Alphabet of thorn (2004)

Nepenthe, a translator raised among palace books, becomes absorbed in a text written in a thorn-like language that seems to call specifically to her. Reading has the danger and intimacy of handling an object whose purpose is still concealed. Its old history starts to bear on a young queen's precarious present. McKillip's lyrical fable suits readers interested in scripts, surfaces and the possibility that interpretation can change the interpreter.