Sabriel's father is the Mage Abhorsen, a necromancer. But his charge is not to raise the dead, rather to lay them back to rest, to keep them from harming the living. When word comes from within the walls of the Old Kingdom where her father resides that he is missing, Sabriel realizes that she must be the one to find him. If he is not already dead, than he is trapped somewhere between the living and the dead, and the knowledge of Free Magic and the art of necromancy which he has passed on to her is the only thing which can help him. The young woman journeys into the Old Kingdom, traveling deeper and deeper the place where the darkness of death resides to meet a destiny she is not certain she is ready to embrace. Garth Nix has created an imaginative, intricately detailed world and finely drawn characters in a fantasy in which the forces of life and death are engaged in constant battle. (Ages 12-15)