The sorceress Lady Lamorna has her heart set on a very expensive new robe, and she will stop at nothing--including kidnapping and black magic--to get the money to pay for it. - (Baker & Taylor)

With no money to purchase the skull-studded gown of her dreams, Lady Lamoma comes up with a more devious plan to get what she wants, but things don't go as easily as she had planned when she encounters the heroic Gracie Gillypot and a gallant prince willing to fight. - (Baker & Taylor)

Fire up your cauldron for an exuberant, fast-moving, wildly entertaining tale with a cast of characters who are good, bad, and very, very ugly.

High above the mountain village of Fracture, trouble is brewing. The sorceress Lady Lamorna wants a skull-studded gown of deep black velvet, but her treasure chest is empty of gold. That doesn’t stop her, however — from kidnapping, blackmailing, and using more than a little magic to get what she needs. Will her plans be foiled by the heroic Gracie Gillypot, two chatty bats, a gallant (if scruffy) prince, the wickedest stepsister ever, a troll with a grudge, and some very ancient crones? Humorously macabre and wickedly illustrated in black and white, THE ROBE OF SKULLS is truly a scream. - (Random House, Inc.)

Vivian French’s writing career began in 1990 after many years of acting and storytelling. She writes across genres and age groups and has published dozens of acclaimed books for children, including A PRESENT FOR MOM; GROWING FROGS; I LOVE YOU, GRANDPA; T. REX; and THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS. She lives in Scotland. - (Random House, Inc.)

Booklist Reviews

Prolific British author French (Once Upon a Time, 1996) serves up a charmingly witty adventure peopled with all manner of fairy-tale archetypes: a bad prince who is really not the least bit evil, a beautiful but nasty stepsister, a beleaguered but brave little girl named Gracie, and a talking bat. Lady Lamorna, an aging, evil sorceress, sets off to buy herself a grotesque gown, while at the same time Marlon the bat rescues Gracie from her cellar prison and leads her into the wilderness and the eventual safety of a group of old crones. Meanwhile, Prince Marcus has been left at home for bad behavior and is thus happily passed over by Lady Lamorna's wicked and calculating spell that turns his twin and the other princes and princesses into frogs. French is a deft storyteller who keeps all the plotlines crisscrossing as beautifully as the web the crones must keep straight and true. Devotees of fractured fairy tales will be as pleased as Gracie with the results. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

An evil (and broke) sorceress wants a gown "beyond all compare." She devises a scheme to turn princes into frogs, then ransom them to their parents. French sends a host of characters tromping about, all vying for treasure. Here's a romp filled with language play and just plain nonsense; an adventure where everyone gets his, her, or its due. Copyright 2008 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

Ah, vanity. Thy name is Lady Lamorna, an evil sorceress who wants a gown "beyond all compare": floor-length black velvet, with little skulls across the hem, embroidered with spiders, and "layers and layers of blood-red petticoats." Only the Ancient Crones can produce such a garment, and her Evilness dispatches Marlon, a wisecracking bat, to place her order. Unfortunately, the Crones charge dearly for their work, and Lady Lamorna has neither gold nor silver. So she devises a clever scheme: find all the princes in the land, turn them into frogs, and then ransom the amphibians to their parents, exchanging gold for human shapes. As Marlon says, "Keep your peepers open. Action's just about to start." And start it does as French puts a host of characters -- including twin princes (one a frog, one not); Grubble, a castle ogre; Gracie Gillypot, a Goodheart; and Foyce Undershaft, Gracie's stepsister and daughter of a werewolf -- tromping about the mythical Kingdom of Gorebreath, all vying for treasure. Here's a romp filled with language play and just plain nonsense; an adventure where everyone gets his, her, or its due, where goodness is rewarded and evil punished oh-so-wickedly. Copyright 2008 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

Conceiving a burning desire for a new gown—black velvet, decorated with poison ivy, spider webs and skulls—wicked Lady Lamorna decides to pay for it by turning all the local princes into frogs and extracting ransoms from their royal parents. She gets help on the way from the considerably more clever Foyce Undershaft, a young lady of stunning beauty and "a heart as hard as a frying pan," who is also the evil stepsister of kindly Gracie Gillypot. Enter Marlon, a bat who addresses young folk as "kiddo" and is forever flitting off with a "Ciao!" to deliver messages or orchestrate some dodgy deal. Thanks to his efforts Gracie hooks up with Marcus, a scruffy prince missed in the general amphibious transformation, to rescue the other princes and to trick Foyce into entering a magical sort of rehabilitation program. Lady Lamorna even gets her gown, in the end. Larded with stock comical characters and illustrated with Collins's gangly, Beardsley-esque line drawings, the story will slip down like the bonbon it is. (Fantasy. 10-12) Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Take a bedraggled, evil sorceress with a dire need for gold and a dimwitted troll for a sidekick, an impish prince with a goody-two-shoes twin brother, a noble-hearted yet nave young maiden and her conniving stepsister with a chip on her perfectly slim shoulder, throw them into a screwball fairytale, and the result approximates French's (the Tiara Club series) latest. Intersecting plotlines map each of the four major characters' individual journeys over the brambly hill and through the enchanted woods until their fortunes collide for better or for worse at—what else?—a ball. What follows is as wacky as it is entertaining: as princes galore are zapped into frogs, quirky elements like mazes that change direction and talking bats move the story along. As any fairytale fan knows, there's always a happy ending to look forward to, and this one doesn't disappoint. The elaborate b&w sketches, on the safe side of macabre, add to the fun. Ages 7–9. (July)