“Agnes’s voice is precise, distinctive, and very beautiful, and her penchant for dreaminess underlines her difference from the other villagers—a quality that makes her vulnerable to Senna’s enticing lies. Senna is a sharp, survivalist foil for dreamy, good-hearted Agnes, and her history as a victim of brutal imperial conquest garners readerly sympathy even as she attempts to assume Agnes’ identity. . . . Agnes’ secure love for her family and her belief in the life-shaping power of stories bind this bittersweet book together. As Agnes says, ‘There should be more stories where girls help one another.’”

– BCCB

“There are multiple plot twists, alternating narrative voices (Senna, the girl Agnes replaces in the underground fairy world, has her own tale to tell), and frequent surprises due to the shifting illusions devised by the fairy folk. Through it all, Coats’s story maintains its strong central theme: Agnes’s determination to become the hero of a story—one that turns out to feature two girls helping each other.”

– The Horn Book

“Fraught with excitement and peril. Coats skillfully weaves in facts about the Fair Folk, Agnes’s parents, and the coming of the Romans to Britain in this tale that hearkens back to a medieval story first recorded by monks."

– School Library Journal