Venom & Vow -- Anna-Marie McLemore, Hardcover

Two enemy kingdoms are forced to work together to break a curse in this lush YA fantasy, featuring a transgender prince and a bigender dama/assassin in the lead roles.

Keep your enemy closer.

Cade McKenna is a transgender prince who's doubling for his brother.
Valencia Palafox is a young dama attending the future queen of Eliana.
Gael Palma is the infamous boy assassin Cade has vowed to protect.
Patrick McKenna is the reluctant heir to a kingdom, and the prince Gael has vowed to destroy.

Cade doesn't know that Gael and Valencia are the same person.
Valencia doesn't know that every time she thinks she's fighting Patrick, she's fighting Cade.
And when Cade and Valencia blame each other for a devastating enchantment that takes both their families, neither of them realizes that they have far more dangerous enemies.

Cowritten by married writing team Anna-Marie and Elliott McLemore, Venom & Vow is a lush and powerful YA novel about owning your power and becoming who you really are - no matter the cost.

Author: Anna-Marie McLemore, Elliott McLemore
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Published: 05/16/2023
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 8.48h x 5.76w x 1.22d
ISBN: 9781250822239
Age Range: 13-18

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/13/2023
Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2023
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 05/01/2023
Booklist 04/15/2023 pg. 55

About the Author

Anna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by their family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the author of The Weight of Feathers, a finalist for the 2016 William C. Morris Debut Award; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature and was the winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award; Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, The Mirror Season, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Lakelore.

Elliott McLemore is a nonbinary trans guy who comes from mountains and loves trees. As a child, he romped in dresses, fought with plastic swords, and dreamed up his first stories. Between then and now, he has focused on academic and professional writing, research, and advocacy, including work toward adding nonbinary gender markers to California identity documents. Venom & Vow is his debut novel.