Crossroads of Canopy

Starred review from October 17, 2016
An ambitious young woman fiercely chases her destiny through an enormous, lush forest in Dyer’s superb, epic, and hypnotic debut, which launches the Titan’s Forest trilogy. In the great Forest, where the trees are “seven hundred people-lengths tall” and a single tree can house an entire city, 13 gods inhabit the upper Canopy, where the brown-skinned elite live luxurious lives in the sun and are protected by a magical barrier that keeps out the poor pale citizens of the lower darker Understory and Floor. In Canopy, Unar pledges herself to Audblayin, the goddess of birth and life. Unar feels in her heart that when the goddess dies, she will be reincarnated as male and therefore will require a female bodyguard, a position Unar is eager to fill. But after rescuing a slave who’s been sentenced to death, Unar must flee to Understory, where she witnesses the consequences of slavery, meets an angry little girl named Frog, learns humility from three supportive brothers, and is ensnared by a dangerous revolutionary, who enlists Unar’s powerful magic in her war to destroy the barrier and unite everyone into the so-called One Forest. Readers will be delighted by Dyer’s polished prose and an exquisite new world of intricate mythology, rituals, and politics. Agent: Evan Gregory, Ethan Ellenberg Literary.