he girl spins at her wheel because she loves it, and she expresses her artistic nature as well as earns a livelihood for her and her father. The man also lives by what he spins, but he is driven to it by a destructive force. For when he spins on a certain wheel, pumping with his crippled leg, something so darkly magical happens that he can spin gold from straw. He holds this secret in his heart, a heart as twisted with bitterness as his deformed body.

In the way she limned the age-old tales in Zel and The Magic Circle, and re-created their characters in a startlingly new way, Donna Jo Napoli, with Richard Tchen, spins her own story of the heights -- and depths -- to which love can take us. Wholly original in its imagining, this novel is amazing, tantalizing and horrifying all at the same time.