The Unicorn Glade

Queen Ysolde the Old has decided that a realm nobody has mapped cannot be governed, and her Royal Cartographer is sent north-east by the Salt Road to the Silverwood, the birch and beech forest where the unicorns of Aldermere live. The woodwarden, Hollis Greenmantle, tethers the herd at dusk, one unicorn to every tree and never two together, and cuts his counts on tally-sticks. He will not let you watch. From the trees and the tallies, you must work out where every unicorn stood.

What is inside

• 100 tree-and-tether logic puzzles in ten chapters, from gentle 6 x 6 glades to fiendish 14 x 14 charts
• Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be solved by logic alone, without guessing
• Clear rules, a step-by-step worked example and the warden's six tricks
• A story told in a cartographer's journal through one turning of the year, with a royal warrant, a letter from the Queen, a bestiary page, a song of the wood, and a twist kept until after the last chart
• Rich black-and-white illustrations: a frontispiece, a map of the Silverwood, a picture for every chapter, and Quill the owl hiding in seven of them
• Full solutions at the back

How the puzzles work. The glade is a grid and some squares hold trees. Place unicorns so that every tree has exactly one unicorn tethered beside it, unicorns never stand next to each other (not even diagonally), and the numbers along the edges give the count of unicorns in each row and column. Simple to learn, deep to master.

Who it is for. Adults who love fantasy and logic in equal measure: readers of fairy tales and old bestiaries, and solvers who want something new. Large 8.5 x 11 inch pages with room to write. Book 5 of the Owlbrook Legends series; each book stands alone.