeful, and an instant classic, Curse Painter is everything you could hope for in a bright fantasy novel - perfect for all ages but most especially those who adore a powerful story of goodness and magic." - Sarah K. L. Wilson, USA Today Bestselling Young Adult Author "I could not stop reading this book." - Chrissie Weselake "This book is easily one of the best YA fantasy books of the year. Engaging, witty, and full of action, Curse Painter is a phenomenally enjoyable book guaranteed to delight readers of all ages." - Sophia Lee Delorey

Art is magic. Art is a curse. Briar can curse with the flick of a paintbrush. Her paintings maim, bewitch, and--most effectively of all--destroy. But Briar doesn't want to hurt people anymore. She has fled her family's deadly curse business to start a new life peddling nonlethal jinxes and petty revenge. Briar's destructive powers catch the eye of a charismatic young outlaw called Archer, who hires her to help him save a kidnapped friend from a ruthless baron. Briar thinks this is her chance to make amends for her crimes, but the family business won't let her go so easily. When her violent past jeopardizes Archer's rescue mission, Briar must confront the dark arts she left behind--and decide what she's willing to destroy in order to be good. Read the first book in a new fantasy adventure series inspired by Robin Hood! "Richly detailed, artistic, hopeful, and an instant classic, Curse Painter is everything you could hope for in a bright fantasy novel - perfect for all ages but most especially those who adore a powerful story of goodness and magic." - Sarah K. L. Wilson, USA Today Bestselling Young Adult Author "I could not stop reading this book." - Chrissie Weselake "This book is easily one of the best YA fantasy books of the year. Engaging, witty, and full of action, Curse Painter is a phenomenally enjoyable book guaranteed to delight readers of all ages." - Sophia Lee Delorey "There was a LOT that I loved about this book - dark secrets! morally conflicted characters! a unique and fascinating magic system based on art! swashbuckling! awesome, complex female supporting characters! - but I think most of all I loved the way the book was structured with occasional interludes from an omniscient narrator. Poetic and reminiscent of a folktale, they give the story the feeling of an old tale handed down from one storyteller to another." - Suzannah Rowntree, Author of A Wind from the Wilderness

Art is magic. Art is a curse. Briar can curse with the flick of a paintbrush. Her paintings maim, bewitch, and-most effectively of all-destroy. But Briar doesn't want to hurt people anymore. She has fled her family's deadly curse business to start a new life peddling nonlethal jinxes and petty revenge. Briar's destructive powers catch the eye of a charismatic young outlaw called Archer, who hires her to help him save a kidnapped friend from a ruthless baron. Briar thinks this is her chance to make amends for her crimes, but the family business won't let her go so easily. When her violent past jeopardizes Archer's rescue mission, Briar must confront the dark arts she left behind-and decide what she's willing to destroy in order to be good. Read the new fantasy adventure inspired by Robin Hood from the author of Steel and Fire, Empire of Talents, and the Fire Queen's Apprentice!

In the action-packed sequel to Curse Painter, the race is on to find a reclusive magical stoneworker. Stone charming is the rarest form of art magic, used to manipulate stone and bring fantastical sculptures to life. When Briar, Archer, and the outlaws are hired to find a powerful stone charmer, they know how dangerous his magic could be in the wrong hands. But their old enemy, Lord Larke, wants the stone charmer too. Briar and Archer must race his minions across a snowy wilderness to the stone charmer’s remote hideout. If they fail, Larke will use this extraordinary power to threaten the entire kingdom. The journey will test Briar and Archer’s bond. But a secret they discover along the way could break it.

Lemony Snicket meets Oscar Wilde meets Edgar Allan Poe in this exciting and scary middle-grade novel inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray -- a family curse is unleashed! Bryony Gray is becoming famous as a painter in London art circles. But life isn't so grand. Her uncle keeps her locked in the attic, forcing her to paint for his rich clients . . . and now her paintings are taking on a life of their own, and customers are going missing under mysterious circumstances. When her newest painting escapes the canvas and rampages through the streets of London, Bryony digs into her family history, discovering some rather scandalous secrets her uncle has been keeping, including a deadly curse she's inherited from her missing father. Bryony has accidentally unleashed the Gray family curse, and it's spreading fast. With a little help from the strange-but-beautiful girl next door and her paranoid brother, Bryony sets out to break the curse, dodging bloodthirsty paintings, angry mobs and her wicked uncle along the way.

Antebellum American Pendant Paintings: New Ways of Looking marks the first sustained study of pendant paintings: discrete images designed as a pair. It opens with a broad overview that anchors the form in the medieval diptych, religious history, and aesthetic theory and explores its cultural and historical resonance in the 19th-century United States. Three case studies examine how antebellum American artists used the pendant format in ways revelatory of their historical moment and the aesthetic and cultural developments in which they partook. The case studies on John Quidor’s Rip Van Winkle and His Companions at the Inn Door of Nicholas Vedder (1839) and The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1849) and Thomas Cole’s Departure and Return (1837) shed new light on canonical antebellum American artists and their practices. The chapter on Titian Ramsay Peale’s Kilauea by Day and Kilauea by Night (1842) presents new material that pushes the geographical boundaries of American art studies toward the Pacific Rim. The book contributes to American art history the study of a characteristic but as yet overlooked format and models for the discipline a new and productive framework of analysis focused on the fundamental yet complex way images work back and forth with one another.