Snagged: A Lady Lovely Locks Novel

Gr 7 Up–When Leigh Carroll, now 16, was only a couple months old, her mother disappeared. The only thing she left behind, besides two grainy photographs, was a storybook that Leigh read repeatedly, featuring a princess named Lady Lovely Locks and her Pixietails, magical rodents who live in her hair. Leigh and her best friend Ari are into cosplay, and after a successful performance at the ­local KillyCon convention, Leigh stumbles on a vendor selling a vintage Lady Lovely Locks wig that is the perfect finishing touch for one of her costumes. But when Leigh gets home and tries on the costume with the new wig, she is inexplicably transported to the Kingdom of Lovely Locks and has become Lady Lovely Locks, albeit with a few slightly modern-day warrior-princess enhancements. She encounters the villain in her mother’s storybook, who invites Leigh to her castle, where she sees a portrait of a woman who turns out to be the evil sorceress Lady Knot—but who also looks exactly like her mother. This is an officially licensed story based on the 1980s animated series Lady Lovely Locks. The story by Harris (The Drowned City) interlaces elements of cosplay, fandom, and fairy tales with heavier realistic themes, such as friendship, loss, and family. The ending will leave readers on the edge of their seats for the next installment. Ari is Black; Leigh is of self-­described “dubious parentage” and is presumably mixed-race.