The Bone Dragon - Softcover

'In a beautifully crafted narrative that constantly confounds expectation - her friends are kind, her foster parents are saintly - the final act is anything but comforting. Sometimes anger and vengeance aren't just understandable but essential tools for survivial' -- Suzi Feay Financial Times 20130520 Casale has shown that she is a talented writer who can pack such an emotional punch in her prose.The Bone Dragonleft me wanting more, I couldn't believe when it ended, I wanted the novel to continue so I could learn so much more about Evie. It's an emotional ride that's mixed with mystic and magic.' Read Write and Read Some More Blog 20130520 This book is the debut of an exciting and mature young writer who shows real skill in writing about the little details of life, bringing a realness to her characters and making the situations she writes about so very believable ... Intriguing, compulsive and wholly absorbing, Evie's tale is beautifully told and is ultimately warm and uplifting. Written by a young writer who has struggled with dyslexia it is also extremely inspiring, and a rewarding read for both young and older adults. We Love This Book 20130520 The dragon, representing her own inner strength, takes her on after-dark expeditions to do battle against her foes. The metaphor is not over laboured and the dragon breathes fire into the fantasy adventure episodes, which have a flavour of Alan Garner. -- Kate Kellaway The Observer 20130728

Evie's shattered ribs have been a secret for the last four years. Now she has found the strength to tell her adoptive parents, and the physical traces of her past are fixed - the only remaining signs a scar on her side and a fragment of bone taken home from the hospital, which her uncle Ben helps her to carve into a dragon as a sign of her strength. Soon this ivory talisman begins to come to life at night, offering wisdom and encouragement in roaming dreams of smoke and moonlight that come to feel ever more real. As Evie grows stronger there remains one problem her new parents can't fix for her: a revenge that must be taken. And it seems that the Dragon is the one to take it. This subtly unsettling novel is told from the viewpoint of a fourteen-year-old girl damaged by a past she can't talk about, in a hypnotic narrative that, while giving increasing insight, also becomes increasingly unreliable. A blend of psychological thriller and fairytale, "The Bone Dragon" explores the fragile boundaries between real life and fantasy, and the darkest corners of the human mind.