The highly-anticipated fantasy debut from Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning author Thoraiya Dyer, set in a giant mythical rainforest controlled by living gods Unar dreams of greatness. Determined but destitute, she escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery. Now she serves in the Garden of the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility. But when Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory – at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a reincarnated newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance…or grant it by destroying the home she loves. “I am majorly impressed with Thoraiya Dyer's Crossroads of Canopy. A unique, gorgeous, and dangerous world, a stubborn female hero, and a writer to watch!”—Tamora Pierce
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"Thoraiya Dyer has woven a world of gods and magic, a merciless forest where the slightest misstep can send the unwary, the unworthy, or the simply unfortunate plunging to an unremarked doom. Guiding us through the heights of this remarkable place is a young woman, Unar. Scrappy, complex and surprisingly compassionate, she must fight to establish a place for herself among the trees. If Crossroads of Canopy explores the cost of caring, it also examines the even higher price of indifference. It is a riveting novel."
— A.M. Dellamonica, author of A Daughter of No Nation
“Readers will be delighted by Dyer’s polished prose and an exquisite new world of intricate mythology, rituals, and politics.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Recommended for readers who appreciate nuanced world building, as both Canopy and Understorey are strange, fleshed-out lands thrown into turmoil.”
— Booklist“I am majorly impressed with Thoraiya Dyer's Crossroads of Canopy. A unique, gorgeous, and dangerous world, a stubborn female hero, and a writer to watch!
— Tamora PierceCrossroads of Canopy has everything you expect from a great epic—quests, fearless warriors, gods born again—but all is transmuted, through the rich and vivid original setting, into something entirely new.
— Brian Staveley, author of The Last Mortal BondDyer presents a rich, brutal, fascinating world and an unforgettable heroine.
— Ilana C. Myer, author of Last Song Before NightA remarkable debut. What a delight to read a fantasy so different from the mainstream and so beautifully realised.
— Juliet Marillier, winner of the Aurealis Award and the Alex AwardImaginative, original, inclusive – and fast-paced and exciting. Go get it and read it. Maybe twice.
— Pamela Freeman, author of The Castings TrilogyDyer's writing seamlessly melds a lush and layered canopy setting and a complex magical culture to form a unique fantasy world, filled with memorable characters in constant jeopardy. Unar, a girl on the brink of womanhood, is at the heart of the tale. Feisty, opinionated, certain of her own destiny, she's a tough flawed heroine, one readers will not easily forget.
— Glenda Larke, author of The Stormlord Trilogy and The Forsaken Lands TrilogyDyer is a writer of immense talent. Her powerful, distinctive voice makes Crossroads of Canopy a fully immersive read, so well-written and believable it will have you checking to see if the realms of Canopy, Understorey and Floor really exist.
— Kaaron Warren, author of Walking the TreeA wonderful, magical, poetic, tragic novel...a major achievement.
— Jenny Blackford, World Fantasy Award judge, author of The Priestess and the SlaveThe book is quite marvelous. Tons of cultural richness. Complex and casually cruel...Thoraiya Dyer is the writer I most want to infect people with.
— Anna Tambour, World Fantasy Award-shortlisted author of CrandolinThe combination of strange and familiar gives Dyer's fiction the power wielded by the best SF. The stories unerringly find the human inside the bizarre. These are unsettling, poignant, marvellous. Read them. You will be glad you did.
— Nancy Kress on AsymmetryBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Thoraiya Dyer is a four-time Aurealis Award-winning, three-time Ditmar Award-winning Australian writer based in Sydney. Her stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, Analog, Redstone SF, Nature, and Cosmos magazines, and anthologies, including War Stories, Long Hidden, and Cranky Ladies of History. Echoes of Understorey is the second book in the Titan’s Forest Trilogy, the sequel to Crossroads of Canopy.
Christine Marshall is an actress, director, and designer living in Portland, Maine. She teaches for the Maine State Ballet and produces plays with her theater company, Mad Horse. In addition to audiobooks, she records the online version of the New Yorker.