Fourteen years have passed since the
necromancer Sabriel bound the Greater Dead Adept
Kerrigor beyond the Ninth Gate and helped restore King Touchstone to the
Old Kingdom throne. Now she rules at his side as
Abhorsen, the sole
necromancer of the
Old Kingdom, keeping the people safe from the dark power of Free
Magic. But this is not just
Sabriel's tale. It is also the story of Hedge, a mysterious
necromancer who is digging up a monstrous
evil that could utterly destroy the
Old Kingdom. And of Prince Sameth, Touchstone and Sabriel's only son, who would rather fight an entire army of
Dead than disappoint his beloved parents. And Sam's
friend Nick, who has unknowingly loosed Free Magic into the Old Kingdom, blissfully
ignorant of its complete malevolence. But mostly, this is the tale of
Lirael, the only daughter of the future seeing
Clayr who does not possess the Sight, who has never felt like a daughter of the Clayr. She is abandoned by her mother and unknowing of her father’s identity, and resembles no one in the large, extended family in the Clayr’s Glacier. Just after her 14th birthday, Lirael releases a
Stilken (half-woman, half-crustacean) from a glass-covered coffin. Her act leads to a meeting with a healer (Lirael's great-great-grandmother) who fortifies her and urges her to take as her only friend the impertinent "Disreputable Dog," a creature of suspicious magical origin whose true nature remains unknown, (although we learn more in the next book, Abhorsen). Together they most journey and attempt to destroy the evil, which threatens all of mankind.
This is another excellent book from Garth Nix, and is the second in his trilogy, the Old Kingdom and is an great mixture of dark necromancy and light humour. Highly recommended!