Prince George of the kingdom of Kendel has always known he was different from others. As a small boy, he followed his mother to the stables and the forest and learned how to speak with the animals there. As he grows older, he comes to learn that he must never share this secret with anyone, as animal magic is banned in the kingdom and punishable by death. But when he becomes betrothed to the neighboring kingdom's Princess Beatrice, who has a strange and inseparable relationship with a mysterious wild hound, both of their secrets threaten to come out into the open.
I'm really not sure how I felt about this one. I think it could have been much more tightly plotted, and sometimes I couldn't figure out exactly what the author was trying to do or where she wanted the story to go. Everything was told in a kind of distant, fairy-tale style, which sometimes works for me but here didn't, because it made it hard to get attached to either George or the princess. All of this is making it sound like I really hate the book, but I don't, just feel kind of meh about it.